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- VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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F.R.Crim.P. 41
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
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"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) -
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted
intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by
government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose
it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969) -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.”
– John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper -
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948) -
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Category Archives: F.R.Crim.P. 41
CA4: After seizure of cell phone, actual search under SW doesn’t have to happen by the date on the SW to be reasonable
The seizure then search of defendant’s cell phone under a search warrant was reasonable because the search followed the terms of the warrant. Actually analysis of the data doesn’t have to happen within the time on the face of the … Continue reading
CA8 upholds Playpen warrant strictly on GFE despite Rule 41 violation
Playpen warrant upheld purely on good faith exception of Davis and Herring. Rule 41 was violated, but the court finds the costs of exclusion outweight deterrence, particularly where the rule was modified to permit such later warrants. United States v. … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Google has to produce emails stored overseas
Google responds to subpoenas and search warrants for email accounts from its California headquarters. The fact that the actual data may be stored in a server in another country doesn’t matter–Google still has to produce. In re Search Warrant to … Continue reading
TN: No appeal of right for return of property under state 41(g) without successful motion to suppress
Where defendant pled guilty and did not raise a suppression issue, he could not, three years later, move for return of property under state rule 41(g) as a matter of right. The court of appeals held that the 41(g) motion … Continue reading
D.Minn. USMJ finds Playpen warrant constitutionally defective and no GFE
“Accordingly, the NIT warrant is void ab initio. Without an identifiable warrant exception (the Government offers none and the Court is aware of none) the Court concludes that the NIT warrant’s violation of Rule 41(b) and 28 U.S.C. § 636(a) … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Violation of state law in issuing a cell phone search warrant not ground to suppress in federal court
A cell phone search warrant issued in violation of Georgia law would not be suppressed in federal court. Also, Rule 41 and the Fourth Amendment are not coextensive, so the alleged violation of Rule 41 is not necessarily a violation … Continue reading
LA rule permitting electronic warrant applications and issuance doesn’t violate 4A or Rule 41
The police got a search warrant from a Louisiana state judge by electronic means, but the case ended up in federal court. Louisiana’s criminal rule permitting electronic warrant applications does not violate the “oath or affirmation” requirement of the Fourth … Continue reading
D.V.I.: Telephonic warrant requirements were complied with and GFE didn’t apply
The telephonic search warrant here failed the requirements of Rule 41, including the verbatim reading of the warrant to the issuing judge, and didn’t mention that they also wanted to search a car that was omitted from the warrant. The … Continue reading
big think: Edward Snowden: The Rule 41 Amendment Returns Us to the 1760s
big think: Edward Snowden: The Rule 41 Amendment Returns Us to the 1760s by Natalie Showmaker:
Rule 41 change effective: NPR: Judges Have More Power In Granting Warrants To Hack Digital Devices / Some questions for Jeff Sessions
NPR: Judges Have More Power In Granting Warrants To Hack Digital Devices by David Welna Under new rules, the Justice Department can ask a federal court for permission to search mobile devices outside the court’s district. Congress had a full … Continue reading
IP Watchdog: Review the Rule Act would delay SCOTUS proposed changes to Rule 41 on warrants for electronic searches [except it goes into effect at midnight]
IP Watchdog: Review the Rule Act would delay SCOTUS proposed changes to Rule 41 on warrants for electronic searches by Steve Brachmann Query: Can Congress block a rule after sitting on their hands from SCOTUS notice to them in April … Continue reading
Naked Security: Campaigners bid to delay Rule 41 ‘legal hacking’ bill
Naked Security: Campaigners bid to delay Rule 41 ‘legal hacking’ bill by Lisa Vaas:
EFF: Why the Warrant to Hack in the Playpen Case Was an Unconstitutional General Warrant
EFF: Why the Warrant to Hack in the Playpen Case Was an Unconstitutional General Warrant by Andrew Crocker: Should the government be able to get a warrant to search a potentially unlimited number of computers belonging to unknown people located … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: PC was shown, partly based on LEO’s expert opinion
There was probable cause for the search warrant in this case, partly based on a law enforcement officer’s expert opinion about drug trafficking. United States v. Lights, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130915 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 23, 2016). Another two Playpen cases; … Continue reading
S.D.Iowa finds Playpen NIT warrant violation of Rule 41 and Fourth Amendment
S.D.Iowa joins minority and finds Playpen NIT warrant violation of Rule 41 also a Fourth Amendment violation. United States v. Croghan, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127479 (S.D.Iowa Sept. 19, 2016):
Alt-Right blames Obama for SCOTUS amendment to Rule 41
I never bother to read World Net Daily because it is essentially wrong on everything. Last night’s emails includes this headline: WND: DEC. 1: WHEN 4TH AMENDMENT WILL BE DESTROYED by Craige McMillan Exclusive: Craige McMillan warns of reg that’ll … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: In a Playpen case, planting software on a computer to cause it to transmit its address is “unquestionably a search”
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in IP addresses, but planting software on a computer to cause it to transmit its address is “unquestionably a search.” Recognizing the split of authority, Rule 41 was violated, but the court declines … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Rule 41(b)(4) tracking order can’t be issued by state judge
A Rule 41(b)(4) tracking order was issued by a state court judge when a USMJ was unavailable. The court finds state judges can issue search warrant but not tracking orders, and the Advisory Committee notes made that clear. United States … Continue reading