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- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
- D.N.M.: Shared driveway outside of fence and gate was not curtilage
- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
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--Outline of 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)
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“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: Warrant execution
E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
This is a second motion to suppress a cell phone search, the first having been denied. A copy of the phone remains with the government, the phone having been returned. The first warrant to review the contents was for human … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: “Shocking” nature of immigration raid on a Mexican restaurant at lunchtime didn’t warrant suppression
Defendants run a family-owned Mexican restaurant in West Virginia. HSI did a masked and armed immigration middle of day raid for employees under an inspection warrant. While the raid may have been “shocking” to everybody, it’s not enough to be … Continue reading
CA11: Wrong-house raid suit barred by FTCA
Supposedly relying on a personal GPS device, the FBI SWAT team raided the wrong house, three houses from the target location and on a different street. The FTCA suit is barred under the discretionary function exception to the Federal Tort … Continue reading
D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
“With the benefit of advocacy and adversarial briefing, it is easy to look back over Special Agent Bell’s affidavit and reflect on the facts that are missing or additional investigative steps that could have been taken but were not. But … Continue reading
CA11: Service of SW without attachments isn’t 4A violation
Defendant’s effort to subpoena five witnesses in support of his Franks challenge was properly denied. Their testimony would be material to the outcome, and they were also speculative. As to the execution of the warrant, the fact he got a … Continue reading
CA6: SW in drug case led to finding CSAM, SW was still particular
Defendant was a suspect in a drug investigation, and they got search warrants for his place and cell phones, not knowing even how many there were or what they looked like. The warrants were with probable cause. The search for … Continue reading
VA: SW that included “evidence of occupancy” could peruse def’s journals; that led to SW for them
In executing a search warrant in a murder case, officers looking for evidence of occupancy authorized by the warrant perused defendant’s journals. Not finding evidence of occupancy, they found other potential leads and applied for a warrant to read the … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Voluntary statement during search that “everything is mine” was admissible
Voluntary statement from the handcuffed defendant during the search of his house when he saw his handcuffed girlfriend crying that “everything is mine” were admissible. United States v. Espinosa, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160387 (E.D. Pa. July 20, 2026). Defendant’s … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: Bivens not extended to knock-and-announce violation and shooting; FTCA applies instead
Bivens won’t be extended to an alleged knock-and-announce violation and a police shooting of the homeowner. SCOTUS should just go ahead and abandon Bivens. It proceeds as an FTCA case. Malinowski v. United States, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148126 (E.D. … Continue reading
TX3: DUI blood draw while in restraint chair not 4A unreasonable
Taking defendant’s blood for DUI at the station house by warrant when he was in a restraint chair didn’t make the search unreasonable. Hildebrandt v. State, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 5866 (Tex. App. – Austin June 25, 2026). A Ring … Continue reading
Cal.1: Entry by robot, drone, tear gas, and flash bang was with PC after def refused to come out on a SW and AW
To arrest the defendant on a warrant and with a search warrant, the SWAT team surrounded his house. They used a robot, drone, tear gas, and a flash bang sent into the apartment. He finally came out and surrendered. Despite … Continue reading
CA2: Failure to read a SW isn’t a 4A violation without overseizure
Failure to read a warrant before execution isn’t a Fourth Amendment violation without an overseizure. The cell phone warrant here had search of the cell phone crossed out, permitting only seizure at first. The executing officers didn’t know it had … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Failure to serve state SW within state mandated time not 4A violation
The state search warrant in this case was not served within three days as required by Ohio law. That did not violate the Fourth Amendment, and he shows no prejudice. United States v. Calhoun, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121202 (N.D. … Continue reading
CO: Anonymous report of student smoking pot in school justified backpack search
An anonymous report to a school official the juvenile was smoking pot in class justified a search of his backpack under T.L.O. Suppression order reversed. People in interest of T.J.W., 2026 CO 38 (June 1, 2026). Defendant’s parole search was … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: SW for WaPo’s reporter’s home and devices violated Privacy Protection Act
The search warrant for a Washington Post reporter’s computers, phone, and files violated the Privacy Protection Act because it was not evidence of a crime or contraband. It also implicates prior restraint on speech. The USMJ’s order that the court … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: SWs don’t have to specify how they’re executed; photos of posed hands not suppressed
The warrant here required “photographing his hands, fingers, and forearms.” The search warrant’s particularity wasn’t violated by manipulating his hands to allegedly mimic what was seen in child pornography photographs off his computer. Search warrants don’t have to specify how … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Where 1 of 10 officers in a search wore a bodycam, that doesn’t mean the others couldn’t be credible
“Harris also questions the ‘credibility’ of the officers executing the search warrant because only 1 out of 10 officers … wore a body camera at any point during the search. But other than generalized complaints about the lack of body … Continue reading
VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
Defendant sold drugs in a store in a controlled buy. The statute on providing a warrant and affidavit to the occupant only applies to places of abode. Blow v. Commonwealth, 2026 Va. LEXIS 29 (Apr. 16, 2026). A narcotics officer … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: No IAC for not challenging search without standing
“In view of Dunnigan’s self-professed lack of any interest in or connection to the premises searched, Dunnigan’s attorney cannot be faulted for failing to challenge a search for which his client lacked standing to challenge.” United States v. Dunnigan, 2026 … Continue reading