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- CA7: Officer’s warrantless view of CSAM flagged by hash value was not unreasonable
- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
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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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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.: Failure to leave a copy of the SW does not require suppression
Failure to leave a copy of the search warrant does not require suppression. There is no prejudice. United States v. Robinson, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99902 (E.D. Mich. June 14, 2019). The CI was creditable because of admissions against interest … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Def counsel not ineffective for not raising flash bang device as justifying suppression of the search that followed
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress that use of a flash bang device was excessive force and justified suppression because it wouldn’t be under Herring. Also, defense counsel’s failure to challenge defendant’s arrest wasn’t ineffective … Continue reading
N.D.Okla.: While an attachment was missing from the official SW it was at the scene of the search, so no prejudice
The government conceded that Attachment C to the mail search warrant was missing from it, and thus that it led to a potentially overbroad search. The search team, however, all had copies of Attachment C, and it was at the … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Protective sweep can occur after an arrest at the threshold
A protective sweep can occur after an arrest at the threshold even though defendant’s girlfriend said nobody else was there. United States v. Villanueva, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89450 (D. S.D. May 29, 2019). The defendant being armed when the … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: Providing the inventory of the SW execution wasn’t designed to elicit an incriminating response
Providing defendant with the inventory of what was taken in the search, a normal practice usually required by law, was not designed to elicit an incriminating response. Therefore, the statement was voluntary and not subject to Miranda. United States v. … Continue reading
CA11: 33 day delay in getting SW for computer seized in CP investigation not 4A unreasonable
The government’s 33 day delay in getting a search warrant for defendant’s seized computer in a child porn case was found, although not ideal, not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Thomas v. United States, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 14645 (11th … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Primary object of SW found right inside front door, but that didn’t preclude larger search
The search warrant was for a package found right inside the front door. That did not preclude the officers from searching further in the house. Also, a protective sweep incident to execution of the search warrant was proper. Searching inside … Continue reading
TX: Dallas Morning News article that target of SW was “under investigation” was substantially true for libel purposes
The News published a story that Rxpress was under investigation for health care fraud because a search warrant was issued for its records. Actually, Halsey was under investigation, and the search warrant sought the company’s communications with him. The article … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Typo in SW address overlooked under GFE
Typographical error in the search warrant (648 South 21st Street rather than 748 South 21st Street) would be overlooked under the good faith exception where the correct property was searched. United States v. Carey, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74140 (M.D. … Continue reading
NY4: Def’s statements during execution of SW where he wasn’t arrested weren’t custodial
“We reject defendant’s contention that County Court erred in refusing to suppress statements that he made to the police during the execution of a search warrant at his residence and thereafter at the police station. Defendant contends that he was … Continue reading
CA9: SW was ambiguous as to the mobile home to be searched; no PC shown as to one searched; suppressed
The search warrant authorized search of a gray mobile home. There were two on the property, and the one searched was white. The search warrant was thus ambiguous when the officers arrived, and the court finds the search unjustified because … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Speedy trial does not start with the execution of a search warrant
Speedy trial does not start with the execution of a search warrant, even though the execution of the warrant was embarrassing to him. United States v. Mitrovich, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68460 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 23, 2019):
PBS: Police are now taking roadside blood samples to catch impaired drivers
PBS: Police are now taking roadside blood samples to catch impaired drivers by Jenni Bergal:
D.Mass.: Failure to leave a full copy of the SW at scene does not require suppression
“Jones alleges that he entered a guilty plea unknowingly because [defense counsel] Cloherty incorrectly informed him that, after testifying at the suppression hearing that he lived part-time at the apartment where the officers executed the search, he could not testify … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Officers found the premises had two apartments and they searched the right one
When officers executed the search warrant they discovered there were multiple residences in the building. In defendant’s part of the building, they saw his mail and were confident that they were searching the right place. “Given these facts, the Court … Continue reading
N.D.Miss.: There’s no right to counsel during execution of a SW where defendant isn’t arrested and being questioned
“Mr. Pillault also argues that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because he had no counsel present when his home was searched. This claim is simply frivolous.” Pillault v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58295 (N.D. Miss. Apr. 4, … Continue reading
CA10: 404(b) evidence is subject to 4A exclusion, but harmless error applies
404(b) evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is subject to suppression. United States v. Hill, 60 F.3d 672, 677 (10th Cir. 1995). Here, however, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Dalton, 2019 U.S. App. … Continue reading
WaPo: Cohen SW: Mueller sought Michael Cohen’s emails months before FBI raid, warrants show
WaPo: Cohen SW: Mueller sought Michael Cohen’s emails months before FBI raid, warrants show by Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky and Rosalind S. Helderman:
S.D.N.Y.: Use of military weaponry (flash bang) in a residential neighborhood is LEO discretion under FTCA
The choice of law enforcement officers to use flash bang devices in a residential neighborhood at 4 a.m. is discretionary with the police and not unreasonable as a matter of law: “weighing of such risks against the necessity of using … Continue reading