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Recent Posts
- M.D.Fla.: Unidentified pills in driver’s lap may have been RS but it wasn’t PC for arrest
- D.C.Cir.: It was reasonable for officers to conclude that evidence or instrumentalities of the crime would be found in the car used in a robbery
- 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
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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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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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
CA5: Search of wrong house by inadequate investigation means no QI
It was clearly established that search of the wrong house because of inadequate investigation violated the Fourth Amendment. Gerhart v. Barnes, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 10626 (5th Cir. Apr. 26, 2018), prior opinion Gerhart v. McLendon, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: SW can issue after def charged with crime and for the same crime
The fact defendant has already been charged with a crime does not prevent a search warrant issuing for DNA to link him further to it. Humbert v. United States, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68779 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 24, 2018). Sale … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Neither 4A or Rule 41 requires SW be served on def before its execution
“Neither the Fourth Amendment nor Rule 41 requires the executing officer to serve a search warrant on the owner before beginning the search. United States v. Grubbs, 547 U.S. 90, 98-99 (2006). Counsel was not ineffective for failing to file … Continue reading
Lawfare: Prosecuting Attorneys Alongside Clients: Some Recent Examples
Lawfare: Prosecuting Attorneys Alongside Clients: Some Recent Examples By Harry Larson & Sabrina McCubbin
CA7: No 4A right to see SW before search; therefore, accidentally showing wrong warrant doesn’t violate 4A either
The Fourth Amendment does not require the search warrant be presented to the person whose premises were to be searched before it occurred. Thus, accidently presenting the wrong search warrant at the time of the search doesn’t constitutionally matter. Also, … Continue reading
CA10: GFE applied to cell phone SW in KS where phone was actually searched in MO
Search incident did not justify seizure of defendant’s cell phone when he was arrested because he’d been separated from the cell phone. The government’s claim that officers seizing the cell phone were proceeding under “direction of” defendant’s PO is rejected … Continue reading
AK: SW clause to “search any persons” here didn’t enable search of every person who came to the premises during the search
Defendant came to a Fairbanks house when a search warrant was being executed, and he was searched, too, under the auspices of the “search any persons” present reference in the warrant. Defendant’s search was unreasonable under the circumstances. Innocent persons … Continue reading
CA6: No knock entry at 4 am stated claim for unreasonable execution of SW
Plaintiffs adequately allege a claim for unreasonable execution of a search warrant. The officers executed a search warrant at 4 am without knocking or announcing, and shot the lock off the door. Greer v. City of Highland Park, 2018 U.S. … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio declines to wait for Microsoft to be decided and issues SW for gmail in another country
The government has applied for a Google search warrant stored overseas. Rather than wait for United States v. Microsoft to be decided, the court reviewed all the briefing in that case and decides that the search warrant will issue. In … Continue reading
OH8: Affidavit for SW showed PC for weapons only; search for drugs exceeded SW’s limits
The affidavit only showed probable cause to search for weapons, not drugs, and there was no probable cause for drugs in the affidavit. As to drugs, the search warrant is suppressed. Defendant also raised the argument that the officer sought … Continue reading
CA5: “The mistaken execution of a valid search warrant on the wrong premises does not automatically violate the Fourth Amendment”; officer gets qualified immunity
“The mistaken execution of a valid search warrant on the wrong premises does not automatically violate the Fourth Amendment.” The officers get qualified immunity for getting out when they discovered it. Thomas v. Williams, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 2478 (5th … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: A claim that government agents disclosed the contents of the search of his house to FoxNews didn’t state a claim under The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a
A claim that government agents disclosed the contents of the search of his house to FoxNews didn’t state a claim under The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a. “Rule 41 does not authorize a court to manage the collection, storage, … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: Delay of search to protect def’s property rights isn’t a constitutional violation
The officers were solicitous of defendant’s property rights and, because his car battery was dead, they waited to get it open rather than pry open the trunk, which they could have done. Their respecting his property rights isn’t hardly a … Continue reading
IA: Mere visitor’s purse couldn’t be searched on execution of SW without an independent connection to premises
When a mere visitor is encountered during execution of a search warrant on the premises, her purse cannot be searched without independent cause linking her to the premises other than mere presence. State v. Brown, 2018 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1 … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Def’s actions and words during execution of warrant admissible to show consciousness of guilt
Defendant’s actions (his “encounter”), whatever it is isn’t described, with law enforcement officers when they executed the search warrant on his property are admissible to show consciousness of guilt. United States v. Hitt, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1856 (E.D. Cal. … Continue reading
D.Md.: A SW for cell phone data going to Verizon in FL was within the court’s jurisdiction
Where the crime under investigation is in this district, it doesn’t matter that the search warrant for geolocation data from defendant’s cell phone is located in another district. The government can still get it by search warrant under Rule 41(b) … Continue reading
IL: After losing suppression motion, state asserted lack of standing in a motion to reconsider, and it’s too late
The state has the burden of alleging defendant didn’t have standing, and here it didn’t do so until a motion to reconsider claiming it was the trial court’s error of law. To succeed on a motion to reconsider, the state … Continue reading
D.Ore.: Court denies stay of execution of computer SW because of lack of proof of irreparable harm
A USMJ issued a search warrant for defendant’s computer and hard drive that had not yet been searched. The USDJ declines to issue a stay to stop the ongoing search because the defense cannot show a likelihood of irreparable harm … Continue reading