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- The Intercept: FBI Raid on WaPo Reporter’s Home Was Based on Sham Pretext
- N.D.Ga.: Slight delay in searching a cell phone of a person in custody who couldn’t possess it was reasonable
- D.Kan.: Search incident of a car after DUI arrest was reasonable under Gant
- Cal.2d: NDO in SW to Microsoft doesn’t violate state statute or 1A
- MA: Missing juvenile in BOLO was subject to community caretaking function
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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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General (many free):
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
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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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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: GPS / Tracking Data
TX3: Motion to suppress never ruled on is waived for appeal
Defendant filed a motion to suppress but didn’t get a hearing or ruling on it. Then, at trial, made a motion in limine but that didn’t preserve the lack of probable cause issue from the motion to suppress. It’s all … Continue reading
MA: Overly long GPS monitoring as a condition of probation can be 4A unreasonable
“Whether GPS monitoring as a condition of probation is a reasonable search turns in part on its duration, and the Commonwealth bears the burden of demonstrating that GPS monitoring is reasonable for the entire ordered duration. Notwithstanding the requirement in … Continue reading
Law.com: Courts seek route in GPS cases
Law.com: Courts seek route in GPS cases (“Two influential courts are set to decide for the first time whether law enforcement authorities who attach a global positioning system (GPS) device to a suspect’s car without a warrant violate constitutional protections … Continue reading
CA1: Lobstering is a closely-regulated industry
Lobstering is a closely regulated industry, and GPS tracking of lobster boats by the State of Maine is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Thompson v. Wilson, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 30135 (1st Cir. Nov. 18, 2025) (appellant first conceded that … Continue reading
LA: Communal parking area at a “trailer park” was not curtilage
Defendant’s car in a “trailer park” communal parking area near his place was not on his “curtilage.” The court of appeals erred in finding it was curtilage. State v. Charles, 2025 La. LEXIS 1624 (Nov. 19, 2025). “Here, the renewed … Continue reading
404 Media: ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day
404 Media: ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day by Joseph Cox (“Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has bought access to a surveillance tool that is updated every day with billions of … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Probationer’s GPS alert was RS
Defendant’s GPS tether alert was reasonable suspicion for a probation search. United States v. Moore, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 170428 (D. Mont. Sep. 2, 2025). The allegation that drug traffickers regularly use cell phones to communicate about the dealings is … Continue reading
TX14: No REP in electronic monitoring while on pretrial release
Defendant on electronic monitoring as a bond condition has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the GPS information. Hawkins v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 5601 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) July 31, 2025):
CA1 oral argument on lobstering as heavily regulated
CNS: First Circuit unbothered by Maine’s lobster boat snooping by Thomas F. Harrison (“Because lobstering is heavily regulated, the judges seemed to think it’s OK to track the boats’ every move even when they’re used for other purposes.”)
W.D.La.: No REP in state pretrial release GPS connecting def to federal crimes
Defendant was on pretrial release on an unrelated state case. As a condition of release, he agreed to a GPS monitor by a private provider who reported to the court. The government used his location information to connect him to … Continue reading
NJ: Entering curtilage to plant GPS device on car exceeded tracking warrant and was suppressed
Police had an otherwise valid warrant to install a tracking device on defendant’s vehicle but in a public place. Instead, they entered the curtilage to install it there. This warrant execution violated the Fourth Amendment and state constitution. The tracking … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: No REP in ALPR tracking; not as intrusive as GPS
Tracking defendant’s vehicle with automatic license plate readers can’t be equated with GPS placement, so Jones distinguished. There’s no reasonable expectation of privacy in an LPN. There is also interesting Franks and staleness issues. Defendant got a Franks hearing but … Continue reading
GA: GPS data in a child porn image on def’s phone was PC to search his house
GPS data in a child porn image on defendant’s phone was probable cause to search his house. Bibbs v. State, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 186 (May 13, 2025). Briefly crossing the centerline is not an offense unless it appears unsafe. … Continue reading
MI: Lifetime electronic monitoring of this sex offender on parole not 4A violation
Lifetime electronic monitoring of this sex offender when on parole doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. People v. Van Mai, 2025 Mich. App. LEXIS 3912 (May 20, 2025). DUI checkpoint: “The only issue Defendant raises is whether the check point was … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Not IAC to logically choose 4A arguments
Trial counsel wasn’t ineffective for not arguing his desired defendant’s personal Franks issue when lack of probable cause was a better issue. He also wasn’t ineffective for not arguing that GPS tracking across state lines was unreasonable. Appellate counsel wasn’t … Continue reading
CA9: No REP in data in planted GPS device
Downloading data from a planted GPS device violated no reasonable expectation of privacy. McNeely v. Loeschner, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 9537 (9th Cir. Apr. 22, 2025). The facts of the planted device are below: McNeely v. City of Sparks, 2024 … Continue reading
Bloomberg Law: Bootleggers, Cops, and Cars: How Driving Became a Privacy Trap
Bloomberg Law: Bootleggers, Cops, and Cars: How Driving Became a Privacy Trap by Cassandre Coyer, Tonya Riley & Jorja Siemons about automatic license plate readers in Norfolk VA. A subheading: “Data a Modern Car Can Collect”:
MD: A search warrant for a car’s GPS system
A search warrant for a car’s GPS system: “Officers also executed a ‘Berla warrant’2 to extract navigation data from the car’s GPS system. The navigation data showed that, on the morning of the shooting, the Maserati left Oak Haven Circle … Continue reading
MO: GPS monitoring of a sex offender after release was reasonable
F.S.’s expectation of privacy is diminished as a convicted felon and registered sex offender, and the GPS monitoring’s intrusion on her privacy is slight. The state has a legitimate interest in protecting children and other potential victims from sex crimes. … Continue reading