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- CA8: Def’s 20 prior arrests helped show voluntariness of consent
- TX1: No standing to challenge seizure of ketamine off co-def, but PC was lacking for his own arrest
- KS: 13 days pole camera surveillance violated no REP
- E.D.Va.: WaPo reporter’s SW was overbroad and 1A protected
- CAAF: GFE applies to cell phone’s geolocation data because of substantial basis for the search authorization
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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)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--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: GPS / Tracking Data
NY Times: Federal Agency Begins Inquiry Into Auto Lenders’ Use of GPS Tracking
NY Times: Federal Agency Begins Inquiry Into Auto Lenders’ Use of GPS Tracking by Michael Corkery and Jessica Silver-Greenberg: They can figure out when you leave town and see where you parked your car. They can see how many times … Continue reading
Talk Business: GPS technology benefits used car industry, privacy concerns remain
Talk Business: GPS technology benefits used car industry, privacy concerns remain; used car sales to rise in 2017 by Jeff Della Rosa
TX6: USDC dismissal w/o prejudice for Heck bar not preclusive of later state court action
Plaintiff originally sued in federal court and was barred by Heck, but dismissal was without prejudice to removal of the Heck bar. That was not preclusive of a state court action as res judicata. He claimed an unlawful seizure and … Continue reading
Portland Press Herald: State seeks more authority in investigations of suspected lobstering violations: secretly installed GPS in boats
Portland Press Herald: State seeks more authority in investigations of suspected lobstering violations by Kevin Miller Legislation is being drafted to make it easier for Maine Marine Patrol officers to secretly install tracking or surveillance devices on boats.
E.D.N.Y.: 791 days of GPS tracking of a parolee to catch others in a DTO was [somehow] not unreasonable
In a really strange case, a GPS monitor to track curfew violations of a parolee was left on for 791 days. The parole officers and then other officers watched where he was going to attempt to crack a drug trafficking … Continue reading
NYLJ.com: Electronic GPS Tracking and the Fourth Amendment
NYLJ.com: Electronic GPS Tracking and the Fourth Amendment by Martin Flumenbaum & Brad S. Karp: In their Second Circuit Review column, Martin Flumenbaum and Brad S. Karp examine two decisions which appear to reflect the court’s growing interest in the … Continue reading
Minnesota Lawyer: Fourth Amendment battle brewing over ignition interlock GPS
Minnesota Lawyer: Fourth Amendment battle brewing over ignition interlock GPS by Mike Mosedale
NC: After Grady, sex offender GPS monitoring requires a reasonableness hearing on def’s request
Post-Grady, the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment required the trial court conduct a hearing if the defendant objects to GPS monitoring. State v. Stroessenreuther, 2016 N.C. App. LEXIS 1240 (Dec. 6, 2016):
E.D.N.C.: No PC for GPS information from any phone that connected to the target phone; and no GFE
“Because the first pen order allowed officers to retrieve GPS location information about any phone which contacted the target phones, and nothing in the affidavit shows the relation between those contacting phones and the underlying criminal activity, the magistrate judge … Continue reading
D.Nev.: GPS warrant based on transaction from car three weeks earlier wasn’t stale
A GPS tracking warrant wasn’t stale based on a drug deal out of the car three weeks earlier. That led to probable cause to stop and search the vehicle two weeks later. United States v. Cabrera, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
Two on good faith: No showing of PC for (1) GPS warrant and (2) nexus to def’s house
Game officers got a GPS warrant for defendant’s truck because they suspected him of hunting violations. After a couple of weeks, the truck’s movements were monitored daily. The issuance of the GPS warrant was without a finding of probable cause … Continue reading
CA2: NYC cab driver didn’t show standing to contest GPS tracking of a taxicab
“Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Forrest, J.), granting summary judgment to Defendants Appellees, the City of New York and various of its employees, on Plaintiff Appellant Hassan El … Continue reading
DE: GPS monitoring of Tier III sex offenders satisfied “special needs” exception
Statute mandating GPS monitoring of all Tier III sex offenders granted parole or probation without reference to their individual risks of recidivism did not violate the Fourth Amendment under Vernonia’s “special needs” exception. Plaintiffs did not have a legitimate privacy … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Reliance on a state court tracking order years ago was entitled to good faith
Under the Stored Communications Act, one must still prove standing as an “aggrieved person.” A state court cell phone tracking order is entitled to good faith exception deference, particularly since it was issued prior to any cases on the subject. … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Rule 41 violation isn’t necessarily a 4A violation
A violation of Rule 41 simply is not a Fourth Amendment violation. The case defendant cites isn’t on point. “[T]he defendant ignores the fact that, thirteen years after [that] decision, and almost thirty years before the search that resulted in … Continue reading
Two on pre-Jones GPS and good faith
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging GPS in 2007. The state passed its own GPS statute in 2002, and defendant argued it wasn’t complied with when a GPS was placed on his car after an armored car robbery he … Continue reading
CA8: Affidavit only referred to CI as “reliable,” and the affiant could have said more but didn’t; PC on totality
The affidavit for a GPS warrant only referred to the CI as “reliable,” and the affiant could have said more but didn’t. Still, the officer did do things to try to corroborate without elaborating. On the totality, probable cause was … Continue reading
IN: Passenger had no standing to challenge GPS warrant for car
Defendant was the passenger in a car that was operated by a person the police suspected was a serial burglar. They secured a GPS warrant, and they followed the car from a distance. They followed it to another county and … Continue reading
A.F.Ct.Crim.App.: Davis good faith applies to pre-Jones GPS installation
GPS was installed on defendant’s car prior to Jones and it’s not excludable under Davis good faith. United States v. Richards, 2016 CCA LEXIS 285 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. May 2, 2016). The officer didn’t smell marijuana on defendant’s person, … Continue reading
PA: Def didn’t show his room was exclusive to prevent probation search of father’s house
Defendant lived with his girlfriend in his father’s home and father was on probation. During a probation search of the house, defendant said that their bedroom was exclusively theirs and the officers couldn’t enter. The record does not support that … Continue reading