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- N.D.Ga.: PIT maneuver here was not excessive force
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- MI: Lifetime SO registration and GPS monitoring was reasonable
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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: Reasonable expectation of privacy
D.Neb.: Violation of an ATF regulation during administrative search of an FFL doesn’t justify suppression without a 4A violation
Defendant had a federal firearms dealer license and he was subjected to an inspection. Firearms dealers, of course, are closely regulated businesses. After the motion to suppress was denied, he decided that ATF regulations were violated. The court concludes, based … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Def’s VA disability rating medical exam wasn’t a violation of the 4A
Defendant received VA benefits for 100% disability. A follow-up visit was required to verify and he failed to show. As a result, it was downgraded to 70% which was a loss of about 3/4ths of his benefits. He was told … Continue reading
D.Minn.: A car hauler has actual and apparent authority to consent to a car in his possession for transport
The car that was searched was being hauled by a car carrier. By turning over a car to a car hauler, the car hauler has complete possession and actual and apparent authority to consent to a search, and the person … Continue reading
Legal Intelligencer: In Fight Over Nanny Cam Footage, Pa. Justices to Wrestle With Privacy Under Wiretap Law
Legal Intelligencer: In Fight Over Nanny Cam Footage, Pa. Justices to Wrestle With Privacy Under Wiretap Law by Zack Needles:
E.D.Mich.: Parolee has no REP in own home as to parole search
The court holds that defendant’s status as a parolee literally gave him no reasonable expectation of privacy in his own trailer from a parole search. He seeks narrowing the search under Griffin to avoid Samson and Knights. The court rejects … Continue reading
KY: No REP in conversations with family members in police interrogation room
Defendant was allowed to talk to relatives in an interrogation room, and their conversation was recorded. “Accordingly, we conclude that Easterling’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when his conversation with family members in the interrogation room was videotaped and … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Yahoo!’s TOS results in no REP in CP transmitted through it
The Terms of Service of Yahoo! email provide defendant no reasonable expectation of privacy in child pornography that was transmitted by its service. In addition, Yahoo!’s search was a private search. United States v. Wolfenbarger, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148822 … Continue reading
FL5: Existence of SW for BAC record in hospital overcame supboena without notice in violation of statute
Defendant’s BAC level was obtain by subpoena without notice contrary to statute, but they were also obtained by search warrant so they would not be suppressed. The search warrant was particular enough. Dinkins v. State, 2019 Fla. App. LEXIS 12923 … Continue reading
NJ: Warrantless entry into common area of a rooming house violated REP; it was private as to the tenants
The officer’s warrantless entry into the common area of a rooming house, even though the door was unlocked, intruded into a private area where defendant retained a reasonable expectation of privacy. This was not an area open to the public. … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Govt subpoena to photograph gang tattoos of incarcerated def not violation of 4A or 5A
The government seeks a subpoena to photograph defendant’s tattoos in an effort to corroborate gang membership. The motion to suppress is denied. “The Court is persuaded that the Government search contemplated by the description in the August 7 Letter is … Continue reading
FL1: No REP in cell phone video made by victim he knew was being recorded
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a cell phone video he saw being recorded on his victim’s cell phone while he talked to her under the state wiretap law. Smiley v. State, 2019 Fla. App. LEXIS 12628 (Fla. … Continue reading
CA11: No REP in last four digits of SSN voluntarily disclosed to agency
“The district court did not err in dismissing Hollis’s right to privacy claims. Because Hollis voluntarily provided Defendants with the last four digits of his SSN, he abandoned a reasonable expectation of privacy in those digits. Miller, 425 U.S. at … Continue reading
AZ CoA finds REP in IP information under state constitution where 4A would not
While the Fourth Amendment’s third party doctrine does not recognize a reasonable expectation of privacy in IP information, the court concludes that the state constitution does (and it follows several other states rejecting Miller and Smith on some basis). State … Continue reading
Fix Congress First: Federal Government Seizure of President Trump’s New York State Individual Tax Returns is Most Likely a Violation of the Fourth Amendment
Fix Congress First: Federal Government Seizure of President Trump’s New York State Individual Tax Returns is Most Likely a Violation of the Fourth Amendment by Don Suarez, arguing that Carpenter applies: “We hold only that a warrant is required in … Continue reading
CT: Def didn’t abandon his apt when he was in jail and rent came due
Defendant did not abandon his crime victim’s cell phone hidden in a wall when he’d been incarcerated and was evicted from his house for nonpayment of rent. The police waited until the lease had expired for nonpayment and came to … Continue reading
CA7: Burglar had no REP in his own backpack carried in
Defendant was stopped and searched as a suspected burglar in a house he had no business being in. Because his presence was “wrongful,” he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the backpack he carried in. United States v. Sawyer, … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Evicted motel occupant loses REP in the room
Defendant rented a hotel room and apparently was smoking marijuana in the room, and the neighboring renters complained. The hotel manager called the police to help evict, but no one came to the door. They went back to the front … Continue reading
OH7: No REP in police interrogation room; conversation with wife after statement to police recorded
Defendant gave a statement to the police and then he was left alone in the interrogation room to talk to his wife for 40 minutes. Police recorded the conversation. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the room, and, … Continue reading