June 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CA6: CI’s lie to get into def’s house to video him making a drug deal with the CI didn’t violate 4A
- TN: Def lived in a van left wide open in a public area, but it didn’t belong to him, so no REP as to interior
- VI: Despite ubiquity of cell phones, nexus has to be shown to alleged crime
- N.D.Ga.: PIT maneuver here was not excessive force
- LA4: Acting like carrying a gun and wearing a ski mask in New Orleans in June was RS
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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)
ACLU on privacy
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
Section 1983 Blog -
"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] -
“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
WaPo: Court: No First Amendment right to videorecord police unless you are challenging the police at the time
WaPo: Court: No First Amendment right to videorecord police unless you are challenging the police at the time by Eugene Volokh:
NH: No REP in house an order of protection says stay away from
Defendant was in his girlfriend’s house in violation of an order of protection, and she called the police. They came and arrested him. “We find persuasive two cases relied upon by the State in which courts held that, because a … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: No reasonable expectation of privacy in jail calls
Defendant’s motion to quash subpoenas for his jail telephone calls is denied. He was on notice by the inmate handbook and notices by the phone and during the calls, sometimes twice, that the calls would be recorded. United States v. … Continue reading
The Recorder: Judge Questions FBI Agent Who Planted Courthouse Bugs
The Recorder: Judge Questions FBI Agent Who Planted Courthouse Bugs by Ross Todd: U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer must decide whether warrantless recording devices amounted to improper eavesdropping.
CA2: Nonpayment of hotel rent result in loss of REP in the room
Defense counsel couldn’t be ineffective for not raising that a motel operator couldn’t consent to a search of his room after defendant was locked out for nonpayment of rent. That’s established law. Bruno v. Superintendent, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 2075 … Continue reading
CA6: Ten weeks of pole camera surveillance on rural property no Fourth Amendment violation
The Sixth Circuit distinguishes Anderson-Bagshaw and holds ten weeks of pole camera surveillance on rural property violated no reasonable expectation of privacy. “Rocky Houston appeals his conviction of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 … Continue reading
CA7: No REP from being videoed by CI one lets in for a drug deal
A video-wired CI came into defendant’s apartment to record him doing a drug deal, and a SW issued based on the recording. Defendant challenged the entry and the recording but not the SW. “Thompson has never challenged the search warrant … Continue reading
techdirt: DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet
techdirt: DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet by Tim Cushing: Apparently, the only way to stop terrorists from hating us for our freedom is to strip away those offensive freedoms. Erik … Continue reading
TN: Where arrest lacked PC, search incident is void
The evidence did not support defendant’s arrest for public intoxication, and the officer actually lacked probable cause. Accordingly, the search incident to the arrest was void. State v. Pippen, 2016 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 57 (Jan. 28, 2016) (dissent here). … Continue reading
D.N.J.: No REP in a rental car where def not an authorized driver and car was way overdue
Defendant was driving a rental car that was so overdue the tags were expired. It was rented by a cousin and the rental car company didn’t know who he was. With the stop, they were called and they wanted the … Continue reading
OH5: Trespassers on an open field had no reasonable expectation of privacy there
The officer on patrol saw a campfire and stopped because it was not an area known for camping. He asked the five people who came in one car if they had permission to be there, and they did not. Two … Continue reading
D.Nev.: “[T]he government does not require probable cause to ‘search’ its own records.”
Assuming defendant had standing to a residence as an overnight guest, the police had specific information linking him to the residence and probable cause for a search warrant. A check of DMV records on him did not require probable cause. … Continue reading
Katz and the “reasonable expectation of privacy” is 48 today
Dec. 18, 1967: Katz v. United States, and the reasonable expectation of privacy decided
D.Md.: Ptf waived REP in bank records
The Right to Financial Privacy Act was passed in response to Miller, but bank customers can waive privacy in their account records during an investigation, aside from process being applied. Bond v. United States Postal Serv. Fed. Credit Union, 2015 … Continue reading
CA11: Cell phone with CP on it was lost in a Wal-mart then abandoned
Defendants lost their cell phone in a Wal-Mart. The person finding the phone looked in it to see if there was identifying information, but there wasn’t. The phone wasn’t password protected. The person handling it found what appeared to be … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Guest in hotel room had reasonable expectation of privacy in room after renter left
Defendant was a guest in a hotel room, and the renter left. Defendant still had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room. Defendant consented to the search of the room. “Moreover, the court finds Green’s testimony to be unbelievable … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Corp. officer had no standing in search of company website; aside from the fact it’s on the Internet
Defendant had no standing over government search of a corporation’s website without showing that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched. [If it’s on the Internet and open to the world, how is there conceivably any … Continue reading
DC: Jail cell search was for penological purpose, not criminal investigation
The government showed that the jail cell search of defendant was for legitimate penological purposes and not for criminal investigation. Tann v. United States, 2015 D.C. App. LEXIS 533 (Nov. 19, 2015). “The federal courts are not free-range problem solvers”; … Continue reading