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
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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
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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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)
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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
IA: No REP when in custody on a civil commitment order
Defendant was picked up on an involuntary commitment order for drug addiction, and she was brought to a hospital and locked in a room. She was directed to dress out into a hospital gown to go to the psychiatric floor, … Continue reading
AZ: Dog sniff in hotel hallway and knock-and-talk thereafter not unreasonable
About midnight, officers did a dog sniff in the hallway of defendant’s hotel, and the dog alerted on defendant’s door. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the hotel hallway, and hotel management permitted the dog to come in. … Continue reading
CA8: No REP in public areas of a store; telephonic warrant relied on in good faith; tribal judge not shown to not be neutral and detached because she had spoken out on def’s store
Defendant’s convenience store was arguably open, and he didn’t show that it was closed, for an officer to come in and observe synthetic marijuana for sale. He thus did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The officer obtained a … Continue reading
MD: Once DNA was lawfully seized, it can be compared to other samples at will
Defendant’s DNA was lawfully seized in the first place, and it could be compared thereafter to other samples for a match without it being an unreasonable search. The expectation of privacy ceased with the lawful seizure. Varriale v. State, 2015 … Continue reading
WaPo: Is credit card skimming a Fourth Amendment search?
WaPo: Is credit card skimming a Fourth Amendment search? by Orin Kerr: In United States v. Bah, [posted here] decided July 24th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed down the first circuit ruling on whether skimming … Continue reading
CA6: No REP in magnetic strips on back of credit and gift cards lawfully seized
Defendant was found with over 70 credit and gift cards. The court finds no reasonable expectation of privacy in the magnetic strips on the back. They are intended to be read when used, and they are not a constitutionally protected … Continue reading
IA: Mistake of law doesn’t support stop (and doesn’t discuss Heien)
Defendant was sitting in a car on a parking lot with an open container, and an officer arrested for that and searched. The court of appeals reversed. The open container law clearly only applies to streets and highways and not … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Officer’s failure to note everything in car didn’t undermine claim of inventory nor show pretext for search
The court credits the officer’s testimony about the purpose of the search of defendant’s car to be inventory. He made notes of the items found but not all made it into official reports. The court credits this was an innocent … Continue reading
MI: Plaintiffs failed to show that a “smart meter” violated their privacy or Fourth Amendment rights
Plaintiffs alleged but failed to show, inter alia, that a “smart meter” violated their privacy or Fourth Amendment rights. Detroit Edison Co. v. Stenman, 2015 Mich. App. LEXIS 1384 (July 14, 2015):
D.S.D.: Def’s REP in a mailed letter ended when it was opened on receipt
Defendant’s expectation of privacy in letter he mailed ended when it was received and opened. The USMJ did not abuse his discretion in not reopening the suppression hearing to ask further questions about photographs. The suppression hearing was three days … Continue reading
TX8: No REP in a high school coach’s half-time speech to his team
It was not a crime under the state wiretap statute for an interloper to record a visiting high school football coach’s half time speech to his team because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy. “The issue in this case … Continue reading
MA: Def’s statement during allegedly illegal entry into his house was spontaneous and attenuated
Police turned a snitch who said he just bought cocaine from defendant. Police determined defendant was on probation and had a prior federal trafficking conviction. They lured him out of the house, and they entered for a sweep. Even if … Continue reading
TX1: A subpoena may be used to obtain blood test results obtained for medical purposes even though used in a DWI case
The state may obtain defendant’s blood draw for medical purposes by subpoena. Ferguson v. City of Charleston does not create a reasonable expectation of privacy from a subpoena, a form of legal process, for obtaining the results. Rodriguez v. State, … Continue reading
DE: Def does not waive suppression motion by FTA; hear it without him
Failure to appear for a suppression hearing is not a waiver of the motion. The court should have conducted the hearing in his absence. Smolka v. State, 2015 Del. LEXIS 308 (June 23, 2015). Defendant called 911 about the pregnant … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Going onto the front porch to try a key in the lock didn’t violate Jardines; entering the already cracked open door did
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the house searched. It was owned by others and where the electric bill was in another’s name. There was probable cause for a search of a second location. Police going on to … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Def didn’t lose REP in car by loaning it out
Defendant retained his expectation of privacy in his car even though he loaned it to somebody else. On the totality of circumstances, there was probable cause for a search of the car under the automobile exception. United States v. Williams, … Continue reading
Legal Intelligencer: IPad Texts Not Private Under Wiretap Act
Legal Intelligencer: IPad Texts Not Private Under Wiretap Act by Max Mitchell: An iPad does not fall within the telephone exemption under the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act, and users of the device do not have a reasonable … Continue reading
DE: SW needed for hospital medical records; subpoena production suppressed
Implicit in prior case law is that a search warrant is required for medical records in Delaware. The state’s obtaining defendant’s by subpoena is suppressed. State v. Robinson, 2015 Del. C.P. LEXIS 32 (May 15, 2015). Defendant consented to entry … Continue reading