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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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)
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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
MA: No reasonable expectation of privacy in sneakers defendant allowed to keep in jail
Defendant was allowed to keep his sneakers when he was checked into the jail, but there was no right to keep them. The police showed up with a search warrant for his clothing in jail property. That included the sneakers. … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: No REP in boxes kept in borrowed storage shed
Defendant’s mother allowed him to store some boxes in her storage shed, and he didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the shed. When she consented to a search of the shed, that permitted the police to search closed … Continue reading
NY2: NYPD officer had no REP in recovery of service weapon used in a shooting per NYPD policy
Defendant NYPD police officer had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the department issued firearm allegedly misused in the line of duty. Defendant shot a fleeing man in the buttocks in a personal dispute and denied it in the initial … Continue reading
VA: Dog sniff outside a motel room door did not violate Jardines or any REP
Applying a sensitive analysis of Dunn and Jardines and “other societal norms establishing an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy,” the court concludes that a dog sniff outside the door of a motel room is not at all like that of … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Botnet Takedowns and the Fourth Amendment
New Law Review Article: Botnet Takedowns and the Fourth Amendment by Sam Zeitlin, 90 NYU Law Rev. No. 2 (May 2015). Abstract:
KY: Frat house is more like a home than an apartment building; warrantless entry here unlawful
Following other states, a university fraternity house is a “home” for Fourth Amendment purposes, not like a hotel or apartment building. The officer’s warrantless entry into the frat house was unreasonable. This started as a knock-and-talk, but nobody answered, so … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Giving cell phone to another for use in drug deals is waiver of reasonable expectation of privacy
Giving one’s cell phone over to another to use for drug dealing was a loss of any reasonable expectation of privacy in it. United States v. Brewer, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62260 (M.D.Pa. May 12, 2015):
Photography is Not a Crime: The Terrorists Have Won in Boston
Photography is Not a Crime: The Terrorists Have Won in Boston by Maya Shaffer: We can win the war on terror today, or we can choose to keep losing it. The success or failure of any terror attack is dependent … Continue reading
NJ: Surreptitious recording of defendant and counsel in police interview room suppressed
The surreptitious recording of a meeting with defendant and his counsel in a police interview room when defendant turned himself in was suppressed and contrary to clearly established law. It led to discovery of witnesses. The indictment is not dismissed, … Continue reading
CA7: WI law of hotel ejectments reasonably relied on by officers to conduct hotel room search after arrest
Defendant was arrested as a parole absconder also known to be a forger and identity thief, and there was a printer in the backseat of his car. He was in a hotel room in Wisconsin, not registered in his name. … Continue reading
LA2: Removing back of cell phone to get IMSI for SW application didn’t violate any REP
Defendant’s cell phone was lawfully seized at the time of his arrest. Two days later, the back of the phone was removed to get the IMSI number (serial number) to get a search warrant. The contents of the phone were … Continue reading
D.R.I.: It was reasonable to believe defendant in house entered on arrest warrant when his car had been there and his cell phone ping put him there
Police had reason to believe defendant was in the apartment they entered with an arrest warrant for a Hobbs Act home invasion robbery: “The Court finds that the police reasonably believed prior to entry that Mr. Stewart resided at the … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Only two hours of warrantless GPS monitoring doesn’t offend Jones
Two hours of GPS monitoring didn’t implicate Jones’s reasonable expectation of privacy standard because it wasn’t long term. Defendant didn’t own the vehicle with the GPS device on it, but he was an authorized driver, and that gives him standing. … Continue reading
ACLU Press Release: ACLU, Portland Police Reach Settlement in Filming Case
ACLU, Portland Police Reach Settlement in Filming Case: PORTLAND – The ACLU of Maine and counsel for Portland Police Officer Benjamin Noyes have reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought on behalf of a Bar Harbor couple who were arrested … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Having def roll up sleeves to photograph his tattoos at time of arrest was reasonable
Officers investigating child pornography found an outstanding arrest warrant for defendant, so they went and executed it first and did a search incident of the person. They also got a search warrant. They seized a cell phone and got a … Continue reading
GA: Consent to DNA paternity test for sex with 12 year old didn’t bar use of test in criminal case
Defendant’s consent to a DNA test for a paternity test for impregnating a 12 year old didn’t preclude using the evidence in a criminal investigation for having sex with her. Defendant had to know that was possible. Andrews v. State, … Continue reading
Chicagoist: Are CTA Bag Checks Against Our Fourth Amendment Rights? [And NOBODY COMPLAINED?]
Chicagoist: Are CTA Bag Checks Against Our Fourth Amendment Rights? After four months of random bag checks at more than 40 CTA stations, the results are in: Officers checked 2,600 bags, found zero explosives and made only one arrest. The … Continue reading