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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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)
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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: Probable cause
S.D.N.Y.: Four-year-old SW materials were subject to redaction and in camera submission to see about release
Project Veritas sued over sealed search warrant materials, and it’s been four years since the warrants. There’s a public interest in disclosure, and the government shall file in camera proposed redactions of the materials. Generalized claims of law enforcement need … Continue reading
CA9: When a digital computer search reveals a CP hash value, officer doesn’t have to see image to have PC
A digital computer search that produces an image with a hash value that matches known child pornography is probable cause without the officer even seeing the image. United States v. Johnsen, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 14893 (9th Cir. May 26, … Continue reading
IN: Overdose call led to EMS telling police what they saw and that led to SW
EMS responded to an overdose call, and they reported what they saw inside which led to police getting a search warrant. Leon v. State, 2026 Ind. App. LEXIS 171 (May 20, 2026). “Missouri courts have indicated that the question of … Continue reading
NY1: A mental health defense waives REP in the medical records about it
When the accused raises a mental health defense, he waives any reasonable expectation of privacy in the records. S.M. v. City of N.Y., 2026 NY Slip Op 03248, 2026 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3413 (1st Dept. May 21, 2026).* “[T]he … Continue reading
RI: Challenge to one sentence of 8-page cell phone records SW fails; totality has to be considered
Defendant’s challenge to the search warrant for his cell phone records focused on one sentence adding nothing to the calculus. On the totality, the 8-page affidavit showed probable cause for the cell phone records. State v. Pinkerton, 2026 R.I. LEXIS … Continue reading
TX14: Affidavit for SW gets deferential standard of review by both the trial court and appellate court
The affidavit for search warrant gets a deferential standard of review by both the trial court and appellate court. Gaither v. State, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 4588 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) May 19, 2026). “The federal district court … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Emergency disclosure requests in Buffalo Tops grocery shooting were valid
The emergency disclosure requests (EDRs) for information about the 2022 allegedly racially motivated Tops grocery store shooting in Buffalo were valid. Officers were looking for potential co-conspirators. United States v. Gendron, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109541 (W.D.N.Y. May 18, 2026). … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: No constitutional obligation for officers to keep investigating past having PC
“To the extent that Plaintiffs’ claim is based on Defendant Pelham’s failure to conduct a more thorough investigation before seeking a warrant, it likewise fails. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants ‘failed to undertake minimally adequate investigative steps before seeking a warrant[.]’ … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Placing firearm on wheel of parked car was abandonment
Police observed defendant place a firearm on the wheel of a parked car where it remained in plain view, and he was later arrested. The firearm was abandoned property, not subject to the search incident doctrine, and the DNA warrant … Continue reading
OR: Even if original served warrant wasn’t the one returned, it doesn’t warrant suppression
Defendant argues that the return must be the original copy of the warrant issued by the judge per statute. It was a copy. Even if it was a mistake, it was ministerial from which there was no prejudice. State v. … Continue reading
CA10: Tribal and state court SWs: state judge wanted more information, but that didn’t make tribal warrant lack PC
Defendant lived on tribal lands with a co-occupant who was not Native American. Officers obtained two search warrants: one from a tribal court and one from a state court. The applications were identical. The state judge, however, wanted more information, … Continue reading
DC: Affidavit for SW for cell phone showed no PC or nexus to crime
The search warrant for defendant’s phone showed nothing about probable cause to believe any evidence would be on it. The mere fact he likely carried the phone with him all the time isn’t enough. (But the court concedes maybe it’s … Continue reading
CA10: SW for gun three weeks after road rage incident wasn’t stale
Search warrant for a gun in defendant’s house allegedly involved in a road rage incident three weeks earlier was not stale. United States v. Becker, 168 F.4th 1337 (10th Cir. Mar. 9, 2026). Defendant’s December 2019 conviction is affirmed. Reviewing … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Walker stopped on street by three officers was without RS
Defendant was stopped walking and surrounded by three officers shining flashlights in his face, and all without reasonable suspicion. Only then did they discover a telling bulge from a weapon. Suppressed. United States v. Wilson, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69861 … Continue reading
AL: No RS for pulling up behind legally parked car with blue lights on to inquire; smell of MJ suppressed
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop in a residential neighborhood when he was lawfully parked and doing nothing wrong. The officer pulled behind him with emergency lights on. That’s not always a seizure, but here it was. When … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Military search authorization was sufficiently particular for use in federal court
The military search authorization here was sufficiently particular and works in federal court. United States v. Guinsler, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63922 (E.D. Va. Mar. 25, 2026). (§ 52.39 n.3). The state stipulated to a false fact in the search … Continue reading
OH8: Smell of MJ in car alone no longer PC
The smell of marijuana in a car alone isn’t probable cause in Ohio anymore because of legalization, quoting State v. Gray, 2025-Ohio-4607, ¶ 61 (1st Dist. Oct. 3, 2025). State v. Tucker, 2026-Ohio-1045 (8th Dist. Mar. 26, 2026). Challenging only … Continue reading
ID: Inevitable discovery doesn’t always require independent investigation
“[W]e hold that a finding that there was a lawful separate or independent investigation underway is not a per se requirement in every case for the inevitable discovery doctrine to apply. While a separate, untainted investigation may be the simplest … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Privacy Protection Act has a border search exception
The Privacy Protection Act has a border search exception. Madaio v. United States, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64418 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 26, 2026). When defendant was stopped, the officers had reasonable suspicion the car had been involved in a shooting … Continue reading