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- E.D.Mich.: State environmental inspector who entered property to look at unlicensed seawall gets QI
- S.D.Fla.: SW for def’s house included his tent outside
- 404 Media: Flock: LAPD Regularly Pulled Over Innocent People Because License Plate Readers Flagged Their Cars As Stolen
- CA6: Despite two guns being suppressed from arrest on bare-bones arrest affidavit, third gun was later validly seized by independent source
- D.Md.: Govt’s motion to reconsider granted motion to suppress denied; arguments now are too late
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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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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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"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
CA4: Cell phone non-forensic border search doesn’t require individualized suspicion
“Border searches do not require a warrant to be reasonable. And if a border search is routine, individualized suspicion is not required either. But law enforcement may not conduct a nonroutine border search without individualized suspicion. Under our precedent, forensic … Continue reading
CA1: SW for iPhone 6S didn’t permit search of iPhone 13 despite same phone number
A search warrant for an iPhone 6S did not authorize a search of an iPhone 13 with the same phone number. Also, the good faith exception does not apply. Alleged exigency doesn’t save this search. United States v. González-Arocho, 2026 … Continue reading
CA7: It wasn’t a 4A violation to place a pole camera to look over def’s fence he built knowing he was under surveillance
Defendant knew he was under surveillance by police, so he installed a wooden privacy fence around his business property. So, police put a pole camera so they could look over the fence. The pole camera didn’t need a warrant. United … Continue reading
TX1: Defendant had no REP in a package of drugs he never possessed and on another person
Defendant lacked standing to suppress 4,100 grams of ketamine seized from Brown because he never possessed the package, had no reasonable expectation of privacy in package of drugs carried by Brown, and the ketamine was recovered away from him during … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: AUSA can summarize what the gov’t knows for SW application
An AUSA can write a search warrant application summarizing what he or she knows from the investigation even though it includes some conclusions. It’s based here on facts the government believes it can prove. In re Larksuktom, 2026 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: SW not based on mere speculation
Defendant argues the search warrant was based on speculation, but it wasn’t. United States v. Savage, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138078 (S.D.N.Y. June 22, 2026)*:
M.D.Pa.: SW for phone 19 months after alleged crimes showed PC
The search warrant for defendant’s cell phone was issued in December 2024 for alleged crimes in April and May 2023. There was still probable cause despite the possibility that defendant had a different phone by then. The search was based … Continue reading
CO: Facebook SW lacked PC
Social media search warrant for defendant’s Facebook account was invalid because there was no indication that he communicated with his sex assault victims through it. People v. Van Eck, 2026 Colo. App. LEXIS 1043 (June 11, 2026) (unpublished):
Cal.2: CA OSHA had the authority to subpoena records over a workplace death, but this one was overbroad
An Uber delivery driver died on the job, and California OSHA sought records. Uber refused. OSHA subpoenaed them. OSHA has the power to subpoena records related to the death because it’s within its remit, but this one is overbroad and … Continue reading
CA6: ChatGPT’s opinion that evidence was “newly discovered” for a successor habeas is wrong
Defendant was the subject of an NIT (Playpen) search warrant years ago and was convicted. In a successor habeas he argues that “ChatGPT’s ‘opinion’ that the magistrate judge participated in a crime by issuing the NIT warrant does not make … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Being a lookout vehicle at a crime is RS
As to the stop of the vehicle: “The objective and articulable facts set forth above supported the officers’ belief that the Buick was either the lookout vehicle or the vehicle transporting the narcotics and gave rise to reasonable suspicion to … Continue reading
CA3: Smell of MJ but none found can still be PC
The smell of marijuana is probable cause even if none is found in the subsequent search. The absence of marijuana only mitigates the probable cause, not eliminate it. United States v. Loveings, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 17330 (3d Cir. June … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Open container arrest justified search incident of backpack in passenger compartment
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and he had an open container in violation of D.C. law. That justified a search incident of the area around him, including a backpack. United States v. Smith, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131891 … Continue reading
Cal.1: Entry by robot, drone, tear gas, and flash bang was with PC after def refused to come out on a SW and AW
To arrest the defendant on a warrant and with a search warrant, the SWAT team surrounded his house. They used a robot, drone, tear gas, and a flash bang sent into the apartment. He finally came out and surrendered. Despite … Continue reading
CA6: The SW affidavit here was thin, but it wasn’t completely bare bones, so GFE applies
After controlled buys from defendant’s house, two separate police departments prepared search warrants for his place, and they were presented together. One was signed. Defendant moved to suppress contending there was no probable cause and it was so lacking that … Continue reading
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