September 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
- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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)
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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
W.D.N.Y.: One has to show standing to get access to SW materials
Defendant has to show his standing to get access to the search warrant application under United States v. Pirk, 282 F. Supp. 3d 585, 594 (W.D.N.Y. 2017). United States v. Cobb, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114405 (W.D. N.Y. June 18, … Continue reading
MI: Def’s arrest being unlawful, his statement during should be suppressed
The state supreme court having found defendant’s arrest unlawful, his statement during the arrest should have been suppressed. People v. Hammerlund, 2021 Mich. App. LEXIS 3773 (June 17, 2021) (2-1) (dissent). Detention under the Material Witness Statute that was validly … Continue reading
OK: Smell of burnt marijuana in car is still PC in MMJ state
The smell of burnt marijuana in defendant’s car was still probable cause, despite it being in a medical marijuana state. State v. Roberson, 2021 OK CR 16, 2021 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 16 (June 17, 2021):
CA5: The fact more information could have been gathered didn’t make what had been learned false
The fact the affiant officer could have checked other sources to determine the validity of his probable cause didn’t mean that the information in hand was false. Davis v. City of Andrews, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 17845 (5th Cir. June … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: ISP’s duty to report CP under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A doesn’t make it still not a private search
Kik’s duty to report child pornography on its platform under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A doesn’t make its search still not a private search. United States v. Hart, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111166 (M.D. Pa. June 14, 2021). The trial court … Continue reading
AF: Search of house in murder case was reasonable and with PC in attempting to show the relationship between deceased and def
Defendant is an airman convicted at a court martial of premeditated murder of his girlfriend and unborn child. The search of his house was proper because it was reasonable to believe that evidence of their relationship would be found there … Continue reading
E.D.Wisc.: Domestic abuse victim bleeding outside had apparent authority to consent to entry and search
A domestic abuse victim police encountered bleeding outside had apparent authority to consent to an entry and search of the property. As the police came up, she said “He beat me bad this time.” Quintero v. Vega, 2021 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA6: Second officer’s running wants and warrants on passenger didn’t delay the first officer’s stop
A second officer running warrants on detainees from a justified vehicle stop did not have anything to do with the original mission of the stop. “Officer Hogan questioned the passenger while Officer Holland dealt with Brewer, and we do not … Continue reading
PA: Reasonable inference for stop that owner with suspended DL was driving vehicle
The officer had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant’s vehicle on the inference that the driver was the owner who had an outstanding warrant. The court declines to adopt a higher standard for reasonable suspicion under the state constitution. Commonwealth v. … Continue reading
CA8: If firearms are “tools of the trade” of drug dealers, so are cell phones
Defendant’s using his cell phone to arrange a drug transaction justified a search warrant for it. If firearms are “tools of the trade,” then so are cell phones. United States v. Eggerson, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 16823 (8th Cir. June … Continue reading
CA3: Ghostwritten SW affidavit not a Franks violation because there was indisputably PC
A police officer’s admission at trial that the affidavit for search warrant was ghostwritten for him didn’t show a Franks violation because there clearly was probable cause. United States v. Ware, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 16568 (3d Cir. June 3, … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Internet research can provide PC for a SW
An officer’s internet search provided a substantial basis for finding probable cause to search defendant’s house for evidence of misrepresenting military service. Citations to the places where the information was be found elevated this above a mere anonymous tip. United … Continue reading
CA9: Franks violation states § 1983 claim
The DA declined to prosecutor the plaintiff because of a Franks violation in the affidavit for the search warrant. Plaintiff sued, and qualified immunity is found not inapplicable. Dahlin v. Frieborn, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 16077 (9th Cir. May 28, … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: 171 page affidavit for SW with 454 paragraphs showed a fair probability evidence would be found
“The undersigned believes, as he originally did when reviewing Smith’s affidavit and signing the search warrant for 45 Southview Terrace, that the information contained in Smith’s affidavit demonstrated a ‘fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime’ would be … Continue reading
CA11: Monitoring a lawfully placed GPS device on a car is not a separate search under Knotts
Monitoring a lawfully placed GPS device on a car is not a separate search. It is lawful under Knotts, well before CSLI. United States v. Howard, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 15856 (11th Cir. May 27, 2021). The affidavit for the … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Just because a motorist can be ordered out of the car, that doesn’t permit the officer to open the door for him
Just because a motorist can be ordered out of the car, that doesn’t enable the officer to open the door for him. “As explained above, however, Trooper Miller’s stated purpose included an investigatory motive—verifying whether ‘something’ had been concealed—and his … Continue reading
In showing PC for a SW, context of the whole is everything
“Defendant accurately points out that Officer Delk failed to include in his affidavit details about the possibility of retaliatory gang violence and Defendant’s presence at the Merriweather house. … But the Court should not engage in ‘line-by-line scrutiny of the … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: Parole-probation searches are governed by 4A reasonableness but shaped by state law limiting them
The probation or parole search law and reasonableness is a Fourth Amendment question but it’s shaped by state law on how those searches are permitted as a condition of release. This one was reasonable. United States v. Beechler, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Officers pointing guns at a group of men wasn’t necessarily a seizure
Officers pointing their sidearms at a group of men wasn’t necessarily a seizure. At any rate, it was with reasonable suspicion. “Despite Williams’ argument to the contrary …, the officers’ display of their guns, without any physical contact, did not … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Govt doesn’t overcome right of access to seek to seal SW materials
The defense moved for access to search warrant materials for a potential motion to suppress. The government moved to seal them. The government’s motion is denied. There is generally a right of access in search warrant materials by the defendant … Continue reading