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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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
CA10: Handcuffing and jailing an inebriated man as “incapacitated” violated the 4A and no QI
Plaintiff showed up at a concert at the Xfinity Center in Boston inebriated, but not so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. Security separated him from the incoming line into the hands of the defendant, an off-duty officer … Continue reading
CA4: No QI for arrest w/o PC and pft held for 80 days; lack of PC was obvious
Plaintiff was held for 80 days on an arrest utterly without probable cause, and the officer has no qualified immunity. Smith v. Munday, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 1975 (4th Cir. Feb. 3, 2017):
CA4: Drugs on an occupant of a vehicle supports a search of the trunk and other compartments
Drugs on an occupant of a vehicle supports a search of the trunk and other compartments. United States v. Brown, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 1720 (4th Cir. Jan. 31, 2017). Defendant appeals a supervised release search term that does not … Continue reading
Pro Publica: Texas Panel on Wrongful Convictions Calls for Ending Use of Unverified Drug Field Tests
Pro Publica: Texas Panel on Wrongful Convictions Calls for Ending Use of Unverified Drug Field Tests by Ryan Gabrielson: A commission established by lawmakers to help end the conviction of the innocent says field tests are too unreliable to be … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: USMJ accidentally crossing out a paragraph when a single sentence about no-knock was intended to be struck didn’t undermine PC; judge deciding the case made the mistake
The USMJ who issued the search warrant decides its validity. An entire paragraph was crossed out, but the court says that it only intended to cross out the no-knock authorization. Since the warrant was signed and the officers were directed … Continue reading
D.Minn.: IP address and alleged crime was sufficient nexus to def’s electronic devices
Somehow linking defendant’s address to an IP address in an investigation of use of the internet is nexus if there is otherwise probable cause to search electronic devices at defendant’s address. (How it was obtained isn’t all that important. The … Continue reading
Guam: Jardines curtilage doesn’t apply to castle doctrine and defense of dwelling
Jardines on curtilage doesn’t apply to the statute on the castle doctrine for defense of home which applies to the habitable dwelling and not the porch. Defendant’s proffer jury instruction was properly denied. People v. John, 2016 Guam 41, 2016 … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Officer isn’t obliged to ask about MMJ card when he smells MJ coming from car
Odor of marijuana in car was still probable cause. “Johnson contends that Sergeant Simmont’s failure to ask whether Johnson carried a medical marijuana card undermined any finding of probable cause. But Johnson cites no authority for the proposition that Sergeant … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Smell of PCP from a car was PC
On officer on an unrelated call in the neighborhood in early morning hours heard a nearby gunshot. Dispatch reported that the shot was reported by ShotSpotter to be likely at a certain address. There the officer found people milling around. … Continue reading
D.Me.: Detaining def, taking his hotel room key, and moving him from outside the hotel to just outside his hotel room was an arrest; but here with PC
Detaining defendant, taking his hotel room key, and moving him from outside the hotel to just outside his hotel room was a clear indication to defendant he was under arrest. On the totality of circumstances, however, there was probable cause … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Reasonable inference cell phone was used to set up meeting for sex with minor to get SW for phone
It was reasonable to infer that defendant’s cell phone was involved in defendant’s effort to set up a rendezvous for setting sex with a minor, so the search warrant for the phone was issued on probable cause. Even so, the … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Product of wiretap alone can produce PC for search of home, but here there was more
After a wiretap, police got search warrant for eight locations. Only defendant’s is at issue here, and he sought de novo review of the probable cause determination which he does not get. The affidavit for the search warrant showed probable … Continue reading
NC: Nexus is a PC question also shown by reasonable interences
It was logical to conclude that two brothers were drug dealers: they lived together which one lied about where he lived, one of them had a truck registered there, and a fair inference on the totality was that evidence of … Continue reading
CA6: A few roaches in a trash pull isn’t PC drugs would be found
A few marijuana roaches found in a trash pull doesn’t add up to probable cause that drugs would be found in defendant’s home. United States v. Abernathy, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21824 (6th Cir. Dec. 8, 2016):
IN: Search incident of jacket left in car on arrest for outstanding warrant was unreasonable
Defendant was pulled over because an LPN check showed his license was suspended and there was a warrant out for him. When he got out of the car, he took off his jacket and left it in the car. Since … Continue reading
CA5: 45 minute empty-handed search after dog alert didn’t dissipate the probable cause
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, but the officers had been briefed on defendant by the DEA. (The pre-Jones GPS monitoring of defendant’s car for 73 days is valid under Davis.) He wouldn’t make eye contact, his hands were … Continue reading
CA9: Arrest for any offense will do as long as there were facts for some offense
Following Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153 (2004), “an officer’s ‘subjective reason for making the arrest need not be the criminal offense as to which the known facts provide probable cause.’” Brincken v. Voss, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21101 … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: CSLI warrant didn’t show PC on informant information or timeliness; GFE did not apply
The prospective CSLI warrant failed to show probable cause on the facts of informant hearsay or overcome staleness, and the motion to suppress is granted. (Also, the owner of a cell phone has standing to challenge GPS tracking of his … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: No PC for GPS information from any phone that connected to the target phone; and no GFE
“Because the first pen order allowed officers to retrieve GPS location information about any phone which contacted the target phones, and nothing in the affidavit shows the relation between those contacting phones and the underlying criminal activity, the magistrate judge … Continue reading
IA: Dog alert on car and search of car that produces nothing permits search of the person who was sitting where the dog alerted
After seeing a woman with a backpack run to a car with the engine running in an empty parking lot of a closed business, the officer decided to inquire. They had inconsistent stories about where they’d been and what they … Continue reading