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
WI: Discarded cigarette butt is PC for a stop
Throwing a cigarette butt out a car window is littering, and an officer can make a stop even thought it’s a civil forfeiture offense. State v. Iverson, 2015 WI 101, 2015 Wisc. LEXIS 709 (Nov. 25, 2015). An abrupt turn … Continue reading
ID: Child sex offense witnesses were discovered prior to likely illegal phone search
Defendant was under investigation for various offenses, including sex crimes. His cell phone was seized when he was arrested for burglary. Minor sex offense witnesses were identified by the allegedly illegal search of the phone, and the court doesn’t suppress … Continue reading
VA: GPS device could be removed and reinstalled under same warrant
The GPS tracking warrant in this case was good for 30 days, and it was installed the day after issuance. When officers learned the car was going in for service, they recovered it so it would not be detected, then … Continue reading
WY: Reaching in pocket of detained motorist having seizure was reasonable under community caretaking function
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense and had a seizure. The officer reached into his pocket to look for medication and discovered marijuana. The search was valid under the community caretaking function. Allgier v. State, 2015 WY 137, 2015 … Continue reading
D.Minn.: The common law “in the presence of” requirement for a warrantless misdemeanor arrest is not part of the Fourth Amendment
The common law “in the presence of” requirement for a warrantless misdemeanor arrest is not part of the Fourth Amendment. Here, the defendant was in the presence of the officer when the facts gave the officer probable cause that the … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: Correcting a date in affidavit for SW in front of USMJ was hardly improper, particularly when the correct date was put in
Three month old information about an IP address in a child pornography case wasn’t stale. Also, the warrant wasn’t issued without probable cause just because the warrant was amended in handwriting before the magistrate, particularly because the correct date was … Continue reading
DE: Without a showing there is anything to test DNA against, a warrant for DNA may be without PC; but here moot for now
Without a showing there is anything to test DNA against, a warrant for DNA may be without probable cause. After surveying the cases requiring there be something to test for a sample to be obtained, the question here is moot … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Def’s Facebook postings he was armed added to PC
Officer’s knowledge defendant would retaliate for a shooting plus his Facebook postings he was armed (“strapped”) and was a known felon was probable cause for a search warrant for his dwelling. United States v. Poe, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139748 … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Burner phone and being from town of Sinaloa Drug Cartel were factors in reasonable suspicion
“Deputy Jimerson is trained in drug interdiction and has previously testified as an expert witness on interdiction. During the stop, he saw the defendants were speaking on Tracfones when he approached the car, which he knows to be commonly used … Continue reading
VI: Vehicle matching description of car in robbery fleeing and crashing into police car is PC for stop
Officers had probable cause to stop defendant’s vehicle as being involved in a robbery. They set up a “choke point” on the flight route away and saw the vehicle, and the driver fled from multiple attempts to stop it. Then … Continue reading
D.Neb.: A mere passenger in a car used in a robbery has no standing to challenge the search
Riding in a car to a robbery is not a “sufficiently close connection to the car” to give standing. There was at least reasonable suspicion for the stop based on the robbery call, and then probable cause for their arrest. … Continue reading
MA: CSLI seized before state law clarified; remanded
CSLI was seized: one defendant five days worth, another seven days worth. State case law all developed after that happened, so remanded to reconsider the CSLI under those cases. Commonwealth v. Tewolde, 2015 Mass. App. LEXIS 156 (October 1, 2015). … Continue reading
CA3: A corporate shareholder and executive doesn’t have standing in the corporation’s computer server; no personal connection
“To show he can challenge the search of SPI’s and CDS’s offices and the seizure of the employees’ computers and network server as a shareholder and executive, Nagle must show a personal connection to the place searched or to the … Continue reading
D.Idaho: Dog on scene in 6 minutes meant no “delay”
The dog arrived within six minutes and conducted a free air sniff around the vehicle, all within the time of the original stop so delay [Rodriguez] is not an issue. United States v. McNabb, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127020 (D.Idaho … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: No REP in the hallway of a U-Haul storage facility from a dog sniff
Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the hallway of a U-Haul storage facility. Thus, a dog sniff there was probable cause for a search warrant for the storage unit. United States v. Flores, 2015 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
FL2: PC to arrest included knowledge of evidence on iPhone, so phone could be seized on exigent circumstances
Police had probable cause to arrest defendant for sex offenses with children, and the PC included the fact that his smartphone contained images of the crimes. When he was arrested, there was exigency for seizing his cell phone pending a … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: The court can take judicial notice of the reliability of GPS for probable cause
The court can take judicial notice of the reliability of GPS for probable cause. Here the question was probable cause for the arrest of a bank robbery suspect based on GPS tracking of the bait money. United States v. Mitchell, … Continue reading