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
-
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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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)
-
“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
WA: Probation search of iPod without RS was unconstitutional
A probation search of an iPod without a warrant was improper under state law. The statute doesn’t help the court, but the department’s rules do, and they limit searches to a potential offense being investigated and this was not. Thus, … Continue reading
D.N.H.: Probable cause permits seizure of a cell phone and getting IMEI no. off back under Riley
Law enforcement officers with probable cause do not need a search warrant to seize a cell phone, such as in a search incident situation where they know that the phone was used to arrange drug deals, but they most probably … Continue reading
DC’s new MJ decriminalization doesn’t affect a search from 2010
Decriminalization of marijuana in the future may change the probable cause calculus, but this search was based on the smell of marijuana and long predated that (April 2010). Butler v. United States, 2014 D.C. App. LEXIS 446 (November 6, 2014) … Continue reading
CA3: Where search was limited, alleged overbreadth of SW was less important
The affidavit for the search warrant showed probable cause, so the search can’t be suppressed. Moreover, the officer acted reasonably and gets qualified immunity. The search itself wasn’t as broad as the warrant was argued to allow, so the search … Continue reading
WaPo: Magistrate issues arrest warrants for 17 years but is new to “probable cause”
WaPo: Magistrate issues arrest warrants for 17 years but is new to “probable cause” by Orin Kerr: Here’s a remarkable case from the Ohio Supreme Court, State v. Hoffman, involving an unconstitutional arrest warrant. The defendant was arrested for a … Continue reading
ND: Welfare stop of car parked on gravel road to historical site at 11 pm
The stop of defendant was justified as a welfare check because he was parked on a gravel road on the way to an historical site at 11 pm. He admitted having marijuana. State v. Schneider, 2014 ND 198, 2014 N.D. … Continue reading
IL: No exigency justified the blood draw or dispensing with SW
There was no exigency justifying dispensing with a warrant for a blood draw in this case. The officer never considered a warrant [probably because it was pre-McNeely]. People v. Armer, 2014 IL App (5th) 130342, 2014 Ill. App. LEXIS 748 … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Mistaken reference to SW attachment no. is saved by good faith exception
An FBI agent was under investigation for bribery for selling information about an investigation. The government showed probable cause for e-mail and cell phone search warrants. The SW cross-referenced Attachment II when it should have said III, and that was … Continue reading
TX9: Officer’s getting SW for black box first showed he could get SW for blood too; suppressed
The officer had the time and wherewithal to get an immediate search warrant for the defendant’s vehicle’s “black box” so he also had time to get one for defendant’s blood. State v. Anderson, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 11151 (Tex. App. … Continue reading
S.D.Ala.: SW for drugs doesn’t need to mention firearms to seize them when found
A search warrant for drugs doesn’t have to mention firearms to seize them. Firearms and drugs are usually linked, and there is a reasonable inference that the presence of firearms around drugs means they are related to each other. United … Continue reading
D.Kan.: SW info was stale, so no good faith exception
“The validity of a warrant is not determined by ‘nit-picking’ discreet portions of the application. Rather, the test is whether, under the totality of the circumstances presented in the affidavit, the issuing judge had a ‘substantial basis’ for determining that … Continue reading
D.N.D.: Failure to record conversation with USMJ that address needed correction not ground to suppress
Officers discovered that the address in the search warrant was incorrect before the warrant issued, and the USMJ corrected it on the warrant. The failure to record that conversation while a Rule 41 violation and not a Fourth Amendment violation … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Meth torch on front seat added to RS to prolong stop
A torch commonly used by methamphetamine users on the front seat next to the defendant and other things developed during questioning justified prolonging the stop. Also, defendant had a Canadian DL and it couldn’t be accessed through NCIC, and a … Continue reading
CA6: Exigency supported seizure of animals from pet store, but not its records
Animal control officers seized animals and records from a pet store in Chattanooga for lack of water, food, and proper care. The animal seizure was valid and did not violate any clearly established right. The business record seizure, however, could … Continue reading
OH6: Small amount of MJ in trash pull wasn’t PC for SW for evidence of cultivation or trafficking
Officers had three year old information that defendant was involved in marijuana cultivation, and nothing was done about it. A trash pull was done that produced a tiny amount of marijuana. The stale information had to be disregarded, and the … Continue reading
KY: 2 am knock-and-talk based on tip was suppressed where tip quickly proved wrong
2 a.m. knock and talk based on midnight anonymous call about noxious odors from the property was invalid where the officers approaching smelled nothing. “Upon receipt of the anonymous tip, the police had a duty to respond and investigate to … Continue reading