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- The Intercept: FBI Raid on WaPo Reporter’s Home Was Based on Sham Pretext
- N.D.Ga.: Slight delay in searching a cell phone of a person in custody who couldn’t possess it was reasonable
- D.Kan.: Search incident of a car after DUI arrest was reasonable under Gant
- Cal.2d: NDO in SW to Microsoft doesn’t violate state statute or 1A
- MA: Missing juvenile in BOLO was subject to community caretaking function
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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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General (many free):
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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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"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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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: Franks doctrine
MA: Missing juvenile in BOLO was subject to community caretaking function
On a traffic stop, the juvenile was recognized from a BOLO as missing. That then involved the community caretaking function. Commonwealth v. Demos D., 2026 Mass. LEXIS 6 (Jan. 13, 2026). There was reasonable suspicion for stopping plaintiff where he … Continue reading
E.D.Okla.: Def’s high speed chase was PC
Defendant’s high speed chase was probable cause. “Defendant’s egregious eluding combined with his throwing an object from his vehicle combine to establish probable cause to search the Defendant’s vehicle under the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.” United … Continue reading
DE: Judge issuing track and trace order didn’t have to recuse from trial
The fact “the judge who presided over trial had signed a pen register or ‘track and trace’ warrant before [defendant’s] arrest” didn’t require recusal. The state court had already held issuing a search warrant didn’t require recusal either. Fayton v. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Late disclosed information provided Franks challenge
How one defendant made a Franks challenge to get a hearing out of late disclosed information. United States v. Gonzalez, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3229 (D. Mass. Jan. 8, 2026)*:
CA10: A search incident to arrest isn’t valid when there’s no arrest
A search incident to arrest isn’t valid when there’s no arrest. The law is clearly established, so no qualified immunity. Montgomery v. Cruz, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 161 (10th Cir. Jan. 6, 2026). The defense succeeded in a Franks challenge … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Investigative medical exams implicate 4A
“The Fourth Amendment is implicated when medical examinations are undertaken at the initiative of a state official for an investigatory purpose. See Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d 581, 606 (2d Cir. 1999) (holding that the Fourth Amendment applies to ‘searches … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Someone doesn’t have to be home to execute a SW
It isn’t a proper Fourth Amendment challenge for a warrant not to be executed because no one is home. Rodriguez-Ferreira v. Sweeney, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 560 (D.N.J. Jan. 5, 2026). Defense counsel objected to the search warrant twice on … Continue reading
UT: Inventory policy needs somehow to be in evidence to challenge scope of search
If you’re challenging whether the officer exceeded an inventory policy, it needs to be in evidence. Here there was only testimony about the written policy, and the court could rely on that. Here, the claim was that inventorying a backpack … Continue reading
CA5: ME’s alleged false autopsy didn’t state a Franks claim
A medical examiner’s alleged false autopsy report didn’t state a Franks violation because he wasn’t the affiant in any warrant. Dean v. Phatak, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 33645 (5th Cir. Dec. 23, 2025):
CA9: Taking too long to get SW for phone violated clearly established law
The officer here violated clearly established law by taking too long to apply for a warrant to search plaintiff’s cell phone. Plaintiff promptly sought its return, but that was denied because the officer hadn’t got a warrant yet. Langham v. … Continue reading
MN: GFE does not apply to after search changes in law that were obviously coming
“The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply to a warrantless vehicle search based solely on the smell of marijuana that occurred before we issued our opinion in State v. Torgerson, 995 N.W.2d 164 (Minn. 2023), which held … Continue reading
D.Minn.: No duty for officer to resolve traffic stop questions before safety concerns resolved
“All of these questions lasted fewer than thirty seconds–they did not ‘measurably extend’ the stop. Johnson, 555 U.S. at 333. Ali cites no law that suggests that officers must address the traffic infraction before they may ask questions related to … Continue reading
CA6: Reference to water emoji 💦with dual meaning not a Franks violation
“Swanagan did not make an adequate preliminary showing that Budde’s interpretation of the water emoji was intentionally or recklessly false, so the district court did not clearly err in finding the affidavit truthful. Swanagan asserts that he ‘provided dictionary support … Continue reading
CA6: Student not entitled to warning before school search
The search of this student was reasonable, and the student had no right to be warned before it was going to happen. Halasz v. Cass City Pub. Sch., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 33093 (6th Cir. Dec. 18, 2025). There was … Continue reading
NC: No standing in someone else’s cell phone pinged to find defendant
Defendant used someone else’s cell phone and officers pinged it to find him. He had no standing for the borrowed phone. After arrest, he admitted the shooting in a jail call. “Defendant’s temporary use of the phone does not automatically … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: A ruse arrest is legal in CA6
Police using a ruse to arrest defendant is legal in the Sixth Circuit. (Not necessarily in the Ninth, but we’re in the Sixth.) It also doesn’t “shock the conscious [sic, quoting a pleading].” United States v. Carmona, 2025 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: PC was shown for cell phone data for particular number and any number switched to, if provider knows it
Probable cause was shown for phone records for both the number sought and any number the provider knew that the owner had changed to, even without identifying it. And, good faith applied: “Therefore, even if the continuity provision within the … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Def had standing in sister’s car he bought for her she let him drive
Defendant bought his sister her vehicle and she permitted him to drive it. He had standing to contest the stop. The stop was justified and reasonable in scope. United States v. Tillery, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 235323 (E.D. Tenn. Oct. … Continue reading