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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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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)
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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: Franks doctrine
N.D.Ga.: Car not abandoned by fleeing def because a co-def stayed with it
A car is not abandoned by the defendant merely because, when he fled, a confederate stayed behind. United States v. Gibbs, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187572 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 2, 2018). The audio recording of the police-citizen interaction has enough, … Continue reading
D.Md.: Omitted information that supported PC belies the officer was attempting to mislead as to a mistake in the affidavit
The failure to include the date of uploading of child pornography images wasn’t known to the officer at the time the search warrant was obtained, so the officer did not mislead the magistrate issuing the warrant. The misstatement of the … Continue reading
D.Kan.: After a Franks hearing, PC exists despite omitted information
Defendant was under investigation for threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction. After the search, police found child pornography, too. He filed a Franks motion about omitted information and got a hearing. The court finds probable cause and no … Continue reading
CA11: Affiant’s not putting what he thought from CI was false didn’t violate Franks
The officer declined to put the CI’s inconsistent statements in that he thought were false. This didn’t violate Franks, and there was probable cause anyway. United States v. King, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 30122 (11th Cir. Oct. 25, 2018):
TX14: Two prior searches for blood constitutionally or statutorily didn’t need to be mentioned in affidavit for third
Defendant was in a car wreck that killed another at 1 am, New Years Day 2014. There were three blood draws: one for medical purposes at the hospital, one directed by the police at the hospital, and one after a … Continue reading
MA: Justification for no-knock shown by risk of destruction of evidence because def’s apartment on 3d floor with locked outside door
A no-knock entry to prevent destruction of evidence was justified by the fact defendant’s apartment was on the third floor and police had to navigate a locked first floor door before they got to his apartment. Commonwealth v. Silva, 2018 … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Franks requires attaching affidavit to the motion to suppress
Defendant’s Franks request for an evidentiary hearing without attaching the affidavit for the search warrant is denied without prejudice. The court has nothing to compare. United States v. Carswell, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165132 (N.D. Ind. Sep. 26, 2018). The … Continue reading
CA9: Police supervisor’s alleged after-the-fact acquiescence in an alleged illegal search isn’t a § 1983 claim
A police supervisor’s post-hoc alleged acquiescence that he didn’t participate in an alleged illegal search doesn’t state a claim against the supervisor. Hunt v. Davis, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 26265 (9th Cir. Sep. 17, 2018). The officers corroborated enough of … Continue reading
OH9: Probable hand-to-hand drug deal from car was RS for stop
Potential hand-to-hand drug deal in a car was reasonable suspicion for a stop. It’s what these officers were always looking for. [It may have ultimately had an innocent explanation, but it looked like it to them.] State v. Dunlap, 2018-Ohio-3658, … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Def succeeds in a Franks challenge
Defendant succeeds in a Franks challenge. Removing the offending portions leaves no probable cause. United States v. Kastis, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148480 (E.D. Cal. Aug. 31, 2018):*
MA: Even if some information in CSLI affidavit was incorrect or false, redacting it still leaves PC
The search warrant for defendant’s CSLI was based on probable cause. Defendant challenges parts of the information as wholly inadequate to show probable cause. Redacting that information, however, still leaves probable cause. Commonwealth v. Robertson, 2018 Mass. LEXIS 563 (Aug. … Continue reading
E.D.La.: The statements in the affidavit were exaggerations rather than outright falsehoods, but PC was there on the totality
“To the extent that the statements identified by Defendant are inaccurate, most are exaggerations of the truth. While the Government, and this Court, lament that the affidavit was written in terms of absolutes, the removal of the statements identified by … Continue reading
M.D.La.: The govt alleged the house was abandoned, and def had the burden to prove standing and failed
“The parties’ briefing and the testimony at the hearing further suggest that the house was abandoned and that any search occurred away from Defendant’s ‘residence of record’ or an ‘additional residence on Osceola Street.’ … Contrary to a suggestion in … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: This SW directed at a place and things, not just persons
“Defendant’s argument that 1335 Geyer Avenue was indeed his home, but that police did not know it was his home, thus fails. Additionally, ‘search warrants are directed, not at persons, but at property where there is probable cause to believe … Continue reading
CA5: Franks violation states 4A claim with no qualified immunity
Defendant stated a Fourth Amendment claim for false arrest by a false affidavit for arrest, and the statute of limitations started to run on defendant’s acquittal. A Franks violation generally defeats qualified immunity. Winfrey v. Rogers, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: A motion to suppress isn’t moot just because the govt says it won’t use the evidence in its case-in-chief; if it will to impeach, then the issue has to be resolved
Government’s agreeing it wouldn’t use the product of a search in its case in chief does not make it moot unless the government also says it won’t use it in impeachment. Then, it can only be used against the defendant … Continue reading
D.P.R.: The fact the police statements weren’t the same doesn’t mean there’s a Franks violation or no PC
The officer’s statement wasn’t inconsistent with the reports of others and didn’t support a Franks claim. It’s entirely possible that the reports of others were all true and merely reported different observations than the officers. Therefore, no Franks violation. United … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Franks challenge that SW general allegation about sex traffickers doesn’t apply to def isn’t false at this stage
Defendant is alleged to be involved in a sex trafficking operation that spanned nearly 20 years. His Franks motion is denied. One of the things he mentions was that he wasn’t involved with the Bloods in a long time, but … Continue reading
CA6: Franks violation overcomes qualified immunity in § 1983 case
In this § 1983 case, the officer provided false information in the affidavit for the search warrant that was critical to the finding of probable cause. Without that information, there was no probable cause. The district court’s finding that qualified … Continue reading
CA7 decides Franks IAC claim on merits: there is PC and the GFE applies; the issuing magistrate was not intentionally or recklessly misled
Defendant raised a Franks IAC claim, and the Seventh Circuit deals with the merits of the claim to determine that there was no Fourth Amendment violation, therefore no IAC. The district court concluded there was no probable cause but the … Continue reading