Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CA3: Ptf was arrested on an apparent but recalled warrant, then officers confirmed it and let him go; the arrest was reasonable
- N.D.Ohio: Failure to serve state SW within state mandated time not 4A violation
- NY1: Gunshot through floor from apartment above was exigency
- Reason: Most Civil Forfeiture Victims Never See the Inside of a Courtroom
- CA8: Admission of anonymous tip that led to stop violated Confrontation Clause
-
-
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: Protective sweep
CA11: RS supported a protective sweep for def after a police foot chase and officers having reason to believe he could have doubled back to the hotel room from where he started
Defendant discovered he was under surveillance at his motel and he fled. Officers came back to his room in 10 minutes, and seeing his car entered his room thinking he had doubled back. He did not abandon his privacy interest … Continue reading
AZ: Protective sweep that produced a bullet casing was unjustified (but harmless)
Defendant has standing to challenge the search of a mobile home he had rented even though he had not fully moved in, and the trial court erred in concluding otherwise. The state’s argument the entry into the mobile home required … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Def’s furtive movement justified extending the stop
Defendant’s reaching out of sight during a traffic stop was a furtive movement justifying extending the stop and seeing what he was doing. United States v. Edwards, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185987 (E.D. Mich. Oct. 28, 2019).* The protective sweep … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Protective sweep was properly limited and cell phones in plain view could be seized if it was readily apparent they were evidence
The officers’ protective sweep was justified by the facts, and it was constrained to areas large enough to hide a person. In plain view were two cell phones that were properly seized and then later searched with a warrant. United … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Arrest outside motel room still permitted protective sweep where there was RS someone else was there
Defendant was arrested outside his motel room, but that did not bar a protective sweep of the motel room where the officers had reason to believe others could be present. Baldwin v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 175253 (N.D. … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Apt. number not required since specific location was given
The specific apartment number wasn’t given, but the physical and geographic location was, and that’s sufficient. “This description provided sufficient particularity for officers to locate the unit to be searched. Accordingly, the Court finds that the affidavit’s description of the … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: 4A doesn’t require closer questioning of one claiming a serious emergency that proved to be false
Officers responded to a 911 call that six shotgun toting men broke into a house. They talked to the caller at the scene. The front door was open. They knocked and announced and entered. Doing a protective sweep of the … Continue reading
OH2: Road rage: Panicked driver’s pointing out car that pointed gun justified stop under Navarette and Long permitted protective search for weapon
“Based upon the informant’s face-to-face, contemporaneous, and panicked report of a startling event (the waving of a gun in the vehicle directly behind Underwood’s cruiser), we conclude that the informant’s tip was reliable. This reliability allowed Underwood ‘to credit the … Continue reading
CA9: When defendant is being “detained” and not under arrest, search incident doesn’t apply
The inventory of defendant’s vehicle violated LVMPD’s limited inventory policy, and it is found unreasonable. The government’s search incident alternative wasn’t presented to the trial court. Even assuming it was not waived, this was during a “detention” on less than … Continue reading
GA: Police were reasonable in stopping def because he looked like the guy wanted in an arrest warrant although it turned out he wasn’t the guy
Officers could approach defendant to talk to him because he generally fit the description and location of a person named in an arrest warrant. It turned out that he wasn’t the guy, but it doesn’t make it unreasonable to stop … Continue reading
D.Me.: Arrest outside master bedroom of known drug house justified protective sweep of bedroom
Defendant arrested 8′ from master bedroom in a house known for drug activity justified a protective sweep of the bedroom. United States v. Pemberton, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146615 (D. Me. May 17, 2019),* adopted, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145167 … Continue reading
CA7: Dog alert on apparent residual odor isn’t a false positive under Harris
The fact a drug dog alerts on residual odor doesn’t mean there was a false positive. “Our review of the record and the order denying suppression satisfies us the judge conducted the proper Harris evaluation and committed no error in … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: Delay in initiating protective sweep was reasonable because officer was waiting for backup
The officer’s warrantless entry into defendant’s house was reasonable based on exigency of the potential for destruction of drugs. Once he was in the basement on a protective sweep, he found a firearm. Defendant argues his delay in the basement … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Court describes a protective sweep as a search incident to arrest and leaves confusion
Defendant was arrested on his porch, but one could see the bedroom from there. Officers did not have a search warrant. He requested an officer to turn off the stove. A protective sweep of the bedroom was valid. “Deputy Thomas … Continue reading
FL2: State doesn’t justify entry into motel room on any exigency after suspect’s arrest; standing raised too late
The court declines to remand for more evidence of standing when the state sat on the claim. The state’s protective sweep argument and associated search incident fails for its failure to show exigency for any entry or officer safety. The … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Protective sweep during execution of arrest warrant was justified; four others inside
Officers came in with an arrest warrant, and the further protective sweep was justified because others were found inside. That protective sweep produced a sawed off shotgun. United States v. Ford, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107424 (N.D. Ind. June 27, … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Protective sweep of nearby shed on def’s arrest in wooded area valid
Defendant was arrested in an open wooded area, and the protective sweep of a shed near him was valid. United States v. Flanagan, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100047 (N.D. Ala. May 29, 2019), adopted, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99228 (N.D. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Failure to leave a copy of the SW does not require suppression
Failure to leave a copy of the search warrant does not require suppression. There is no prejudice. United States v. Robinson, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99902 (E.D. Mich. June 14, 2019). The CI was creditable because of admissions against interest … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Protective sweep can occur after an arrest at the threshold
A protective sweep can occur after an arrest at the threshold even though defendant’s girlfriend said nobody else was there. United States v. Villanueva, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89450 (D. S.D. May 29, 2019). The defendant being armed when the … Continue reading
SC: Three psuedo buys in one day was RS, and the smell of ammonia at his house justified a protective sweep
Defendant’s three purchases of pseudoephedrine in one day was reasonable suspicion that he had a meth lab to support a protective sweep because, when the dwelling door was opened, the smell of ammonia was overwhelming. State v. Kotowski, 2019 S.C. … Continue reading