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- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
- E.D.Mich.: Michigan liquor control administrative searches here don’t comply with Burger/Patel
- Reason: Border Agents Searched His Phone 5 Times Without a Warrant. He’s Asking the Supreme Court To Put a Stop to It.
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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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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)
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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: Ineffective assistance
E.D.Tenn.: SW for a cell phone includes the SD card in it
A search warrant for a cell phone includes the SD card in it. United States v. Glatz, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114963 (E.D. Tenn. July 5, 2023). A jury question on probable cause to arrest remained, and that avoids qualified … Continue reading
DE: SW for “trace evidence” was particular; we know what that means
The search warrant might appear general, but it was limited by the things to be searched for. The reference to “trace evidence including but not limited to blood, hair, fibers, fluids, and fingerprints” did not make it unparticular. Trace evidence … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Undated controlled buys had to be in five weeks before SW, and that’s not stale
The multiple controlled buys were undated in the search warrant application, but the common sense reading was that they were in the five weeks before the warrant issued. That shows an ongoing drug operation, and it’s not stale. United States … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Once police executing a warrant on a home discover it’s multi-family, the search must end and a new SW be obtained
After the police entered the building and conducted a security sweep, they discovered only then it was actually a multi-occupant dwelling. There was no outward appearance there were multiple non-family occupants. The first entry finding a gun was valid. The … Continue reading
AZ: Confession obtained after Franks violation should have been suppressed, too
The trial court found a Franks violation from the officer overstating with reckless disregard the facts, and it suppressed the search. Then came defendant’s statements based on the false search warrant affidavit. The trial court did not suppress, but the … Continue reading
OH5, D.Minn.: Not calling additional witnesses at suppression hearing didn’t change outcome
There was reasonable suspicion for the stop here, and defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not calling another witness that wouldn’t have changed the outcome. State v. Ware, 2023-Ohio-1807 (5th Dist. May 30, 2023).* In a tax warrant case, defense counsel … Continue reading
OH10: Odor of MJ from car didn’t justify search of driver’s person
The odor of marijuana coming from a car and not a specific person in the car doesn’t justify search of defendant’s person. State v. Oliver, 2023-Ohio-1550, 2023 Ohio App. LEXIS 1545 (10th Dist. May 9, 2023). Defendant waived his search … Continue reading
MS: SW was for stolen property from a particular victim and clothing seen in video
The warrant here was particular enough. It didn’t just seek stolen property; it sought particular property stolen from the victim and clothing worn during the burglary caught on video. Williamson v. State, 2023 Miss. App. LEXIS 125 (Apr. 4, 2023). … Continue reading
CA3: Rule 41(g) order not appealable when property involved in criminal process
Denial of petitioner’s Rule 41(g) motion for return of property was not appealable when the property is tied up in the criminal process. It is not an exclusionary rule, and it remains available even if the government doesn’t plan on … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: 2255 claim of merely failing to investigate a search claim doesn’t state a post-conviction claim
2255 petition’s claim that defense counsel failed to investigate whether a motion to suppress should have been filed fails. There was a search warrant, and there’s no suggestion it was invalid. Fluid v. United States, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51173 … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Failure to cross-examination searching officers more wouldn’t change outcome
In a long super-detailed 2254 habeas, defendant loses on all issues. As to failure to cross-examine even more the searching officer about the details of execution of the search warrant, it was speculative that it would conceivably change the outcome. … Continue reading
CO: LEOs didn’t expand on private search
A private party found video of a sexual assault on defendant’s computer and provided it to law enforcement. A search warrant wasn’t needed for law enforcement to view that file. People v. Morse, 2023 COA 27, 2023 Colo. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
TX: Totality of circumstances applies to exigency on warrantless seizure of cell phone
“Rather than announcing a categorical rule that police may never seize personal property simply because a criminal suspect knows he is a suspect, the court of appeals should have analyzed under the totality of the circumstances whether law enforcement’s seizure … Continue reading
CA9: “Clearly established law” in one sentence
“Cardenas has not identified any case holding that police officers violated the Fourth Amendment by making an arrest under similar circumstances, and we are not aware of any such case.” Cardenas v. Saladen, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 5091 (9th Cir. … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Failure to cross-examine at trial on some contradictions from SW affidavit was not IAC
Defendant’s 2255 ineffective assistance of counsel claim in part challenged defense counsel’s failure to cross-examine over contradictions in a search warrant affidavit by the witness. The government doesn’t address this, and assuming it was defective performance, the court finds a … Continue reading
CA9: Denying owner access to an impounded car for 30 days is an unreasonable seizure
Denying access to one’s car for 30 days after impoundment without justification was an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Untalan v. Stanley, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 4070 (9th Cir. Feb. 22, 2023). CI information led to surveillance then two … Continue reading
AR: Search incident to sex offense produced microSD cards that could be seized
Defendant was arrested for a sex offense, and his search incident produced three microSD cards that fell to the ground. They were properly seized and then searched with a warrant finding child porn. Lewis v. State, 2023 Ark. 12, 2023 … Continue reading
AL: Effective assistance of counsel doesn’t require defense counsel to forecast changes in 4A law
Defense counsel moved to suppress BAC results, but not on Fourth Amendment grounds. The motion was heard and denied. Now defendant claims ineffective assistance for failing to make a Fourth Amendment claim, too. The court finds that the motion was … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: No 4A right to notice before a search occurs; state search law inapplicable in federal court
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment claim is that he was given no notice that his phones had been searched, citing Virginia law, which is irrelevant in a federal prosecution, even though state officials did all the searching. There’s no constitutional right to … Continue reading