Archives
-
Recent Posts
- 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.
-
-
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: Ineffective assistance
D.Me.: DEA could subpoena records investigating robbery of a marijuana dispensary
The DEA’s administrative subpoenas over records of the suspect over the alleged robbery of a marijuana dispensary were lawful exercises of power. Carpenter does not apply to mere phone records. United States v. Candelario, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199195 (D. … Continue reading
D.D.C.: In motion to withdraw plea, waived motion to suppress was arguable and IAC
Here, failure to file a motion to suppress on the obtaining defendant’s passcode for his cell phone was ineffective assistance of counsel. At this point, it was debatable, and it should have been raised. The government had the phones, and … Continue reading
CA6: Search of building next door to def’s building wasn’t reason to suppress def’s search
Officers with a search warrant for 8537 Old Rutledge Pike, Knox County, Tennessee also searched what they believed was an outbuilding at 8533 with a power cord running between them with no indication it was different property. At worst, this … Continue reading
FL2: Def counsel not ineffective where search evidence not objected to had no apparent prejudice to case
Defense counsel was ineffective in not moving to suppress one piece of evidence, but defendant can’t show he was prejudiced by it on the case as a whole. Szewczyk v. State, 2022 Fla. App. LEXIS 7180 (Fla. 2d DCA Oct. … Continue reading
OH: Exclusionary rule does not apply to statutory violations, here a parole search
Defendant signed a consent to parole search form, but the statute says it has to be on reasonable grounds. Here, even if the statute was violated, the exclusionary rule applies to constitutional violations, not statutory ones. State v. Campbell, 2022-Ohio-3626, … Continue reading
OH3: An expert witness is not required on the staleness of CP
There is no requirement of an expert in child pornography investigation to be an affiant to provide information about lack of staleness. Also, this was raised for the first time on appeal. State v. Benedict, 2022-Ohio-3600, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Eviction of unruly hotel guest is loss of REP in room as soon as decision is made, even without statute authorizing it
Eviction of an unruly guest from a motel or hotel results in a loss of the renter’s reasonable expectation of privacy even if there is no statute governing it. Thus, the proprietor can hand over the keys to the police … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Court has no jurisdiction to interfere with a laptop search initiated in another district
“The Court will not interfere with the Government’s review of the laptop pursuant to a search warrant obtained from a different Court — except to require the Government to submit a status update no later than October 28, 2022. As … Continue reading
GA: Officers with an arrest warrant can enter the backyard, too
Officers with an arrest warrant for defendant at his place were permitted to enter the backyard too, where evidence was seen and seized. Jones v. State, 2022 Ga. LEXIS 256 (Sep. 20, 2022). Not mentioning in the affidavit for search … Continue reading
TN: No IAC: strategic choice to distance def from premises
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging the search of the premises. The defense at trial was that defendant was merely a guest who didn’t have control of the stuff found there. To link defendant more to the premises was … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Question of fact remains on whether PC dissipated before second handcuffing
“We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment on the false arrest claims for two reasons. First, there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether probable cause for the simple assault charge dissipated before Lin was … Continue reading
CA8: Pre-Jardines dog sniff at apt door saved by GFE
Pre-Jardines dog sniff at the door of an apartment was valid when it happened, so it is saved by the good faith exception under Davis. United States v. Perez, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 22977 (8th Cir. Aug. 18, 2022). “In … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Air freshener in a non-smoking rental car factor in RS
“[T]he air freshener in a non-smoking rental car was an early and legitimate basis for suspicion to be aroused. In general, the use of air fresheners is a recognized factor contributing to reasonable suspicion.” United States v. Hawari-Rasulullah, 2022 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Police delay in responding to 911 call in part belied exigency
There no longer was exigency, in part here from the police delay in responding to 911 call, and what was observed was innocuous. No exigency on the totality. Cotten v. Miller, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139360 (D. Minn. Aug. 5, … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: A SW for those suspected of sending in drug-laced fake legal papers
For defense lawyers wondering about the increase in searches of legal mail, this case involved a search warrant of the house of someone suspected to sending in drug laced fake legal papers into federal prisons. Barker v. United States, 2022 … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Small closed container in a gun case was properly searched incident to arrest
Officers entered the home on an arrest warrant and consent. Inside, they saw a gun case. A search of a small closed container in the gun case was reasonable incident to arrest. If it was in a dresser drawer or … Continue reading
TX finally approves of anticipatory warrants
Texas high court finally approves of anticipatory warrants. Parker v. State, 2022 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 470 (July 27, 2022). On his motion for reconsideration, defendant’s Franks challenge still fails. There’s probable cause without the challenged information. “Courts long have … Continue reading
CA8: Vehicle inventory after arrest on outstanding warrant was reasonable
Defendant was arrested by tribal and federal officers on an outstanding warrant. The inventory search of his vehicle thereafter followed policy and was reasonable. United States v. Blacksmith, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 20084 (8th Cir. July 21, 2022).* “Accordingly, considering … Continue reading