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
E.D.Ark.: City’s court order made clean up and removal of ptf’s property reasonable
Plaintiff was told for years to clean up his property from unsightly construction materials and equipment. After many failed efforts to get him to do so, the city obtained a court order to remove the property. It removed nine trailerloads … Continue reading
CA10: Def’s actions were completely consistent with innocence and did not add up to RS
The officer did not have reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop or its continuation. Defendant’s actions were consistent with somebody who had nothing to hide, and the district court’s findings got no presumption of correctness. Denial of the suppression motion reversed. … Continue reading
CA7: Younger and immunity bar ptf’s § 1983 claim against search
Plaintiff’s claims that the parties conspired to falsify evidence of this search against him, aside from being fantastical, was barred by Younger and qualified or absolute immunity for all the parties. Shaw v. Cnty. of Milwaukee, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Visual surveillance of a car in a parking lot is not a search; no REP in the license plate
Visual surveillance of plaintiff’s car in a parking lot is not a search. “Mr. Porter alleges that Investigator Tucci committed an unreasonable search by conducting surveillance of his vehicle in a parking lot and by looking up his plate and … Continue reading
TX: Affidavit incorporated in SW had specific description and saves SW from overbreadth argument
“The issue before us is whether the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is satisfied if a warrant describes the place to be searched as a fraternity house as a whole without specifying a suspect’s actual room in the house, … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: To overcome Stone bar, pet’r has to proffer something about being denied “full and fair opportunity” to litigate 4A claim
To overcome Stone in a 2254, the petitioner has to proffer that he was denied a full and fair opportunity to litigate his Fourth Amendment claim. Failure to do so is fatal to claim. Bartels v. Arizona, 2022 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Def doesn’t show a right to see whether the SW in his case was validly issued; that’s the lawyer’s call; and he pled guilty
“Petitioner alleges that Attorney Greene failed to present critical documents for Petitioner’s review prior to his guilty plea. Petitioner contends that he should have been shown ‘evidence of there being a valid search warrant,’ ‘computer chat logs where the government … Continue reading
CA2: Swearing to arrest warrant at direction of a prosecutor does not confer prosecutorial immunity
“Long-standing precedent makes clear that swearing to an arrest warrant affidavit and executing an arrest are traditional police functions, and performing such functions at the direction of a prosecutor does not transform them into prosecutorial acts protected by absolute immunity.” … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Non-answers to questions added to RS
There was reasonable suspicion here from the officer’s observations and defendant’s non-answers to questions. United States v. Dunn, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41610 (W.D.Ky. Mar. 9, 2022).* Not filing a motion to suppress here was not ineffective assistance. Defendant was … Continue reading
NY Kings: 911 call 6 dogs in Manhattan apt were uncared for not exigency for warrantless entry
“Upon a review of the record, we find that the evidence adduced at the hearing did not establish the existence of facts sufficient to provide the police officer with reasonable grounds to believe that an emergency existed which required the … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Officers can enter a bathroom for a protective sweep
The protective sweep of the bathroom was justified and defendant’s claim the officers didn’t need to enter the bathroom to look is rejected. United States v. Perez, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26275 (N.D.Ga. Feb. 15, 2022). Plaintiff inmate’s claim that … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Tearing down plaintiff’s building was a seizure under Soldal
Tearing down plaintiff’s building was a seizure under Soldal. The record thus far precludes summary judgment. Dvortsova v. City of Philadelphia, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23868 (E.D.Pa. Feb. 9, 2022). Defendant’s 2255 claim that defense counsel was ineffective for not … Continue reading
NY2: Def stated IAC claim that defense counsel never looked at SW materials
Defendant stated a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel that defense counsel never obtained the search warrant materials to even investigate. Reversed to have the state produce it. People v. Tindley, 2022 NY Slip Op 00886, 2022 N.Y. App. Div. … Continue reading
NC: Objection to seized evidence without a motion to suppress is waiver
Defendant objected at trial to admission of evidence, but it was not a timely motion to suppress. It is waived. State v. Draughon, 2022-NCCOA-58, 2022 N.C. App. LEXIS 53 (Feb. 1, 2022). Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not moving to … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: 6 day delay in getting SW for seized cell phones not unreasonable
There was a six day delay between seizure of six cell phones and issuance of a search warrant for them. This was reasonable under CA11 precedent. Moreover, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Norwood, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
MO: Prosecutor can’t be sued for making a file decision based on the search of ptf’s computer
Plaintiff sued a prosecutor for various things including the “privacy tort ‘of unreasonable intrusion into private facts.’” His computer was searched under a warrant and potential privileged material was obtained. Plaintiff’s own complaint says the prosecutor was given the information … Continue reading
D.Colo.: No REP in the “people’s house” on 1/6 because ptf wasn’t there
Plaintiff is an attorney pro se alleging, inter alia, a Fourth Amendment violation in Colorado against a member of the House of Representatives for the January 6th insurrection. He claims a Fourth Amendment in the “people’s house” when he doesn’t … Continue reading
CA7: Record supported finding that stop was not unreasonably extended
Whether a traffic stop was unreasonably extended for a drug dog to arrive is reviewed for clear error. The stop here was for overtinting, and the officer processed a warning by entering the information into the patrol car’s computer. He … Continue reading
DE: Def counsel not ineffective for not forecasting Jones GPS case
“Because the Court will not find trial counsel ineffective for failing to ‘effectively’ raise an issue of first impression [on GPS placement], and because the Court believes that even if he had done so effectively, the issue would not have … Continue reading
CA1: Def preserved Rodriguez argument without citing it
Defendant preserved his Rodriguez argument by stating that the stop was continued without reasonable suspicion but not citing the case. Nevertheless, he loses on the merits. United States v. Reyes, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 1417 (1st Cir. Jan. 19, 2022). … Continue reading