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- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
- 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
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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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
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
D.Kan.: Appellate counsel’s declining to appeal “including but not limited to” in the search warrant was not IAC
Appellate counsel’s declining to appeal the use of the phrase “including but not limited to” in the search warrant was not unreasonable because, as defendant admits, it does not per se lead to unreasonable searches. United States v. Ransom, 2018 … Continue reading
D.N.M.: GFE applies to CA10’s Ackerman that NCMEC is not a private searcher
In United States v. Ackerman, 831 F.3d 1292 (10th Cir. 2016), the Tenth Circuit held that NCMEC was not a mere private actor when it opened emails. Defendant’s search was 2012, and the court applies the good faith exception. At … Continue reading
NY2: Defense counsel not ineffective for not challenging cell phone search that apparently would lose
“Counsel’s failure to challenge the [cell phone] search warrant can be explained as a legitimate trial strategy because the application for the warrant was supported by probable cause, and the warrant was not unconstitutionally overbroad, despite a technical defect on … Continue reading
D.Nev.: When the govt says it won’t use the product of the search at trial, the motion to suppress is moot, yet def still argues it
The government responded to the initial motion to suppress by saying it wouldn’t use the evidence obtained in the search. The court held the motion was then moot. Defendant pro se then claimed that meant that the officer must have … Continue reading
PA: Trial court’s deciding to suppress based on an argument not made by def was error
Trial court’s deciding to suppress based on an argument not made by defendant was error. Commonwealth v. Jones, 2018 PA Super 208, 2018 Pa. Super. LEXIS 815 (July 17, 2018). Defendant argues in post-conviction proceedings against the trial court’s ruling … Continue reading
NY3: Neutral and detached magistrate claim has to be preserved for appeal
Defendant’s claim that the issuing magistrate was not neutral and detached was not preserved for appellate review. And, in any event, it lacks merit because there was plenty of probable cause. People v. Schaefer, 2018 NY Slip Op 05235, 2018 … Continue reading
OH11: Arrest warrant and knowing def home authorized entry to arrest
Officers had an arrest warrant for the defendant and they knew he was home. That was justification to enter. State v. Weaver, 2018-Ohio-2675, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 2898 (11th Dist. July 9, 2018). Defendant doesn’t allege any facts that his … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Realtime cell phone tracking SW issued with PC
The USPS developed probable cause that defendant was shipping drugs by mail with his own mini mailing service, creating his own mailing labels and having acquired plenty of USPS envelopes and postage to do it. When another suspicious package came … Continue reading
D.Md.: Credibility question shown on whether def counsel failed to call material witness at suppression hearing; hearing ordered
Petitioner alleged enough to get a hearing on his 2255 that defense counsel didn’t call a material witness at the suppression hearing that would have created a credibility dispute with the officers as to the nature of the entry. Defense … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Unaccounted for gun and likely presence of another inside was exigency for entry to look for it
Defendant was arrested outside his house, and a firearm expected to be on him was not found during his search incident. There was expected to be another person in the house, and that, coupled with the unaccounted for gun, was … Continue reading
CA2: Nonmaterial error of fact in Title III application and SW for house didn’t merit Franks hearing
Nonmaterial error in inclusion of an erroneous fact in a wiretap application and search request for house didn’t require a Franks hearing. United States v. Osborne, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 17142 (2d Cir. June 25, 2018).* Defendant’s post-conviction claim defense … Continue reading
FL5: Error to deny without a hearing a facially sufficient motion for return of property
Defendant’s motion for return of property was facially sufficient for a hearing, and the circuit court erred in denying it without a hearing. Peterson v. State, 2018 Fla. App. LEXIS 8861 (Fla. 5th DCA June 22, 2018). Defense counsel wasn’t … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: IAC claim has to allege facts and law that the unfiled motion to suppress would have been granted
Defendant claims in his 2255 that defense counsel was ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress a search but does not even allege the grounds for it or that he would have had standing, and it appears he didn’t. … Continue reading
CA2: A material witness seized and never presented to a judge stated a claim; and no QI
Plaintiff was held without a hearing as an alleged material witness, but never presented to a court. The district court granted qualified immunity, and the court of appeals reversed. Her rights were clearly established that she was entitled to be … Continue reading
D.Utah: Def told his friend that police failed to seize something they were looking for in the search of his house, and that justified an obstruction enhancement under USSG 3C1.1
“The Presentence Reported noted that, after his arrest, Petitioner called an individual who was living at his home. Petitioner instructed this person to get rid of additional evidence that police had not found during the execution of the search warrant. … Continue reading
GA: Controlled buy by CI corroborates CI and is PC in itself
“‘Under the common sense approach to search warrants, a controlled buy strongly corroborates the reliability of the informant and shows a fair probability that the contraband would be found.’… Indeed, ‘even if the informant had no known credibility, the controlled … Continue reading
MI: Inability to meet plain error standard on a 4A claim doesn’t preclude an IAC claim for it
The fact defendant on appeal couldn’t satisfy the plain error standard for a search and seizure claim doesn’t mean that he can’t show ineffective assistance of counsel on the same claim. An IAC claim requires a more developed record. People … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Claim of “gross ineffective assistance of counsel” doesn’t overcome rights waiver in plea agreement
Defendant’s allegation of “gross ineffective assistance of counsel” for not properly litigating his motion to suppress doesn’t overcome the collateral rights waiver in the plea agreement. United States v. Kofalt, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96560 (W.D. Pa. June 8, 2018):