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Recent Posts
- M.D.Fla.: Unidentified pills in driver’s lap may have been RS but it wasn’t PC for arrest
- D.C.Cir.: It was reasonable for officers to conclude that evidence or instrumentalities of the crime would be found in the car used in a robbery
- CA7: Officer’s warrantless view of CSAM flagged by hash value was not unreasonable
- 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
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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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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)
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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
VT: Officers would walk up lighted walkway to front door
It was reasonable for the officer to conclude that a lighted walkway to an entrance was the normal entrance to the home. Therefore, the officer didn’t violate the curtilage. The Fourth Amendment and state constitution are not absolute bars to … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: No IAC from not challenging a search of some drugs where it wouldn’t even change def’s Sentencing Guideline range
Defendant’s post-conviction petition is denied. He argued that defense counsel was ineffective for not challenging the search of his duffle bag during the search of a house by consent when he was an overnight guest. The merits don’t even have … Continue reading
S.D.Iowa: Cell phone in halfway house in violation of rules subject to supervised release search condition
Improper possession of a cell phone in a halfway house made the phone subject to search and seizure under the “parole exception” of Knights. Defendant also had a search condition on him, and signs at the halfway house warned of … Continue reading
CA3: USM had PC to believe decedent at home to enter to arrest despite his mother’s denials
Despite decedent’s mother’s apparent denial decedent was in the house, U.S. Marshals entered with an arrest warrant for him and probable cause to believe he was there. He died from a gunshot to the head, but the only evidence available … Continue reading
TN: Where cell phone contents was minimal evidence in case, it can’t be IAC to not challenge it, even if it would otherwise prevail
Even if defense counsel was ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress the search of his cell phone, which was admittedly potentially by consent, the quality of the state’s proof at the trial was such that it had no … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Illegal search claim not cognizable in 2255
First, defendant’s illegal search claim isn’t cognizable under 2255 and Stone v. Powell. “Second, by entering a non-conditional plea of guilty to the child pornography charge, Adkins waived his Fourth Amendment claims.” “Third, Adkins’ plea agreement contained an express appeal … Continue reading
OR: Def’s touching pocket then officer seeing a knife was RS
The roadside conversation with defendant was not coercive. “The trial court found credible Haugen’s testimony that defendant was cooperative and engaged in easygoing conversation at this point.” She kept touching her pocket, and, once she moved, a knife was observed, … Continue reading
NC: Nervousness and having associated with a known drug dealer was not RS
Nervousness and having associated with a known drug dealer was not reasonable suspicion for continuing a stop. State v. Bedient, 2016 N.C. App. LEXIS 506 (May 3, 2016). Defense counsel’s affidavit in his 2255 showed that defendant didn’t want to … Continue reading
DE: No standing, no IAC for not moving to suppress
Defense counsel didn’t file an affidavit in this IAC case, so the court presumes that failure to file a motion to suppress was objectively unreasonable. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t have succeeded because defendant didn’t have standing to challenge the search. State … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Strickland’s deference to counsel’s decisions applies to appellate counsel [didn’t we all assume that anyway? Not CA6]
The Strickland “doubly deferential” standard of trial counsel’s failure to challenge a search issue because it would not prevail applies to appellate counsel, too. Woods v. Etherton, 15-723 (U.S. April 4, 2016):
CA11: Putting a backpack in trunk and distancing self from it and then giving false name was abandonment
The search of defendant’s backpack was supported by two rationales: Lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy and automobile exception. As to the former, “Even if Rivera did have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the district court found that Rivera … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Def had a reasonable expectation of privacy in iPad even though family and housekeeper had password
Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his iPad that was in his house despite the fact that others in the home, including the housekeeper, had the password. The housekeeper saw likely child pornography and told the police, and … Continue reading
CA1: Def’s answer to book-in as to employment that he was “a drug dealer” was admissible at trial
The CI said defendant had a gun and crack. Surveilling the defendant, officers noticed him reaching for his waistband, indicating he was likely armed. The stop and frisk was based on reasonable suspicion from the surveillance corroborating the gun. At … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Burden on motion to reconsider high because it leads to endless litigation; even so, def would lose on merits [just to avoid an IAC claim]
Defendant doesn’t show “new evidence, no change of law, and nothing the Court overlooked in denying the prior motion for suppression.” On the off chance that this could lead to a potential ineffectiveness challenge against former defense counsel, the court … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: Police received a tip of sex trafficking a minor; talking to the minor on the phone was PC
In a search of a hotel room and arrest for sex trafficking of a minor, officers talked to the minor by telephone and that was sufficient to provide probable cause without much need for corroboration. Here, there was a tip … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Franks challenge fails: negligent at worst and not material
Defendant’s Franks challenge fails because the misstatements in the affidavit were not material to the finding of probable cause. There were inaccuracies, but they were negligent at best and don’t rise to the level of culpability required for a Franks … Continue reading
MA: If arrest invalid, inventory based on it is too
Defendant’s arrest was invalid, so the inventory of his car was invalid. Commonwealth v. Williams, 2016 Mass. Super. LEXIS 19 (Wooster Feb. 18, 2016). The protective sweep here was invalid, but that did not require suppression of the search. Excising … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Woman def spent last night with didn’t have apparent authority to consent to search room
Defendant stayed with his aunt. He spent the night with a woman in his bedroom. It wasn’t reasonable to conclude that the woman he spent the night with had common authority over the room to consent. United States v. Jackson, … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Losing one’s cell phone at the scene of the crime is a loss of any reasonable expectation of privacy in it
A defendant who loses his cell phone at the scene of a crime has abandoned it by not safeguarding his privacy. This was 2009, and, besides, Riley doesn’t apply to abandoned phones. United States v. Quashie, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading