Archives
-
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
-
-
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
W.D.Tex.: Lack of an arrest warrant does not mean they didn’t have probable cause
Officers had probable cause to arrest defendant for child pornography before the search warrant was executed on his place. The lack of an arrest warrant does not mean they didn’t have probable cause. United States v. Ruiz, 2014 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: There was PC for a Facebook account SW
There was probable cause for a Facebook account search warrant for defendant’s account, and it was limited in time so it was not overbroad. Also, the good faith exception would apply. United States v. Lowry, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93257 … Continue reading
CA9: Not questioning search likely sound strategy where defense at trial was disassociation from the drugs and the place they were found
Defendant’s IAC claim on his search isn’t proper for direct appeal, and it should proceed in a 2255. “However, counsel may have had strategic reasons not to file a suppression motion to avoid having Birrueta testify. For example, testifying at … Continue reading
AK: Slightly changing search incident argument on appeal and including Gant was changing the issue
Defendant raised a search incident claim about his arrest: “(1) the toiletry bag was not “immediately associated” with his person, and because (2) the search of the bag was not sufficiently contemporaneous with his arrest.” On appeal, however, he raised … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: IAC overbroad search claim requires SW be attached or otherwise in the record
In a 2255 IAC, defendant’s claim that defense counsel was ineffective for not challenging the search warrant of his hotel room as overbroad fails without attaching the warrant so the court can see. It’s not otherwise in the record. United … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Def lacked standing in any event, so whether defense counsel was ineffective for not calling him as witness at suppression hearing is moot
2255 petitioner had no standing, even on his own allegations, so whether defense counsel was ineffective for not calling him to testify to standing was moot. “Because the Court finds that Campbell’s underlying claim to have had a reasonable expectation … Continue reading
CA9: Stone v. Powell bar and the full and fair litigation requirement survived adoption of the AEDPA
Stone v. Powell bar and the full and fair litigation requirement survived adoption of the habeas limitations of AEDPA. Newman v. Wengler, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 10094 (9th Cir. June 16, 2015). [This may be the only case to ever … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Charged, but yet unproved, conduct can appear in a search warrant affidavit
There were four GPS warrants on the defendant’s car, owned by his wife, June-October 2014, renewed in state court every 30 days. The court can’t conclude they were started on stale information since it referred to an ongoing drug operation. … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Search of trash container on driveway where public was impliedly invited was not violation of curtilage
The court agrees that an entry into the curtilage to search a trash container would implicate Jardines, but it finds here that the entry onto the front part of the defendant’s property to the trash container was still the area … Continue reading
CA9: Denial of a suppression hearing is reviewed for abuse of discretion; no contested facts, no abuse
Denial of a suppression hearing is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Here, there were no contested facts, and the district court found that the use of a flashlight to illuminate defendant’s car seeing a gun in plain view was reasonable. … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: In rejecting a search argument, defense counsel isn’t obligated to explain all the legal theories to the client to then discount them
In explaining a guilty plea, it isn’t necessary for counsel to explain to the client all the legal theories for and against a search (among other issues) before discarding them. Counsel was not ineffective. Chrzaszcz v. United States, 2014 U.S. … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Nexus shown simply by drug dealer going home after the sale
The affidavit here was short, but not “bare bones.” Also, nexus is shown because defendant left the drug deal and went home. United States v. Hooks, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 183573 (D.S.C. April 21, 2014). 2255 petitioner did not show … Continue reading
IL: IAC where defendant would have won nonappealed search issue
Defense counsel was ineffective in not appealing a valid motion to suppress that had been denied by the trial court but, on the merits, would have been reversed. Going to the merits of the search and seizure claim, defendant would … Continue reading
NC: Open container in plain view permitted a search incident for more evidence
Defendant’s stop led to plain view of an open container. That justified a search incident for more because, after all, the console could hold beer cans, even if the officer could have merely issued a citation. State v. Fizovic, 2015 … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Defendant not entitled to new counsel where appointed counsel wouldn’t file a frivolous motion to suppress
Defendant’s motion for appointment of new counsel because defense counsel refused to file a motion to suppress is denied. The motion was patently frivolous. Defendant was detained by Home Depot employees for shoplifting, and they removed a gun from him. … Continue reading