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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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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
D.Nev.: No reasonable mistake of law where only case on point says no RS for stop
A Nevada statute proscribes things “upon” the windshield. Air fresheners hanging from the mirror don’t violate the statute. The only Ninth Circuit case involves an almost identical city code provision, and that court held that something hanging from the mirror … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Having def roll up sleeves to photograph his tattoos at time of arrest was reasonable
Officers investigating child pornography found an outstanding arrest warrant for defendant, so they went and executed it first and did a search incident of the person. They also got a search warrant. They seized a cell phone and got a … Continue reading
GA: Cell phone search for evidence of “planning or premeditation to commit murder” or participation was not overbroad
Defendant was accused of being called to come and aid cousins in a fight, and a murder occurred. The police found five cell phones at the scene and seized them. A search warrant was issued for the cell phones for … Continue reading
D.Me.: Car with windows covered by curtains wasn’t the same as a home
2255 petitioner can’t show that he’d prevail on the merits of the search issues that counsel waived by not filing a motion to suppress. His car with windows covered by curtains wasn’t the same as a home, and it was … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Facially deficient motion to suppress is rejected on the merits
Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence and statements is deficient in what it alleges, so the court goes with the government’s version and denies the motion. United States v. Aleem, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182475 (N.D.N.Y. April 30, 2014). Officers had … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: The collective knowledge rule applies to traffic stops on reasonable suspicion
The collective knowledge rule applies to traffic stops on reasonable suspicion. Questioning while defendant is rummaging around for this papers does not extend the stop. United States v. Saldana, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23850 (W.D.Tex. February 27, 2015). The argument … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: No IAC where def counsel didn’t argue nonbinding authority that likely wouldn’t be followed in this circuit
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not arguing a case from out of the circuit that would likely not be followed in this circuit. “Had counsel argued under precedent from other circuits that charges of child molestation did not justify … Continue reading
D.Ore.: Second cell phone search warrant 29 mo after first was not unreasonable
The first search warrant for defendant’s phones was valid, and the government could have still used the phones as evidence. But, 29 months later, the government sought a second search warrant to look at the phone again, and found more … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: There was reasonable suspicion for a slight delay of an Express Mail package
“In what has become a large line of cases, a number of federal circuits have found that a combination of similar factors created reasonable suspicion to seize a package. The Court has no problem finding reasonable suspicion based solely on … Continue reading
CA6: A rare § 2254 reversal: defense counsel ineffective for not pursuing a clearly winnable Fourth Amendment claim; state court findings unreasonable under AEDPA
In a rare § 2254 reversal, the Sixth Circuit finds defense counsel ineffective for not pursuing a clearly winnable Fourth Amendment claim, and the state court findings were unreasonable under AEDPA. Grumbley v. Burt, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 1429 (6th … Continue reading
D.Neb.: IP address associated with CP enough to search computers at address where IP used
“In the Eighth Circuit, for the purposes of determining whether probable cause exists to search a computer [for child pornography], an IP address assigned to a specific user at the time illegal internet activity associated with that IP address occurs … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Emergency lights alone doesn’t prove a “stop”; defendant was already parked
Defendant was already parked, so he wasn’t stopped, and the officer’s use of the emergency lights on his police car are not determinative of whether there was a “stop.” There was no display of weapons, touching of defendant, no coercive … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Def’s efforts to distance self from drugs at suppression hearing costs him standing
The defendant’s statements to the USMJ that he was neither a resident nor a guest at the house searched denies him standing to contest the search there. United States v. Griffin, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3695 (E.D. Tenn. January 13, … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Defense counsel was completely unaware of Simmons rule and didn’t pursue suppression motion to keep def off stand
Defense counsel’s being unaware that suppression hearing testimony can’t generally be used at trial (the Simmons (1968) rule) was a failure of performance under Strickland and was not strategy. Defendant, however, would have lost the motion on the merits anyway, … Continue reading
CA11: Computer tech’s seeing CP on computer authorized warrant for computer and their copies
Defendant took his computer to a computer tech to have the data transferred to a new computer. They found child pornography, reported it to the police and copied it. The police seized the computer and got a search warrant for … Continue reading
ID: In a search and seizure IAC claim, if def would lose on merits of search, he fails both prongs of Strickland
In an IAC claim involving a search claim, the trial court can determine the merits of the search claim. If the defendant would lose, he then loses both prongs of the Strickland standard. Remanded for making findings. Padilla v. State, … Continue reading
OH11: Defendant’s admitting she consented to search at trial precluded IAC claim for not challenging consent
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not challenging defendant’s consent when she testified at trial that she consented to the search. State v. Driscol, 2014-Ohio-5608, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 5436 (11th Dist. December 22, 2014). Defendant’s prior DUI convictions weren’t … Continue reading