September 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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Recent Posts
- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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)
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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: Emergency / exigency
D.N.M.: Both protective sweep and emergency aid justifications fail for lack of objective facts somebody else was there
Where there are no articulable facts somebody else might be present in the house, the protective sweep doctrine can’t be relied on. Likewise with the emergency aid doctrine. Here there was a 911 hang up call, but the critical fact … Continue reading
DE: CI reported arrest warrant for def so he was arrested; no warrant, however, so search incident was invalid
A CI told the police that defendant had a warrant for his arrest. Without checking, the police arrested. There was no warrant, and the search incident to arrest is void. State v. Rodriguez, 2016 Del. Super. LEXIS 642 (Dec. 21, … Continue reading
OH11: Uncorroborated anonymous call about suicide threat brought police to house; entry unjustified
Defendant was arrested for obstructing because he told officers to come back with a warrant after they showed up at his house at midnight to check on defendant’s son. The police received an anonymous call that defendant’s son had a … Continue reading
CA10: USDA officers committing a break-in without exigency to conduct an inspection violated 4A
USDA inspectors breaking into plaintiff’s wildlife preserve to check on animals that the previous day the preserve said would go to the veterinarian the next day stated a Fourth Amendment claim under Bivens. At the time of the entry, the … Continue reading
CA9 (en banc): Where exigency for CPS worker to take child wasn’t really clear at time, she gets qualified immunity
At the time of this seizure of an infant from the parents in 2008, it was clearly established that child protection workers could not remove children from the parents without a warrant or exigency, but not something like these facts … Continue reading
ND: Telephone call from ID’d caller about a shooting in a house was exigency for entry
A telephone call from an alleged shooting victim’s brother about the shooting was objectively reasonable for exigency when corroborated with the fact that the victim wasn’t immediately found when officers arrived. State v. Karna, 2016 ND 232, 2016 N.D. LEXIS … Continue reading
NC: Hot pursuit into def’s house fleeing from a misd arrest was valid
Defendant was stopped in front of his own house for driving on a suspended license because of a DWI. The officer confirmed this before attempting an arrest. Defendant refused to submit to arrest and ran in his house. The officers … Continue reading
OR: Any exigency of def’s expressed suicidal thoughts had passed by the time officers searched her room
The trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress because the search of defendant’s bedroom did not fall within the emergency aid exception to warrant requirement in the state constitution. First, defendant was sitting outside the house when officers … Continue reading
CA6: Domestic violence call with potentially disturbed person inside justified warrantless entry
Officers responding to a domestic disturbance call were told by the victim outside that the person inside was belligerent and potentially violent and clearly disturbed. The entry into the home to arrest was reasonable, balancing the sanctity of the home … Continue reading
CA2: Child prostitution exigency for warrantless cell phone ping
Defendant’s phone was pinged at the request of law enforcement to find him after they developed strong reason to believe he took a 16 year old girl from Maryland to NYC to work her as a prostitute. This type of … Continue reading
NY Co.Ct.: Animal in “distress” justified entry into side yard from which marijuana plant could be seen in back yard
911 received an animal control call, and the officer went to defendant’s house and in the side yard were dogs that had no water but food and the yard was full of dog feces. The dogs were barking and acted … Continue reading
WI: Def refused to stop for officer who saw brake light out then def weaving; hot pursuit into garage was reasonable
Defendant refused to stop for a police officer attempting his stop for driving with defective brake lights and then weaving over the fog line and then fleeing arrest. Defendant went home and into his garage. The officer’s entry into the … Continue reading
SD: Exigent circumstances justified warrantless entry into def’s apartment in case there was an injured victim inside
Exigent circumstances supported the warrantless entry into defendant’s apartment. A witness told the police he’d been asked to move a body and he did move a heavy suitcase, big enough to hold the body of a woman. He didn’t know … Continue reading
UT: Roommates had apparent authority to consent to search of a room they seldom entered, but they could, and that’s the point
The state had two justifications for the entry. First, the other occupants had the ability to consent to entry into the room even though they didn’t regularly go there. Second, blood on the floor showed exigency. Met v. State, 2016 … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Hearing on wire CI OD’ing inside was exigency for police entry
Officers sent in a wired CI to do a heroin deal, and it was apparent listening to the wire that the CI overdosed inside. The emergency aid exception applied to the police entry. United States v. Belser, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
FL2: Fireman’s plain view of contraband was valid, but then there was a search that wasn’t
Contraband in plain view seen by firemen in defendant’s garage was lawfully seized. Guns and cash weren’t in plain view, and they were seen after a re-sweep of the house with the police, so they weren’t lawfully seized. Young v. … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Warrantless entry because of unjustified fear of destruction of heroin inside voided entry
Police entered defendant’s hotel room without a warrant because there was heroin inside and they claimed they feared destruction of evidence. Instead, however, the occupant was expecting a buyer to come back and the officers heard nothing from inside the … Continue reading
TN: Def’s children were missing after he was arrested for shooting his wife, so entry into house was based on exigency
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging the warrantless entry into defendant’s home. He was apprehended for shootings including shooting his wife, and their children were unaccounted for. The entry was valid based on exigency. Therefore, no IAC. Jordan v. … Continue reading
CADC: Bomb squad’s search hours later was not exigent and no QI
A top to bottom search of plaintiff’s home by the D.C. bomb squad hours into a “situation” at his home (actually based on a mistake) wasn’t remotely justified by exigent circumstances. Moreover, qualified immunity doesn’t apply (2-1 on this issue) … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Mere possibility of destruction of evidence in a house under surveillance isn’t exigency; more required
Officers surveilled defendant’s house for several hours, and finally they entered. The mere possibility of destruction of evidence isn’t exigency. Here, however, other officers and an AUSA were in the process of working on a search warrant, and that had … Continue reading