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: Reasonable suspicion
GA: Defendant’s effort to distance himself from drugs led to no standing
Defendant’s effort to distance himself from drugs led to no standing. “Barlow testified that only his mother, stepfather, and brother lived at the Sherbrooke Way residence, and he denied currently living at the residence or having a bedroom there. Barlow … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: “Cell phones and firearms are generally considered the ‘tools of the trade’ of drug traffickers”
“Cell phones and firearms are generally considered the ‘tools of the trade’ of drug traffickers, which the involved detectives fully understood and conveyed to the magistrate judge. … United States v. Jones, Cr. 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54575 (E.D. Pa. … Continue reading
Cato: Police Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse (re: Heien v. North Carolina)
Cato: Police Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse (re: Hein v. North Carolina) by Ilya Shapiro: To execute any search or seizure, a police officer must reasonably suspect that a crime has been or is being committed based on … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Parole absconder hiding in hotel room of another had no standing
Defendant was a guest of a guest in a hotel room, and he was an absconder from supervision and had committed a new crime and was on the run. The question of guest standing is discussed at length, and there’s … Continue reading
KY: State gets to argue standing on appeal even though it didn’t raise it below
Although the state didn’t raise standing below, it gets to based on the theory of “affirming on any ground shown by the record.” The record here showed no standing in the defendant’s grandfather’s house where he was running a meth … Continue reading
OH9: Officer could inquire of car that obviously did not belong in the driveway where it was seen
An officer on patrol saw a car parked in a driveway that he knew didn’t belong. He ran the LPN and it was not registered to the owner, so he approached the driver and saw him drinking behind the wheel. … Continue reading
OH12: RS for DUI doesn’t support calling drug dog; new RS needed for that
Defendant was pulled over for having no rear bumper. Reasonable suspicion developed for DUI based on the smell of alcohol, but when the officer called for a drug dog, he needed separate reasonable suspicion for that. The first detention and … Continue reading
CA5: Arrest warrant authorized entry to arrest in defendant’s home
Defendant’s Franks challenge fails because the information omitted isn’t material at all to the outcome. Officers used an arrest warrant to gain entry and they reasonably believed she was there. After all, she answered the door. A protective sweep doesn’t … Continue reading
WI: Search of a backpack for sawed-off shotgun was based on exigency
Search of a backpack for a sawed-off shotgun was justified by exigent circumstances. The officer was already investigating when the report was received that there likely was such a weapon involved. Requiring a search warrant at that point was completely … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Corroboration of publicly known facts provided by CI here was enough
“The only facts that were independently corroborated by Detective Duquette were: (1) that Dixon lived at the Home, and (2) that he had previously been incarcerated in federal prison for selling illegal drugs and had been released in 2010.” “Here, … Continue reading
CA6: Def fit description of wanted bank robber and made furtive movement leading to frisk
After a bank robbery with shots fired, officers had a line on a suspect. With the picture from the surveillance video, they went to an apartment complex and encountered a man outside who fit the description of the robber including … Continue reading
NM: Stop for waving a gun permits search of trunk
Officers received a call of a person pointing a long gun from a car, and they found the car and stopped it. The stop permitted a search of the trunk as well under the automobile exception. State v. Leticia T., … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Failure to sign affidavit for SW after being sworn not a Fourth Amendment violation
The failure of the officer to sign the affidavit after he was sworn did not void the warrant. It actually was issued on “oath or affirmation.” United States v. Williamson, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77703 (D. Kan. March 18, 2014), … Continue reading
CA10: Not unreasonable to handcuff occupants during execution of SW for gun
In execution of a search warrant for a gun, it wasn’t unreasonable for the officers to handcuff people there for officer safety even through there was a suggestion that the gun had moved before the SW arrived. Wigley v. City … Continue reading
AR: Stop was without RS where it was to tell defendant his neighbors complained about him
Defendant’s stop was without any reasonable suspicion he had committed any kind of offense. The stop was to tell defendant that the neighbors were complaining about him. Dewitt v. State, 2014 Ark. App. 369 (June 4, 2014).* The use of … Continue reading