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- CA8: Admission of anonymous tip that led to stop violated Confrontation Clause
- CO: Anonymous report of student smoking pot in school justified backpack search
- CA6: CI’s lie to get into def’s house to video him making a drug deal with the CI didn’t violate 4A
- TN: Def lived in a van left wide open in a public area, but it didn’t belong to him, so no REP as to interior
- VI: Despite ubiquity of cell phones, nexus has to be shown to alleged crime
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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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
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"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: Warrant requirement
Slate: Google Says Proposed DoJ Warrant Tweaks Are “Monumental” Fourth Amendment Violation
Slate: Google Says Proposed DoJ Warrant Tweaks Are “Monumental” Fourth Amendment Violation by Lily Hay Newman: The Department of Justice has been working to revise a federal criminal procedure rule to make it easier for judges to issue search warrants … Continue reading
S.D.Ala.: Failure to include the incorporated affidavit in the SW as executed was fatal to this search
The motion to reconsider is denied. The search warrant was lacking the incorporated affidavit when it was executed, and that defined the place to be searched. The government cites no supporting case law that having the affidavit in hand, at … Continue reading
NY, Bronx Co.: Wiretap minimization requirements are founded on the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and of particularity
Wiretap minimization requirements are founded on the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and of particularity. This is the case against NYPD officers accused of ticket fixing. People v. Anthony, 2015 NY Slip Op 25003, 2015 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 44 … Continue reading
MS: No requirement that owner of property be named in a SW
Neither the Fourth Amendment nor the state constitution require that the owner of property be named in the search warrant. The factual dispute over whether a signed warrant was present at the search was found against the defendant, who also … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: CSLI under the 4A can be used to track people, not just things
The cell phone tracking order was issued by a state court judge and it complied with the Fourth Amendment. The fact it was an “order” and not a “warrant” is a meaningless argument. A warrant can be used to locate … Continue reading
CA10: Unsigned search warrant curable by testimony; not a fatal defect
The Fourth Amendment does not require a search warrant be physically “signed” to issue. This case litigated it in detail in a § 2255 post-conviction proceeding relying on Groh. [See note below.] United States v. Cruz, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
Denver Post: Colorado DUI case sent to U.S. Supreme Court, focuses on blood tests
Denver Post: Colorado DUI case sent to U.S. Supreme Court, focuses on blood tests by Jorden Steffen: Arapahoe County prosecutors have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by a state judge and the Colorado Supreme Court, which … Continue reading
ID applies McNeely and requires a warrant for DWI blood draws
McNeely requires a warrant for DWI BAC blood draws. State v. Halseth, 2014 Ida. LEXIS 313 (December 2, 2014). The EEOC sent emails about age discrimination to hundreds of plaintiff’s employees. The company sued the EEOC claiming, inter alia, a … Continue reading
The Recorder: Judge Limits Feds’ Email Search Request
The Recorder: Judge Limits Feds’ Email Search Request by Ross Todd: Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal said he wouldn’t approve an indefinite gag order as part of a search warrant for a Hotmail account.
TX: BAC testing not categorically subject to warrant exception; SW required here
After a few dozen appellate decisions on McNeely and Texas’s implied consent law, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals takes one on the state’s petition for discretionary review and holds “the warrantless, nonconsensual testing of a DWI suspect’s blood does … Continue reading
D.N.H.: Probable cause permits seizure of a cell phone and getting IMEI no. off back under Riley
Law enforcement officers with probable cause do not need a search warrant to seize a cell phone, such as in a search incident situation where they know that the phone was used to arrange drug deals, but they most probably … Continue reading
The Atlantic: How FBI Lies Can Damage Civil Society
The Atlantic: How FBI Lies Can Damage Civil Society by Conor Friedersdorf: The FBI lies a lot. Sometimes that’s fully justified. Brave agents risk their lives to infiltrate terrorist cells, organized crime, and child-pornography rings. Subterfuge is vital to these … Continue reading
IL implied consent statute not unconstitutional under McNeely
Illinois’s implied-consent statutory scheme did not unconstitutionally circumvent defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights by punishing him for refusing to take the chemical analysis by suspending his driver’s license and introducing his refusal against him at his criminal trial. A per se … Continue reading
OH3: There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in medical records; SW required
There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in medical records under Ferguson supported by McNeely. While statute may waive doctor-patient privilege, it does not waive the reasonable expectation of privacy. State v. Little, 2014-Ohio-4871, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 4743 (3d … Continue reading
WaPo: Magistrate issues arrest warrants for 17 years but is new to “probable cause”
WaPo: Magistrate issues arrest warrants for 17 years but is new to “probable cause” by Orin Kerr: Here’s a remarkable case from the Ohio Supreme Court, State v. Hoffman, involving an unconstitutional arrest warrant. The defendant was arrested for a … Continue reading
Idaho implied consent statute is not a per se exception to the warrant requirement under McNeely
The Idaho implied consent statute is not a per se exception to the warrant requirement under McNeely. State v. Wolff, 2014 Ida. LEXIS 286 (October 29, 2014):
TX8: That person signing affidavit for SW was different than one named at top didn’t matter–it’s an oath
The officer named as the affiant wasn’t the one who signed the affidavit for search warrant. That wasn’t material because was an oath by somebody. Patterson v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 11996 (Tex. App.–El Paso October 31, 2014). A … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Obvious scrivener’s error as to limit of time to execute warrant could be overlooked
A search warrant was issued for defendant’s house, and an obvious scrivener’s error at the time the warrant was issued was entered into the space providing for the latest time when the warrant should be executed. That error could be … Continue reading