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Recent Posts
- 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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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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)
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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
M.D.La.: Year long seizure of a hard drive without getting a warrant was unreasonable
A computer tech was hired to transfer information from an old hard drive to a new computer in 2007, and he stumbled upon child pornography and called the FBI. They met, and he brought the hard drive. Defendant’s email address … Continue reading
GA: Lost original affidavit for SW may be proved by testimony
A lost original affidavit for a search warrant can still be proved by testimony that the warrant was otherwise validly issued. Thus, defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging it on appeal where the record was made on the lost … Continue reading
OR: Impoundment of defendant’s car in his own driveway was unreasonable
In an almost identical case, the Ninth Circuit previously held that impoundment of defendant’s car parked in his own driveway was unconstitutional. Using the community caretaking to seize defendant’s car from his driveway for safekeeping was unreasonable. State v. Gonzales, … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: ATF can investigate drug crimes and procure SWs
“Defendant argues the search warrant giving rise to the charges in the Indictment was defective because the ATF does not have authority to conduct state narcotics investigations.” The connection between guns and drugs is well known, and the ATF can … Continue reading
Grits for Breakfast: Texas’ mandatory blood draw statute on DWI under fire
Grits for Breakfast: Texas’ mandatory blood draw statute on DWI under fire: Texas’ warrantless blood draw statute has been challenged and in some cases declared unconstitutional by intermediate state appellate judges in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2013 McNeely … Continue reading
AK: Officer sticking foot in the door to keep it from closing crosses the threshold and is a Fourth Amendment entry
Officers went to a house looking for a probation absconder who had apparently disconnected his GPS. When they knocked, defendant opened the door, and the officer stuck his foot in the door. Perceiving defendant to be fidgety and nervous, they … Continue reading
TX4: Reverses self on remand from McNeely: warrant was required
On remand from SCOTUS after McNeely, the Texas Court of Appeals in San Antonio reverses itself and held that a warrant was required for defendant’s blood draw. Aviles v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 8508 (Tex. App. – San Antonio … Continue reading
CA7: Warrantless seizure of alleged contraband wasn’t covered yet by FTCA; GJ in session
The DEA’s warrantless seizure of the plaintiff’s fake incense products which the DEA considered contraband but wasn’t declared such until just after the seizure didn’t state a claim for separate relief yet for a seizure for forfeiture. The government apparently … Continue reading
NJ: No violation of “neutral and detached magistrate” requirement where issuing magistrate didn’t remember prior prosecution of one defendant when an ADA
The judge issuing the search warrant here had, over six years earlier, as an ADA prosecuted one of the eight defendants in this case. He didn’t remember the case. When it was brought to his attention, he recused from the … Continue reading
OH5: Traffic warrant did not authorize entry into home of third person to arrest
A traffic arrest warrant did not support entry into the premises of a third person where the police had less than a suspicion that the target was there. The entry led to finding evidence against the homeowner which is suppressed. … Continue reading
WaPo: Manassas City police release statement on teen ‘sexting’ case: Won’t seek warrant for picture of an erection
WaPo: Manassas City police release statement on teen ‘sexting’ case by Tom Jackman: In response to The Post’s story Wednesday about a felony sexting case in Prince William County, the Manassas City police released this statement shortly after 6 p.m. … Continue reading
WaPo: In ‘sexting’ case, police want to take photo of teen’s erect genitalia, his lawyer says
WaPo: In ‘sexting’ case, police want to take photo of teen’s erect genitalia, his lawyer says by Tom Jackman: Manassas City police and Prince William County prosecutors are taking a unique approach to collecting evidence in a “sexting” case involving … Continue reading
Law360: High Court Is Swinging Pendulum Back On 4th Amendment
Law360: High Court Is Swinging Pendulum Back On 4th Amendment Law360, New York (July 08, 2014, 10:44 AM ET) — Fourth Amendment law is anything but static. If one surveys the jurisprudential landscape over the last 50 years, there are … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Police merely entering a hospital room to talk is not a “search”
There was no Fourth Amendment violation from an officer coming into defendant’s hospital room to talk to him because it wasn’t a search. Even so, defendant consented to the officer’s presence. United States v. John, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86369 … Continue reading
sayanythingblog: Expert: John Doe raids raise ‘troubling’ Fourth Amendment questions
sayanythingblog: Expert: John Doe raids raise ‘troubling’ Fourth Amendment questions by M.D. Kittle: MADISON, Wis. – Troubling. That’s how one Fourth Amendment expert describes the manner in which search warrants were executed in a politically charged John Doe investigation into … Continue reading
AL: Entry into third party’s home without SW to arrest was invalid as to third party
The U.S. Marshals had an arrest warrant for Nolan, and they put out word on the street. A CI reported that Nolan was at defendant’s house playing video games, so they went there and entered to arrest him. The entry … Continue reading
OR: Judge who issued SW was former public defender who recognized def’s name was still “neutral and detached”
A former deputy public defender was now a judge. On his first day in office, he was presented with a search warrant affidavit that mentioned defendant’s name. The judge vaguely remembered the name from about five years earlier, but none … Continue reading