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- IN: Overdose call led to EMS telling police what they saw and that led to SW
- NY1: A mental health defense waives REP in the medical records about it
- MA: When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, def gets to reopen the suppression issue
- RI: Challenge to one sentence of 8-page cell phone records SW fails; totality has to be considered
- WaPo: Subpoena bill would curtail secretive tool used to target government critics
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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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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: Inventory
D.C.Cir.: Applications for orders under SCA and ECPA presumptively public judicial records
Applications for orders under the Stored Communications Act and Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 are judicial records subject to public view under the common law. Pen register records are presumptively sealed under Title III. In the Matter of the … Continue reading
CA5: Bitcoin transactions are like third-party bank records with no REP
Bitcoin transactions are akin to third-party bank records and are not governed by Carpenter. There is no added reasonable expectation of privacy in them. United States v. Gratkowski, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 20501 (5th Cir. June 30, 2020). The vehicle … Continue reading
WI: Impoundment of car because def was merely ticketed for not having a valid license was unreasonable
Defendant was stopped for speeding, and he was found without a license. The police didn’t arrest him, just ticketed him. Impounding his car and inventorying it was unreasonable under the circumstances, and this was not a reasonable exercise of the … Continue reading
CA9: Not precisely following CHP inventory policy doesn’t make it unreasonable
Not precisely following CHP policy in filing out the inventory papers didn’t per se make the inventory search unreasonable. United States v. Magdirila, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 19477 (9th Cir. June 23, 2020). The community caretaking function of police permitted … Continue reading
CA8: Lack of inventory record not error where criminal seizure occurred as a result
Defendant’s motorcycle was towed when he was stopped for fumbling as a novice rider without insurance or a motorcycle endorsement. He declined consent to search compartments on the bike, but the officer elected the tow under SOP of the Springfield … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Holding def’s computer for 6 hrs to get SW after he revoked consent was reasonable
Defendant at first consented to the government holding and then searching his cell phone and laptop. The next day he revoked his consent on the computer. The government continued to hold the laptop to preserve evidence and got a search … Continue reading
TX14: Vehicle coming back as “no record” in database check is RS for stop
The fact defendant’s vehicle came back as “no record” from the Texas law enforcement databases was reason for a stop as unlicensed. After the valid stop, defendant consented. Villarreal v. State, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 3180 (Tex. App. – Houston … Continue reading
CA7: When PC for a SW is the issue, the affidavit is the sole thing to be reviewed on appeal, not the govt’s summary for district court
The government provided the district court a three page summary of the 17 page affidavit for search warrant. Defendant argues that the summary was more inculpatory than the affidavit itself. This is beyond the standard of review because it’s the … Continue reading
VA: Purported inventory was clearly an investigative search and suppressed
The purported inventory here (shown on video) was an investigative search, and the officer made no effort to comply with the inventory policy, noting nothing and just rummaging around. The paperwork also showed it was “incident to arrest.” Inevitable discovery … Continue reading
CA6: Asking about drugs in car during normal incidents of stop not unreasonable under Rodriguez
Defendant’s admission he possessed marijuana in his car was within the normal incidents of the traffic stop, Therefore, the officer could extend the stop under Rodriguez. United States v. Lott, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 10237 (6th Cir. Apr. 1, 2020). … Continue reading
PA: No right to leave vehicle parked on another’s property to avoid inventory
Defendant showed standing by showing that he bought the car he was driving and put it in his sister’s name, and he was the only person who drove it. The inventory was proper because there was no right to leave … Continue reading
CA6 subsumes PC into the GFE, reading it out of the 4A
“Govea’s brief stop at his home—immediately before driving to the scene of a controlled buy and immediately after driving to his home from the home of the seller in the controlled buy, with the seller as a passenger—connected the drug … Continue reading
OH5: Search was valid as inventory and AE
The vehicle search was valid as an inventory. When a weapon was found in the console, it was valid under the automobile exception. State v. Fawcett, 2020-Ohio-1004, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 925 (5th Dist. Mar. 12, 2020). The county’s insurance … Continue reading
OH2: On inventory of car owned by another, the police have no duty to call the owner
This inventory for driving another’s car without a license was reasonable. It followed policy, and there was no duty to call the owner to retrieve it to avoid the inventory. State v. Allen, 2020-Ohio-947, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 868 (2d … Continue reading
OR: Mere passenger in vehicle can remove personal belongings before inventory
A passenger in a vehicle to be inventoried after a stop is entitled to notice to retrieve her personal belongings before it happens. Only this is consistent with the purpose of the inventory requirement. Other states are in accord, and … Continue reading
MA: Purported inventory of cell phone was investigative and unreasonable
Defendant was arrested on suspicion of murder, and he had a cell phone in his pocket that he was using, his younger brother’s. The seizure of the phone was proper, but the purported inventory of the phone was not because … Continue reading
NE: Inventory wasn’t pretext for investigation; body cam video showed how it was done, and written policy could be testified to
Defendant’s vehicle was lawfully impounded, as it would have been in any event, and then it was inventoried. The state’s failure to put the inventory policy into evidence was not fatal because there was testimony about it. The inventory search … Continue reading