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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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
Privacy Foundation
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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: Inventory
CA4: Search of def’s backpack and finding gun was inevitable because it would have been inventoried in any event
“The evidence presented to the district court supported a finding that the firearm inevitably would have been discovered during an inventory search of the plastic bag. Officers Lucy and DiPentima testified that it was standard procedure to inventory an arrestee’s … Continue reading
OH11: Failure to provide an inventory after a search is ministerial and not a fundamental right
“Even presuming no inventory was completed or provided to Thompson, however, this did not result in prejudice or provide any grounds for relief. It has been held that ‘the preparation and return of an inventory is ministerial’ and ‘does not … Continue reading
D.N.M.: No 4A requirement police call for someone to retrieve car to avoid inventory
The inventory of defendant’s car was reasonable and followed policy. “The problem with Defendant’s argument is that he advanced no legal authority that the Fourth Amendment requires police to execute an arrest warrant on a suspect in a way that … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def’s car’s impoundment wasn’t justified by community caretaking function or need for inventory
The impoundment of defendant’s car wasn’t justified by either the community caretaking function or need for inventory. Whether the vehicle was even involved in a crime was inconclusive at best. United States v. Trujillo, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201024 (D. … Continue reading
OH2: Def’s allegedly carrying a rifle in an apartment building parking lot, even if true, wasn’t RS
A phone call to the police said there was a man walking through an apartment building parking lot carrying a rifle, something that wasn’t a crime. Police responded and saw defendant. They approached him when he wasn’t carrying a rifle, … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Handgun hidden in a dog house wasn’t subject to search for exigency
Defendant’s handgun was hidden in a doghouse on the curtilage. The court distinguishes other cases allowing a search for a firearm, particularly one where a loaded shotgun was publicly put in the trunk of a car and the keys left … Continue reading
CO: Vehicle inventory fails where no showing of policy enabling it
The inventory of defendant’s car was not done according to any policy, and it is not justifiable under the automobile exception or as a protective search for weapons either. People v. Allen, 2019 CO 88, 2019 Colo. LEXIS 1077 (Oct. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Court doesn’t believe officer on inventory as a justification, but impoundment of the vehicle would have happened anyway
“Defendant David Arnold was arrested for and charged with possession of a firearm by a felon after the Detroit police found a stolen handgun in the glovebox of the car he was driving. The police stopped the car because the … Continue reading
MA: Traffic stop “morphed” into arrest for no DL, inventory, then automobile exception
Driving on a suspended license is an offense for which (1) search incident is valid, and (2) the driver can’t continue and the vehicle would be impounded and subject to a proper inventory. In this case, the inventory was not … Continue reading
OH1: State had burden to show inventory policy was followed and done in good faith
When the state relies on inventory to justify a search of a car, it has to put on proof that the inventory policy was followed and that it was done in good faith. State v. Beasley, 2019-Ohio-3936, 2019 Ohio App. … Continue reading
WA grants automatic standing to a car thief but finds inventory of the car reasonable
“We are asked to answer two questions under article I, section 7 of our state constitution: first, whether defendants have standing to challenge the scope of a warrantless inventory search of a vehicle when that vehicle is stolen and, second, … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: No 4A requirement a car left in a parking lot on def’s arrest couldn’t be towed and inventoried
The driver of the vehicle was a serial violator of the state statute on driving on a suspended license. When he was caught this time, the vehicle was on a parking lot and the officer elected to have it towed, … Continue reading
N.D.Okla.: Impoundment and inventory was non-pretextual and reasonable
The impoundment and inventory of defendant’s rented car was reasonable under all the circumstances at the time it happened, and it was factually justified and not pretextual. It would have been left in a high crime area on private property, … Continue reading
CA9: Failure to list a cell phone on the inventory sheet doesn’t void its seizure
Defendant’s cell phone was seized from his car when it was impounded after a high speed chase. The fact it was omitted from the inventory sheet does not make its seizure unreasonable. It was ultimately searched with a search warrant. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Police had no affirmative duty to allow def to call for help to remove car to avoid inventory
Police had no duty to let defendant call somebody to come and get his car rather than it be inventoried. “But WPD’s policy and practice plainly do not dictate that officers affirmatively inquire about the availability of a third-party driver. … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Inventory didn’t follow sufficiently standardized procedures and was pretextual to search
The tow policy of the police department was discretionary (“may tow”) and defendant hadn’t yet been arrested when the decision was made to tow without giving options. Therefore, the government didn’t meet its burden that the decision to tow was … Continue reading
CA11: Officer has discretion to let another take vehicle or impound it with inventory, and he can change his mind
Allowing defendant’s vehicle to be taken by another instead of impounding it was within the officer’s discretion. At first he said he would do that, then changed his mind. That doesn’t make the inventory unreasonable. United States v. Sibert, 2019 … Continue reading
IN: Failure to prove dept’l inventory policy fatal to inventory search; officer calling search one thing but DA not arguing it is waiver
The state didn’t support the departmental inventory policy at trial, and that was error. Also, what the officer calls a search (here “search incident”) the prosecutor didn’t, and that argument was waived for appeal. Smith v. State, 2019 Ind. App. … Continue reading