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- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
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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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www.fd.org
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.)
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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
W.D.Va.: No REP in boxes kept in borrowed storage shed
Defendant’s mother allowed him to store some boxes in her storage shed, and he didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the shed. When she consented to a search of the shed, that permitted the police to search closed … Continue reading
TX14: Inventory of def’s vehicle proper even though his mother was called to pick it up
Despite the fact the officer called defendant’s mother about picking up his vehicle after his DUI arrest and gave her 15 minutes to get there, the officer could inventory the vehicle while waiting in case she didn’t show rather than … Continue reading
GA: Mistaken belief def was on probation made search invalid; no GFE in GA, either; suppressed
The officer mistakenly believed that defendant was still on probation, but he wasn’t. The probation search was unlawful, and the good faith exception doesn’t apply in Georgia. State v. New, 2015 Ga. App. LEXIS 115 (March 12, 2015). The officer … Continue reading
IA: That it was “strange” a car was parked with lights on on side of road wasn’t RS for a stop
Defendant’s car was parked on the side of the road as the officer passed from the other direction. He thought it strange, so he turned around and came back. After he pulled up behind the car, off the pavement, the … Continue reading
CA11: Illegal vehicle search cured by inevitable inventory; owner of car was dead
Defendant was driving on a suspended license the truck of a man known to be dead. The search of the truck was clearly illegal, but inevitable discovery applied because it would have been impounded and inventoried. United States v. Johnson, … Continue reading
NC: While watching a house just before SW execution in a drug case, transfer of boxes between cars was RS for visitor’s car
Reasonable suspicion here came from the fact that defendant transferred boxes from the vehicle of a target of a search warrant to his own while officers were watching, warrant in hand. His driving wasn’t evasive, and he likely didn’t even … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: USMJ erroneously puts burden on def to show inventory invalid
Defendant was seen drunk in the grass behind a liquor store and then crawling to his car by a citizen informant who called the police. An officer arrived and arrested defendant for DUI. The vehicle was properly towed because it … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Search of def’s car essentially was based on curiosity; no warrant exception applies; suppressed
The search of defendant’s car couldn’t be justified as a search incident or an inventory, and the testimony is woefully inadequate to support either. Essentially, the officer testified, and acted at the scene like, he could search the car with … 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.La.: No constitutional duty to give def opportunity to remove stuff before impoundment
Defendant’s van was legitimately impounded although he was not arrested. It was not constitutionally required to give him the opportunity to remove things from the van first. United States v. Gullo, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140142 (E.D. La. October 2, … Continue reading
D.N.D.: Failure to record conversation with USMJ that address needed correction not ground to suppress
Officers discovered that the address in the search warrant was incorrect before the warrant issued, and the USMJ corrected it on the warrant. The failure to record that conversation while a Rule 41 violation and not a Fourth Amendment violation … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Dirty license plate justified stop even though it was called in during stop
Defendant’s stop for having a dirty obscured license plate was justified even though the officer was able to call it in when parked right behind him. The butt of a shotgun was visible in the vehicle and defendant was a … Continue reading