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- Reason: Homeland Security Is Monitoring Activists Building Anti-Flock Tech
- W.D.Pa.: Def can’t repackage a losing 4A standing claim into a due process claim
- GA: No case says SW required to ask for cell phone password
- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
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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)
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: Stop and frisk
OH2: Jaywalking supports a stop but not a frisk
Jaywalking supports a stop but not a frisk. State v. Millerton, 2015-Ohio-34, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 31 (2d Dist. January 9, 2015). Probable cause cuts off a state malicious prosecution and § 1983 action. Henderson v. City of Euclid, 2015-Ohio-15, … Continue reading
Think Progress: If You Thought Stop-And-Frisk Was Bad, You Should Know About Jump-Outs
Think Progress: If You Thought Stop-And-Frisk Was Bad, You Should Know About Jump-Outs by Nicole Flatow: What Hadieh described is what many Washington, D.C. residents call a jump-out, so named because of the element of shock and surprise when multiple … Continue reading
NYTimes: Activists Wield Search Data to Challenge and Change Police Policy
NYTimes: Activists Wield Search Data to Challenge and Change Police Policy by Richard Oppel, Jr.: The use of public data on stop and search is an alternative tactic as communities who say they are unfairly targeted seek to rewrite their … Continue reading
CA5: Since court upheld warrantless GPS before Jones, no 2255 relief
The Fifth Circuit upheld GPS tracking without a warrant prior to Jones, so defendant wasn’t entitled to 2255 relief under Davis good faith. (The government also argued that Stone v. Powell applied, which would be true, but the court didn’t … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: 1 am robbery report by three men was enough to stop first three men seen in vicinity
The stopping officer had a radio report of a recent robbery at 12:54 a.m. by three black males, with no further description. In the vicinity of the robbery, a high crime area, the officer encountered three men about 1 a.m. … Continue reading
MYTimes: Concerns in Criminal Justice System as New York City Eases Marijuana Policy
MYTimes: Concerns in Criminal Justice System as New York City Eases Marijuana Policy by Al Baker: Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office promising to reform the Police Department and repair relations with black and Latino communities, on Monday unveiled … Continue reading
IL: 5-7 minute delay before dog sniff wasn’t unreasonable
The court of appeals thinks that the officer having the driver close the windows and turn on the heater for a dog sniff is a search, but the state supreme court disagrees, and the court is bound by it. Also, … Continue reading
NYTimes Editorial: No Progress on Marijuana Arrests
NYTimes Editorial: No Progress on Marijuana Arrests: The de Blasio administration needs to really do something about the targeting of young black and Latino men.
GA: Police directive to a man to show his hands was not a seizure
A police directive to a man coming from between two buildings to show his hands was not a seizure. Defendant immediately fled and abandoned items as he ran. State v. Walker, 2014 Ga. LEXIS 805 (October 20, 2014), rev’g 323 … Continue reading
WSJ: Police Stops Erode Support From New York Residents [Well, duh]
WSJ: Police Stops Erode Support From New York Residents [Well, duh] by Pervaiz Shallwani: A rare, large-scale police department survey of New York City residents found that the more times a person is stopped by an officer, their favorable view … Continue reading
NYLJ: Circuit Denies Request for New Stop-and-Frisk Panel
NYLJ: Circuit Denies Request for New Stop-and-Frisk Panel by Mark Hamblett: Over the objection of plaintiffs’ lawyers in New York City’s stop-and-frisk litigation, circuit judges Jose Cabranes, Barrington Parker and John Walker-the panel who had blocked Southern District Judge Shira … Continue reading
VI: Matching description of robber and near the scene with money sticking out of pocket was reasonable suspicion
There was reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop of defendant when the officers knew that suspects in a robbery and shooting were still at large, likely on foot, and presumably armed, when defendant matched the description given by a citizen … Continue reading
TX9: Officer’s getting SW for black box first showed he could get SW for blood too; suppressed
The officer had the time and wherewithal to get an immediate search warrant for the defendant’s vehicle’s “black box” so he also had time to get one for defendant’s blood. State v. Anderson, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 11151 (Tex. App. … Continue reading
CA2: Admission of removability obviates exclusionary rule claim
While egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment may be excludable in removal proceedings, a concession of removability that is an act of free will is an independent source for removal. Vanegas-Ramirez v. Holder, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 18351 (2d Cir. … Continue reading
MO: “I need to talk to you” is a request not a command
Defendant was not seized by officer who, based on an anonymous tip that defendant was armed, stopped near defendant and walked toward him saying “I need to talk to you.” Defendant backpadeled and reached for his waistband. The officer drew … Continue reading
D.Utah: Defendant was clearly “seized” at the police station; couldn’t even go to bathroom without escort
Defendant was transported to the police station in the caged back of a patrol car and the police had his ID. He was kept incommunicado, denied food and water, and escorted to the bathroom. He was seized, and it was … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: A police officer walking toward you is not necessarily a seizure
Defendant was not seized when a police officer parked in front of him without turning on toplights and walked back. Then defendant fled. United States v. Cameron, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122726 (S.D. Fla. September 3, 2014):
OH6: Reaching only for glove compartment not a “furtive gesture”
Only reaching toward the glove compartment is not a “furtive gesture.” The police secured defendant in the back of a police car and later searched the glove compartment, and it was not a lawful protective frisk of the car under … Continue reading