Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
- S.D.W.Va.: “Shocking” nature of immigration raid on a Mexican restaurant at lunchtime didn’t warrant suppression
-
Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
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)
-
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
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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)
-
“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: Qualified immunity
CA9: Oral amendment to SW to add a place to be searched never incorporated violates 4A, but GFE here because no controlling authority
Officers had a search warrant for plaintiff’s hotel room searching for evidence of a drug operation. They called the issuing judge for permission to search plaintiff’s home under the same affidavit, which was orally granted, but the warrant was not … Continue reading
DDC: Delay in return of seized cell phone not necessarily unreasonable; Rule 41(g) provides procedural due process
DC Metro police seized numerous cell phones from BLM protestors, and they sued to recover them. The DC police policy wasn’t followed, but only by negligence, and that doesn’t state a claim against it. Rule 41(g) applies despite lack of … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Threats against LEOs involved in execution of SW requires affidavit remain sealed
Public threats against FBI agents involved in the search requires leaving the affidavit for the search warrant under seal. In re Warrant, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150388 (S.D. Fla. Aug. 22, 2022). Defendant’s traffic stop was factually based and not … Continue reading
CA6: No QI for 3 strip searches a day for inmate in segregation
Plaintiff’s prison warden denied qualified immunity for ordering three strip searches a day on plaintiff when he was in segregation. Fugate v. Erdos, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 23208 (6th Cir. Aug. 18, 2022). “The defendant officers were attempting to locate … Continue reading
CA7: Shooting a man using a running chainsaw as an apparent weapon was subject to QI
Shooting a man advancing on an officer with a running chainsaw who was ignoring police commands to stop was subject to qualified immunity. Esker v. Lutz, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 23033 (7th Cir. Aug. 18, 2022).* The defendant officers’ contention … Continue reading
NY2: Search of wallet during a frisk unreasonable
Officers violated the Fourth Amendment during defendant’s frisk when they removed his wallet from his pocket and searched it. People v. Lewis, 2022 NY Slip Op 04920, 2022 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4797 (2d Dept. Aug. 10, 2022). The officer … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: No QI for violation of knock-and-announce; fact question for trial
Defendant officers’ motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity for violating the knock-and-announce rule is denied. The law is well settled for 25 years and there are no blanket exceptions. The rest is fact bound. Murphy v. Grochowski, 2022 U.S. … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: 4A does not require medical personnel participate in a prison strip search
The Fourth Amendment does not require medical personnel participate in a prison strip search. Graham v. Wright, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 136026 (E.D. Cal. Aug. 1, 2022). Defendant’s stop for late night knocking on the door of a house where … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: A § 1983 case over pre-Kraft video surveillance dismissed for QI
In another court ordered video surveillance massage parlor case, this time a § 1983 case, the surveillance order was pre-Kraft where the 4th DCA suppressed surveillance there, so the defendants get qualified immunity. Taig v. Currey, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
Volokh Conspiracy: Qualifying Qualified Immunity: The Cases in Which the Fair Notice Rationale Clearly Supports …
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: Qualifying Qualified Immunity: The Cases in Which the Fair Notice Rationale Clearly Supports … (“and clearly does not support qualified immunity.”) by Nathan Chapman
IA: Ex-wife’s false claims of sex abuse of children was still PC for state action
Plaintiff sued the State of Iowa over a DHS sex abuse investigation that ordered him out of the house, but was later proved unfounded. It was discovered that his ex-wife’s claim was manufactured to get him out of the house. … Continue reading
D.Ore.: Officer may be cross-examined at trial over contents of SW affidavit if relevant
“The Court denies the Government’s motion to prohibit Defendant from cross-examining IRS Special Agent Jason Nix on his sworn statements contained in a search warrant application. See ECF 100 at 13-15. Defendant may cross examine Special Agent Nix regarding any … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Younger doctrine bars suit against state AG investigation’s subpoena
Plaintiffs’ claims that various constitutional rights were infringed by the state Attorney General’s alleged politically motivated investigation are barred by the Younger doctrine. As to the Fourth Amendment claim, it was directed at subpoenas. Trump v. James, 2022 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA10: Pepper spraying a subdued misdemeanant was unreasonable; no QI
“Addressing the two prongs of qualified immunity below, we conclude that the use of pepper spray violated Mr. Wilkins’s clearly established right to be free from the additional use of force after he was effectively subdued. The officers were not … Continue reading
10A Center: Is Qualified Immunity “Necessary?”
10A Center: Is Qualified Immunity “Necessary?” by Mike Maharrey (“Qualified immunity is a legal defense that allows government officials to escape civil lawsuits when they are accused of violating constitutional rights. Opponents say it lets bad government actors escape accountability. … Continue reading
CA2: Video surveillance in Thailand legal under Thai law admissible here
The DEA with Thai officers installed a camera and listening device in a dwelling in Phuket, Thailand. Defendant was a short-time guest there and he was recorded. Apparently the installation and monitoring was legal under Thai law. The capture of … Continue reading
CA11: QI for officers sued in Florida spa video surveillance case
Plaintiff’s § 1983 case over the video surveillance in the East Sea Spa case (see here) fails on qualified immunity for lack of clearly established law. Thompson v. Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 10266 (11th Cir. … Continue reading
MT: Magistrate’s jurisdiction for SW is over place it could be found, not crime
The geographic limitation on magistrates issuing search warrants applies to the location of the evidence sought, not the location of the crime. State v. Grussing, 2022 MT 76, 2022 Mont. LEXIS 319 (Apr. 12, 2022). The telecommunication records here could … Continue reading
CA7: Younger and immunity bar ptf’s § 1983 claim against search
Plaintiff’s claims that the parties conspired to falsify evidence of this search against him, aside from being fantastical, was barred by Younger and qualified or absolute immunity for all the parties. Shaw v. Cnty. of Milwaukee, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA7: Def’s detention during protective sweep looking for another was unreasonable
Defendant’s detention in an apartment building during a protective sweep for a fugitive that clearly wasn’t him was unreasonable. The district court’s denial of the motion to suppress is reversed. United States v. Segoviano, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 8771 (7th … Continue reading