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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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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: Qualified immunity
CA10: QI applies to suit by driver and his child in car over police shooting driver
Several officers attempted to stop plaintiff at 3:50 am, and he finally stopped. One officer got in front of the car with a shotgun, and the car moved forward. That officer fired two shots from a shotgun at the driver, … Continue reading
CA1: No curtilage in def’s apt building yard
Defendant’s curtilage to an apartment building wasn’t violated by police entry through an unlocked back gate to get to the front door. (That apparently was a common way in.) Defendant came to the door and let them in, and then … Continue reading
CA10: Handcuffing and jailing an inebriated man as “incapacitated” violated the 4A and no QI
Plaintiff showed up at a concert at the Xfinity Center in Boston inebriated, but not so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. Security separated him from the incoming line into the hands of the defendant, an off-duty officer … Continue reading
CA4: No QI for arrest w/o PC and pft held for 80 days; lack of PC was obvious
Plaintiff was held for 80 days on an arrest utterly without probable cause, and the officer has no qualified immunity. Smith v. Munday, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 1975 (4th Cir. Feb. 3, 2017):
CA5: Ptf loses on his civil Franks claim because of a lack of materiality to PC
The affidavit for arrest warrant failed to include information that would undermine the credibility of the police informant, but the court finds that the omission was not material and there was other information that supported probable cause. Therefore, the officer … Continue reading
Cert.granted: District of Columbia v. Wesby on qualified immunity
Cert.granted: District of Columbia v. Wesby, 15-1485 (Jan. 19, 2017). Issues: (1) Whether police officers who found late-night partiers inside a vacant home belonging to someone else had probable cause to arrest the partiers for trespassing under the Fourth Amendment, … Continue reading
CA11: Arguable probable cause entitles the officer to qualified immunity, here for a mental health seizure
Arguable probable cause entitles the officer to qualified immunity, here for a mental health seizure. May v. City of Nahunta, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 20501 (11th Cir. Nov. 15, 2016), same result on rehearing, May v. City of Nahunta, 2017 … Continue reading
New law review article: Is Qualified Immunity Unlawful?
William Baude, Is Qualified Immunity Unlawful?. Abstract:
CA6: Factual disputes deny appellate jurisdiction for excessive force qualified immunity appeal
There were disputes of fact on plaintiff’s excessive force claim that deprived this court of appellate jurisdiction over it. Harmon v. Hamilton County, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 497 (6th Cir. Jan. 9, 2017)*:
D.Md.: Extended border search from customs at JFK to locked warehouse in Maryland
The extended border search doctrine applied to a package shipped from China through customs at JFK and then to a warehouse in Bowie, Maryland. It was under lock and key, even on the truck, from customs to the warehouse where … Continue reading
CA8: Visitor at apt complex can’t claim standing in parking lot as alleged curtilage
Defendant didn’t have standing to claim that police entry into an apartment building’s parking lot was entry onto the curtilage because he didn’t live there. [It’s not curtilage anyway.] A cousin did, and he was an occasional visitor. Officers shining … Continue reading
AK: Reconsideration of finding of no PC granted; def never really put lack of PC in issue
At issue was a seizure and then warranted search of defendant’s cell phone looking for an incriminating text message that was already seen by the police on the recipient’s cell phone. At the hearing, the Superior Court granted a motion … Continue reading
CA6: Shooting dogs during drug raid was a seizure, but here it was reasonable
Officers executing a high risk warrant on plaintiff’s house shot and killed two pit bulls, one of which was standing in a corner of the basement not yet attacking. The warrant was considered high risk because the target of the … Continue reading
CA7: Arrest for disorderly conduct was clearly without PC, so officers get no qualified immunity
Officers have no qualified immunity for an arrest for disorderly conduct that was obviously without probable cause, and no reasonable officer could have concluded otherwise. Catledge v. City of Chicago, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 22118 (7th Cir. Dec. 13, 2016):
CA9 (en banc): Where exigency for CPS worker to take child wasn’t really clear at time, she gets qualified immunity
At the time of this seizure of an infant from the parents in 2008, it was clearly established that child protection workers could not remove children from the parents without a warrant or exigency, but not something like these facts … Continue reading
CA11: Arguable probable cause entitles the officer to qualified immunity
Arguable probable cause entitles the officer to qualified immunity, here for a mental health seizure. May v. City of Nahunta, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 20501 (11th Cir. Nov. 15, 2016), same result on rehearing, May v. City of Nahunta, 2017 … Continue reading
CA10: Bee inspector gets QI for search of apiary apparently in open field and because of unsettled questions of law
Utah bee inspector gets qualified immunity for the administrative inspection of plaintiff’s apiary because of unsettled questions, the fact the apiary was in open fields, and the lack of clearly established law. Cox v. Cache County, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA11: Police get QI for entry on a civil assist to recover property from former lover’s house
Police officers had qualified immunity for entry into plaintiff’s home with his estranged lover who came back with the police to assist to recover her belongings. Plaintiff’s guns were seized because he was under a domestic abuse injunction to not … Continue reading
CA8: Officer taking custody after citizen’s arrest did not violate clearly established law
An officer received a report of a disorderly misdemeanor in progress and arrived to see part of it. While the facts were conflicting, there was still probable cause for the arrest. The law of citizen’s arrest is not so obvious … Continue reading