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- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
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- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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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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: Qualified immunity
CA9: Settled by 1984 that Brady applied to police; qualified immunity denied
Not a search and seizure case, but we need to know it: It was established in 1984 at the time of one plaintiff’s conviction and 1991 of the other plaintiff that police had a duty to provide exculpatory evidence to … Continue reading
CA7: Witness ID’s enough for arrest thus barring § 1983 case
Four witnesses ID’d defendant for a crime. The fact that the charges were later dropped didn’t form a basis for a § 1983 case. There was probable cause and no reasonable jury would conclude otherwise and that’s qualified immunity. Hart … Continue reading
CA9: Arrest of public defender summoned to court had no qualified immunity
A court security officer’s arrest of plaintiff public defender who was sent to get her to court had no qualified immunity for arresting her just because she sarcastically said “[i]f you want me to come right now, you’ll have to … Continue reading
DC: Because the circuit hasn’t ruled on the standard for seizure of a child from the home, officials get qualified immunity
The circuits are split on whether a Fourth Amendment seizure of children from the home requires reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Moreover, what is an exigency is not consistent among the circuits. The point is that this circuit has not … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Riley doesn’t apply retroactively on post-conviction review
Riley does not apply retroactively on post-conviction. Defendant pled guilty without raising a cell phone search question, and text message pictures showed him having sex with a minor who was in his car when it was stopped. Stringer v. United … Continue reading
Two on emergency: DV call and multiple erratic 911 calls threatening to use a gun
A domestic violence call from an hysterical woman at a hotel room justified a warrantless entry into the room when the police could finally locate her room. Commonwealth v. Caple, 2015 PA Super 159, 2015 Pa. Super. LEXIS 425 (July … Continue reading
CA10: Not clearly established that confiscating weapons from a potential suicide even after he was removed to the hospital was unreasonable
It was not clearly established that confiscating weapons from a potential suicide even after he was removed to the hospital was unreasonable in 2010. Arden v. McIntosh, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 12725 (10th Cir. July 23, 2015):
Just Security: Are Cross-Border Shootings Heading to the Supreme Court?
Just Security: Are Cross-Border Shootings Heading to the Supreme Court? by Steve Vladeck: Two weeks ago, I wrote about an important new decision by the US District Court for the District of Arizona, holding that the Fourth Amendment does apply … Continue reading
Wisconsin adopts Heien on reasonable mistakes of law
Wisconsin adopts Heien on reasonable mistakes of law, overruling all past cases. Reasonable suspicion is all that’s needed for a traffic stop, not probable cause. State v. Houghton, 2015 WI 79, 2015 Wisc. LEXIS 484 (July 14, 2015). Fleeing into … Continue reading
PA: DUI accident provided PC for automobile exception search
In a DUI accident, the officer had probable cause to search defendant’s vehicle for evidence of the impairment under the automobile exception. Commonwealth v. Best, 2015 PA Super 151, 2015 Pa. Super. LEXIS 409 (July 16, 2015).* The officer’s participation … Continue reading
CA10: Where no emergency suggested, welfare check entry violated Fourth Amendment
The officer here came to serve a summons at plaintiff’s house, and he looked through the window and saw the place was in disarray. He went to the door, and it was unlocked. He never knocked. He decided to perform … Continue reading
IL: “Premises known as xxx Street” in SW included detached garage on the curtilage
“[C]ourts have repeatedly and routinely held that a warrant that authorizes the search of ‘premises’ at a given residential address allows the search of detached garages, sheds, and other outbuildings even if these separate structures are not mentioned at all … Continue reading
OR: State could not raise new argument in CoA after remand never developed in trial court
On remand from the Supreme Court, the state asserted an argument never made in the trial court, and it’s treated as waived since there was no factual development. The prior decision is adhered to. State v. Heater, 271 Or. App. … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: A cell phone is an “instrumentality” of a drug crime; turning on a cell phone to see if it answers is not a “search”
Defendant’s 12 cell phones could be seized as instrumentalities of a drug crime under a search warrant. Calling a number the officers obtained during a wiretap to identify a phone was not an illegal search. Turning on the phones just … Continue reading
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
CA9: CP search warrant authorized second and third searches five years after the first search because gov’t still had computer
A second and third search of defendant’s computer for child pornography five years after the first one when defendant didn’t take a plea offer. That search was within the scope of the original warrant because the government still had the … Continue reading
Two on qualified immunity
City code enforcement officers do not get qualified immunity for seizure of unlicensed cars parked in his yard where they entered the property, and were doing an administrative seizure with no notice of appeal rights which were provided for by … Continue reading
D.Utah: Defendant doctor who sold 95% of practice had no standing in the records of the clinic
The search warrant here was for medical records of a clinic and in storage. The defendant doctor who filed the motion to suppress sold the clinic and kept a 5% share. Records were in storage, too. The court concludes that … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Officers get qualified immunity in shooting a mentally ill person who came at them with a knife
Officers called to a disturbance where a mentally ill person threatened her social worker get qualified immunity for shooting her for coming at them with a knife. The law was not clearly established that they had to make any special … Continue reading