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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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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
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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)
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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
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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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, Little Rock 
Category Archives: Strip search
NC: Partial strip search at stationhouse was with PC and reasonably conducted
Defendant’s partial strip search at the stationhouse in a private room was reasonable for its factual basis and how it was done. After a dog alert on defendant’s car seat and no drugs in the car, it was reasonable to … Continue reading
OH Ct.Claims: Ptf prison visitor didn’t prove her strip search was justified or unreasonably conducted
Plaintiff failed to prove her visitor strip search claim against the prison guards involved. The search was based on sufficient particularized suspicion that drugs were coming in through this visitor. The court finds she didn’t remember signing the form about … Continue reading
CA6: Jail group strip searches invasive, but penologically justified; ptf must answer defs’ proffered justification
While group strip searches at a jail are invasive, there is a penological justification offered that plaintiff doesn’t answer. There is no clearly established law that these are unreasonable. “The issue we face is whether periodically conducting group strip searches … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Strip search for gun in groin was reasonable on the totality: “the search was less than ideal, but so were the circumstances”
A patdown revealed a gun hidden in defendant’s groin area. His strip search on the street produced the gun hidden in his underwear. The record doesn’t show whether others saw the strip search, a factor in reasonableness, but it certainly … Continue reading
NJ strip search for $6.50 traffic ticket violates state statute
New Jersey by statute prohibits strip searches except for a crime. Defendant was arrested for an outstanding $6.50 traffic ticket and strip searched. The state can’t bootstrap this arrest into a search incident. State v. Evans, 2017 N.J. Super. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA5 joins CA3: Florence strip search rule on jail intake applies to juveniles
The plaintiff’s daughter, a juvenile, was in a fight at school and was taken to juvenile detention. She was strip searched and subjected to a body cavity search yet was released fairly quickly. Partial summary judgment was granted the county … Continue reading
Cal.4th: Public strip search of ptf stated claim: He was in a park arrested for being there after it closed, on a bike without a headlight, and fled when officers approached
Plaintiff had a claim under the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act, even if officers had probable cause for an arrest, because he alleged roadside body cavity searches which necessarily amounted to intentional conduct separate and independent from a lawful arrest … Continue reading
IN: Dog alert on car that leads to search that came up empty didn’t permit strip search of the occupants
A drug dog alerted on defendant’s car, so the police searched it, coming up empty. That alone did not justify taking the occupants in to the police station for a strip search. Thomas v. State, 2016 Ind. App. LEXIS 457 … Continue reading
MD: Strip search incident to arrest was valid on balance on this record
On this record with a wealth of reasonable suspicion and then probable cause, a strip search incident to arrest was justified at the police station in the breathalyser room. Defendant stripped and bent over but refused to spread his cheeks. … Continue reading
IA: Strip search incident shown justified in drug arrest
Strip search as a search incident to arrest was shown justified on this record. The smell of marijuana came from his person but nothing was on him. State v. Evans, 2016 Iowa App. LEXIS 1004 (Sept. 28, 2016):
CA3: Strip searching an inmate in isolation 3 times a day serves no penological purpose and is enjoined
Strip searching an inmate in isolation three times a day serves no penological purpose and is enjoined. Parkell v. Danberg, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 15092 (3d Cir. Aug. 17, 2016):
NY3: SW for strip search for drugs hidden in crotch was reasonable
A search warrant for any vehicle defendant was found driving was particular enough. There was a factual basis for issuing a search warrant for a strip search where the CI said that defendant kept drugs in his crotch. People v. … Continue reading
CA3: Parolee strip search in his own home was reasonable
Parole officers were properly granted summary judgment in a parolee’s claim that they unreasonably searched his property without cause. There was cause, there was no need for reasonable suspicion, and he established no material factual dispute about anything. Moreover, the … Continue reading
KY: Strip search was reasonable because of def’s sagging pants and exposed underwear
Defendant’s “strip search” was reasonable in part because his pants were already sagging and his underwear was showing. Jackson v. Commonwealth, 2016 Ky. App. LEXIS 31 (March 4, 2016). Defendant was not in custody when he told police in a … Continue reading
CA2: Florence on jail strip searches was an intervening change in law allowing undoing a prior order
Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington was an intervening change in law that permitted the district court to undo a jail strip search class action judgment. In re Nassau County Strip Search Cases, 2016 U.S. App. … Continue reading
NC: Strip search for drugs in buttocks was based on PC
Officers had probable cause to believe that defendant had drugs secreted on his person. When a search of his clothing produced nothing, officers could then make him remove his clothes to search underneath them. Drugs were hidden in his buttocks. … Continue reading
NY4: Pulling def’s underwear out on the street was without reasonable suspicion
Forty-three months after his drug conviction, the officer’s search on the street of defendant’s genitals by pulling out his underwear and looking in was not based on reasonable suspicion he was armed. Search suppressed and case dismissed. People v. Smith, … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee to pay $5 million to settle suits over illegal strip searches
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee to pay $5 million to settle suits over illegal strip searches by Bruce Vielmetti: The City of Milwaukee on Tuesday proposed paying $5 million to 74 African-American residents who say they were subjected to illegal strip … Continue reading