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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 -
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
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General (many free):
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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
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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) -
“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
CA9: Warrantless jail rectal search that was painful and bloody should have been suppressed
On petition for rehearing from United States v. Fowlkes, 770 F.3d 748 (9th Cir. August 25, 2014) (prior post here), the panel concludes (2-1) that drug evidence obtained from a forced jail rectal search without a warrant that was painful … Continue reading
HuffPo: Roadside Strip Searches and Other Police State Indignities
HuffPo: Roadside Strip Searches and Other Police State Indignities by John W. Whitehead. (The URL says “the raping of america roa”)
CA7: Inmate forced to wear a see-through jumpsuit for prison transfer stated 8th Amd. claim but not 4th
Plaintiff inmate was forced to wear a see-through jumpsuit, and he stated an Eighth Amendment claim, but not one under the Fourth Amendment. He couldn’t comply with PLRA. “We reverse and remand for further proceedings. King’s transfer to the state … Continue reading
US News: New Mexico Man Given Forced Colonoscopy by Cops Wins $1.6 Million Settlement
US News: New Mexico Man Given Forced Colonoscopy by Cops Wins $1.6 Million Settlement by Steven Nelson Police and doctors allegedly committed ‘medical anal rape, numerous times over a 12-hour period.’
D.Ore.: Florence does not foreclose strip search claim of inmate workers already detained
Class certification granted to litigate strip searches of incarcerated kitchen worker inmates in the county jail for lack of a penological purpose. Florence does not foreclose this action because that deals with admittees into jails. Cunningham v. Multnomah County, 2015 … Continue reading
CA5: Prison inmate stated claim for unreasonable strip searches conducted without “any penological justification”
Plaintiff prison inmate pled enough to overcome dismissal of his complaint for failure to state a claim for unreasonable strip searches conducted without “any penological justification.” Ponce v. Lucas, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 941 (5th Cir. January 22, 2015):
CA4: Delousing jail inmates was reasonable strip search under Florence
Delousing male jail inmates by same sex guards was subject to qualified immunity as to them. As to injunctive relief against the agency, it is premature without further evidence being taken, and it appears reasonable as a strip search under … Continue reading
OH3: Slightly pulling out bra by bottom elastic exposed nothing and wasn’t a strip search
Pulling defendant’s bra out slightly by the bottom elastic not exposing her breasts was not a strip search in violation of state statute or the Fourth Amendment. State v. Murphy, 2014-Ohio-5002, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 4861 (3d Dist. November 10, … Continue reading
OH3: SW for strip search didn’t authorize anal penetration, and record supports there wasn’t any; “where [do] the buttocks end and … the anal cavity begin”
Officers obtained a warrant for a strip search to retrieve a baggie of suspected drugs hidden in defendant’s anus. The warrant did not authorize penetration, and the record supports that there was no penetration. The baggie protruded some, and it … Continue reading
CA6: Jail strip searches in front of other inmates alleges a cause of action; not barred by Florence
“This appeal boils down to one question: whether a complaint states a constitutional claim when it alleges that defendant’s jail, instead of using less invasive procedures, compelled pretrial detainees who were being processed into the facility to undress in the … Continue reading
CA9: “brutal and physically invasive” warrantless rectal search in jail should have been suppressed
In a “brutal and physically invasive” warrantless rectal search in jail, the motion to suppress should have been granted. He was handcuffed, Tased, and surrounded by five officers, and exigent circumstances were lacking. United States v. Fowlkes, 770 F.3d 748 … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Female strip search class action denied; a concurrence worth reading
A powerful dissent on the power of government to indiscriminately strip search, post-Florence. Johnson v. Gov’t of the Dist. of Columbia, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 14760 (D.C. Cir. August 1, 2014):
Reason TV: The Drug War, the Fourth Amendment, and anal cavity searches in New Mexico
Reason TV: The Drug War, the Fourth Amendment, and anal cavity searches in New Mexico by Paul Feine and Alex Manning: On July 28, 2014, Reason TV released “Do You Have It Up Your Ass?”: Drug Warriors in New Mexico … Continue reading
Texas Lawyer: Women Settles Body Cavity Search Case Against Hospital, Doctors for $1.1 Million
Texas Lawyer: Women Settles Body Cavity Search Case Against Hospital, Doctors for $1.1 Million
CA9: Forced rectal search for cocaine was unreasonable for lack of exigency
Plaintiff was subjected to a forced rectal search for drugs at a hospital. Police officers allegedly falsified the report to the hospital about defendant having a seizure to get the search done there when they had already concluded that plaintiff … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Consent to search a computer includes its external hard drive
Consent to search a computer includes its external hard drive. United States v. Beckmann, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62950 (E.D. Mo. May 7, 2014) R&R 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63156 (E.D. Mo. March 14, 2014). Plaintiff admittedly refused successive requests … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Prison visitor strip search lacked justification; no qualified immunity
Plaintiff’s prison visit questioning for 15-20 minutes about whether she had brought drugs into a prison was reasonable. Her strip search based on an anonymous tip was completely uncorroborated and was without reasonable suspicion. The law had been clearly established … Continue reading
NY Daily News: TN jailers find gun in vagina in book-in search
NY Daily News: Cops find loaded gun in Tennessee woman’s vagina: report by Philip Caufield: Dallas Archer, of Kingsport, was being booked for driving without a license when cops found a loaded min-revolver concealed in her private parts. So, just … Continue reading
ME: Psych ward strip search without justification stated a claim
Plaintiff was ordered strip searched in a psych unit, allegedly without any justification that there were drugs on her. When she refused, two male security guards were called to do it. The law was clearly established at the time so … Continue reading