Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CA6: Affidavit about smell of MJ from house was not so bare bones GFE didn’t apply
- WaPo: Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras
- KY: Def carries burden on curtilage; he failed to show motorcycle parked near front door was on it
- PA: No REP in data on use of EBT card
- WA: 911 call about following a DUI was RS for stop
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (discontinued 2018)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
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] -
“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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Category Archives: Private search
CA3: Plain feel of apparent drugs supported seizure from def’s pocket
Defendant doesn’t challenge the stop or the frisk, just the seizure of the baggie of drugs that the officer felt in his “watch pocket.” The officer could tell what it was by its feel. Affirmed. United States v. Williams, 2025 … Continue reading
MS: Police cell phone search as extensive as prior private search was reasonable
The warrantless search of defendant’s cell phone was the same as a private search that already occurred, and it did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Knight v. State, 2025 Miss. LEXIS 51 (Feb. 20, 2025). An NOLA officer seeing an … Continue reading
N.D.Miss.: ER staff’s search of def’s clothes was private search
Defendant was taken to the ER for gunshot wounds. The hospital staff took his clothes and looked in his pockets and then turned them over to the police. This was a private search. United States v. Coleman, 2025 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
DE: After the first SW was overbroad, officers got a second narrower warrant which had an independent source from the first
When the search warrant was found overbroad, a second warrant was issued based on the same information that was far narrower. It was valid because of its independent source. The alleged false statement in the DNA warrant wasn’t. State v. … Continue reading
NY Monroe Co.: The constitution doesn’t apply to citizen’s arrest
In a citizen’s arrest, if the citizen, not a law enforcement officer, violates the constitution or statute, the arrest will not be suppressed for that reason alone. His statement to an officer captured on video will not be suppressed because … Continue reading
KY: Landlord’s maintenance entry with electrician and a LEO because of a feared weapon was reasoanable
Defendant was schizophrenic and he was destroying the wiring in his apartment. The landlord got an electrician and then they brought a police officer because they feared he had a weapon (which he did). The entry by the police was … Continue reading
OH12: No reason why a federal search warrant can’t result in a state prosecution
A federal search warrant produced the drugs in question, and they were not inadmissible for that reason in a state prosecution. State v. Hana, 2024-Ohio-5548, 2024 Ohio App. LEXIS 4234 (12th Dist. Nov. 25, 2024). The trial court found that … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Officer’s construction of traffic law was “ardous” and unreasonable under Heien
The officer’s conclusion defendant violated a U-turn statute was unreasonable, and the motion to suppress is granted. “While mistakes of law based on arduous questions of statutory interpretation may justify an officer’s judgment, a poor study of the law cannot … Continue reading
UT: NCMEC didn’t look at the CP this time, but it had this case, and that’s enough
The fact the hash value of defendant’s material was known to be child pornography, it didn’t matter that NCMEC didn’t view the material before passing it on to the police who did. There was a prior private search. State v. … Continue reading
MN: PC required to get order to produce DNA for comparison to evidence
A court order for defendant’s saliva for a touch DNA comparison required a showing of probable cause. State v. Steeprock, 2024 Minn. App. LEXIS 345 (July 29, 2024). “[T]he record evidence demonstrates that three police officers ran from the police … Continue reading
TX3: Wife conducted private search of husband’s cell phone by using his thumb to open it while he was asleep
In Texas where a private search can be suppressed, defendant showed that his wife accessed his cell phone without his consent, and the search was suppressed. She used his thumb to open the phone while he was asleep. State v. … Continue reading
MT: RS def was too drunk to drive from description, allegedly crawling to car, then officer talking to him
The citizen informant’s defendant was too drunk to drive because he stumbled and crawled to his car was corroborated by observations and smelling him, so there was at least reasonable suspicion. Defendant’s claim that his bar receipt from inside the … Continue reading
NM: 19-day delay getting a SW for a computer was reasonable considering the diminished possessory interest in it
“The district court concluded, after weighing Defendant’s diminished possessory interest in the tablet and the legitimate interests of law enforcement, that under the circumstances, the nineteen-day delay between when the tablet was seized and when a search warrant was obtained … Continue reading
CA7: Police officer target of a cell phone SW stated state law claim for intrusion on seclusion for searchers leaking intimate photos of her
Plaintiff was a Joliet police officer. A search warrant was issued for her phone, and she was concerned there were intimate photos of her. The city and officers get qualified immunity for the search itself, but she states a state … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Mere school employee conduct search of coworker’s purse not “state actors” for § 1983
A couple of school employees who suspected another of being under the influence of prescription medications searched her purse. They were not “state actors” for § 1983. As school employees, they had a heightened duty to protect the children. Lawson … Continue reading
Three on exigency
The emergency aid exception permitted entry into victim’s home. She hadn’t been seen all day and her child was unaccounted for. This entry was objectively reasonable, and the police were not required to use alternate means to seek to find … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Dropbox conducted a private search finding CP
Dropbox found child porn in defendant’s account, and it reported to NCMEC. Dropbox conducted a private search. United States v. Balog, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90179 (D. Mont. May 20, 2024).* “Defendant argues that the search of his vehicle was … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Preservation request under SCA isn’t a search or seizure
A preservation request under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(f) for defendant’s Snapchat account isn’t an unreasonable search or seizure. Even if, “suppression would not be warranted because the FBI acted in good faith reliance on the Stored Communications Act. As a … Continue reading
techdirt: The Problems Of The NCMEC CyberTipline Apply To All Stakeholders
techdirt: The Problems Of The NCMEC CyberTipline Apply To All Stakeholders by Mike Masnick: