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Recent Posts
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
- D.Idaho: Not unreasonable for PO to hand over def’s cell phone to LEO for extraction after RS developed from Snapchat app
- AtL: Sotomayor Apologizes For Possibly Hurting Kavanaugh’s Feelings Over The Racial Profiling He Invented
- MN: Geofence warrant was not particular
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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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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) -
“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: Private search
CA3: State court loss of suppression motion as private search was collateral estoppel to § 1983 case
Plaintiff was a student in a private university, and the RA in his dorm smelled burning marijuana in the hallway and narrowed it to plaintiff’s room. The next day, university security searched his room, and he was charged in the … Continue reading
OH7: Bounty hunters have no license to enter as police officers do under state statute
While LEOs have the authority to break and enter to arrest a fugitive when they have an arrest warrant, state law grants no such power to bondsman. Conviction for criminal damaging affirmed for kicking in two doors, and the fugitive … Continue reading
ND: Entry by bail bond bounty hunters with police at perimeter declining to help was a private search
Three bail bond bounty hunters arrived at defendant’s house to take defendant’s brother into custody. Getting no response at the door, they called police for backup. Officers arrived and confirmed that they had a warrant for defendant’s brother and agreed … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Google’s email search scanning for CP was a private search; DHS’s separate search was “not a significant expansion”
Google’s scanning of email for child pornography is a private search. The DHS review of defendant’s emails wasn’t a significant expansion of the private search. United States v. Wilson, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98432 (S.D. Cal. June 26, 2017):
E.D.Ky.: Google not a state actor when it scans email for CP and reports it
Google scans all its email for child porn hash values, examines those that are suspect, and reports it to NCMEC. Neither Google nor NCMEC are government actors. United States v. Miller, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97383 (E.D. Ky. May 19, … Continue reading
TX: Dorm RA couldn’t consent to police entry to dorm room to search for drugs
An RA in a college dorm searched defendant’s room and found drugs. The police were called and they entered the room and seized the drugs. There is no dorm room exception to the Fourth Amendment. This is not the same … Continue reading
EFF: Why We’re Suing the FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants
EFF: Why We’re Suing the FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants by Stephanie Lacambra and Aaron Mackey:
D.N.J.: CI aiding police entered vessel on his own to take pictures of weapon; still a private search
Defendant was indicted for “knowingly taking marine mammals on the high seas by means of a firearm in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), 16 U.S.C. §§ 1372(a)(1) and 1375(b).” A CI, already conversing with law enforcement, went … Continue reading
CA8: Eviction from motel by off-duty officer working motel security led to FIPF charge; entry was lawful
Off-duty police worked at a Kansas City motel that had a rash of crime, trying to clean the place up. Defendant was being evicted from a motel because he was driving a stolen car – his companion had already been … Continue reading
OR requires hospitals report suspected DUIs, and this is private action although mandated by statute, or there is no REP
Oregon requires hospitals to report persons who show up for treatment who the hospital reasonably believes were involved in driving under the influence. Here, the hospital also reported defendant’s BAC to the police. “[W]e reject defendant’s invitation to overrule Gonzalez … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Asking def’s GF if she had the phone she saw naked pictures of her 13-year-old daughter in didn’t make her an agent
Defendant’s girlfriend reported to police that she saw nude pictures of her 13 year old daughter on defendant’s cell phone. The officer asked if she had the phone, and she hesitated, located it, and handed it over. She was not … Continue reading
W.D.Okla: Def bears burden of proving “private search” was by government actor and did; suppressed
Defendant has sufficient interest in the business from which a thumb drive with data was taken and turned over to ICE officers at the U.S. Embassy in Panama. (The court acknowledges that it’s not “standing,” per se, but it continues … Continue reading
OC Weekly: FBI Used Best Buy’s Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public Surveillance
OC Weekly: FBI Used Best Buy’s Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public Surveillance by R. Scott Moxley: Recently unsealed records reveal a much more extensive secret relationship than previously known between the FBI and Best Buy’s Geek Squad, including evidence … Continue reading
IA: Def’s father’s search of his stuff was objectively as a concerned parent, not as a LEO so it’s a private search
Defendant’s stepfather was a Davenport police officer, and, off-duty, he searched defendant’s property twice and turned it over to the police. The detail of his actions show him acting as a concerned parent, not as a law enforcement officer. Therefore, … Continue reading
LA2: Arrest of def away from the premises where SW being served unreasonable under Bailey
Defendant was seen leaving the premises when police showed up with a search warrant. Then they went after him and stopped him a distance a way to return him to the scene of the search. The stop lacked reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Sony’s reports of CP on def’s Playstation3 to NCMEC was a private search
Users of Sony’s PlayStation3 communicate with each other through Sony’s PlayStation Network, like email. Sony in its terms of service prohibits transfer of illegal things, and it reserves the right to monitor. Also, 18 U.S.C. § 2258 makes Sony a … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: The Geek Squad and the Fourth Amendment
WaPo: ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: The Geek Squad and the Fourth Amendment by Orin Kerr: This isn’t a new issue. There have been cases on computer repairmen turning over computers with child pornography going back at least as far as … Continue reading
NYLJ: Ethics of Using Hacked Information to Prosecute Criminal and Civil Claims
NYLJ: Ethics of Using Hacked Information to Prosecute Criminal and Civil Claims by Rahul Mukhi and Martha Vega-Gonzalez: Since WikiLeaks first came to global prominence in 2010, an increasing number of vigilantes, activists, and allegedly even state actors have obtained … Continue reading
D.Haw.: Alleged illegal search by “marshals of the Kingdom of Atooi” was private search
A crate of marijuana was searched by “marshals of the Kingdom of Atooi,” a Polynesian kingdom within Hawai’i not otherwise described. Their search was not at insistence or with the acquiescence of the state or federal government, and it could … Continue reading