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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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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)
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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] -
“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
TX10: State showed exigency for warrantless blood draw by necessary delay
The state showed exigency for a warrantless blood draw. Defendant was in a crash, and the trooper (the only one in the county) arrived an hour after the wreck, and defendant was already at the hospital. After investigating the scene, … Continue reading
PA: Letter from def in jail ended up at DA’s office already opened; private search
Defendant’s motion to suppress was delivered to the DA’s office by an unknown person in an envelope along with another already opened envelope inside that contained a letter from defendant in the jail to his girl friend encouraging witnesses to … Continue reading
ID: Interstate bus driver’s opening backpack was private search even though officer was watching
An interstate bus traveling from Portland OR to Salt Lake City stopped in Boise. The bus driver was moving luggage around to straighten it up for the boarding passengers, and he smelled marijuana coming from a backpack. He called the … Continue reading
CA5: Def consented after drug dog didn’t alert, and it was valid
Defendant was stopped at an immigration checkpoint at Laredo, saying he was going to San Antonio. The officer found the story dubious, ran the paperwork in seconds, and then got a drug dog which did not alert. Then defendant consented … Continue reading
CA10: NCMEC is govt agent not a subject to private search doctrine; email a “paper” or “effect” for 4A
NCMEC is a government actor because of how the government treats and funds it, and the private search doctrine does not apply to it. AOL here captured emails with child pornography and forwarded them to NCMEC which further searched them, … Continue reading
ND: Landlord searched and seized backpack; police didn’t exceed landlord’s private search
A landlord told a defendant tenant to stop smoking marijuana in this apartment building, but defendant didn’t. The landlord went to the apartment which was unoccupied at the moment, entered, and looked at defendant’s backpack finding marijuana. He took it … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Apt complex private security detained and searched def for trespass, and it was a private search
Defendant was in a friend’s apartment smoking pot when the complex’s security guards came to a noise complaint. Defendant was on a no-trespassing list and he was handcuffed and searched. Defendant had no standing in the pot in the apartment. … Continue reading
GA: Officer searched after a private search, but state failed in burden of showing any justification for officer’s search
Defendant was transported to the hospital by ambulance after a car wreck. Hospital security smelled marijuana in his backpack and searched it and called the police. An officer arrived and searched the backpack without consulting with hospital security. The search … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Flight from a stop isn’t a seizure
Defendant’s former girlfriend reported to police that he’d threatened her with a gun. Police found him exactly matching the description, and they got out of the car and told him to stop. He threw down his backpack and fled. The … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: 50% owner of business did private search and gave records to IRS
Defendant’s business records were taken by a 50% owner of their business and turned over to the IRS. The government didn’t prompt or suggest the seizure of the records. Once they were turned over, they could be fully reviewed by … Continue reading
N.D.Okla.: Indian tribes are essentially governed by the 4A and exclusionary rule; here, hotel housekeeper and security officer were not acting as LEOs
Defendant moved her bags out of her Indian casino hotel room to her car. She left her purse intending to come back and get it. She, however, was late, and hotel housekeeping entered the room after the noon check out … Continue reading
OR relies on Restatement of Agency to determine whether a private search occurred
Oregon adopts the objective test of the Restatement of Agency in determining whether a private party is acting as an agent of the police in seizing evidence. Here it was a housekeeper suspecting her employer of sexually abusing a 9 … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Alleged police induced private search in SW affidavit mooted by fact remainder still shows PC
Defendant’s landlord conducted a private search of his apartment and brought out 2 lbs of meth to the police saying there was more inside. He argues that this information in a search warrant application should be purged because the landlord … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Leaving car in street after being taken away by ambulance after being shot justified impoundment and inventory of the car
Defendant called the police because he was shot in the chest while in his car. An ambulance arrived and took defendant to the hospital. His car was left in the middle of the street. Impoundment of the car and inventory … Continue reading
TX13: Police search of iPod didn’t exceed private search; warrant valid
Defendant worked at a DQ and he cleaned a bathroom. Later, another employee found an iPod in the bathroom, and turned it in to a supervisor. It was looked at to determine ownership, and it was locked up until the … Continue reading
IN: Private university’s police dept serves police function; records thus public
Notre Dame’s police department serves a police function, therefore a public function, and it is subject to public records disclosure, even though the university as a whole isn’t. [So, no private search doctrine?] ESPN, Inc. v. Univ. of Notre Dame … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Despite govt instigated private seizure of phone, emails admissible because the govt already had them
Defendant’s wife seized his cell phone and turned it over to the police at their suggestion, but only because he was communicating with what he believed were underage girls for purposes of sex. The police already had all the emails … Continue reading
After private search, police did not expand on the first search
The first search of the premises because of an apparent meth lab was by an apartment manager and maintenance man, and this was a private search. They called the police, and the police search was both within the scope of … Continue reading
SD: Hospital blood draw was for medical purposes, not as agent of police; “small town” folks working together argument fails
Just because this DUI happened in a small town and the hospital drew blood from defendant on admission, as it usually does, that doesn’t mean that the hospital was acting as an agent of the police when doing the blood … Continue reading