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Recent Posts
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- 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”
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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
CA1: There was RS for the border search of defendant’s computer and cell phones
Defendant made his fifth short trip from Puerto Rico to Colombia in a few months, and he was flagged for secondary border screening. His older but operational laptop had no data on it. Questions about his trip made no real … Continue reading
TN: Matching description of robber and being near stolen phone located by its find phone app was RS
A stolen phone’s locator app led the police to defendant, and he matched the description of the robber so there was reasonable suspicion. State v. Sykes, 2015 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 132 (February 25, 2015). Defendant was staying at an … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Def’s efforts to distance self from drugs at suppression hearing costs him standing
The defendant’s statements to the USMJ that he was neither a resident nor a guest at the house searched denies him standing to contest the search there. United States v. Griffin, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3695 (E.D. Tenn. January 13, … Continue reading
CA11: Computer tech’s seeing CP on computer authorized warrant for computer and their copies
Defendant took his computer to a computer tech to have the data transferred to a new computer. They found child pornography, reported it to the police and copied it. The police seized the computer and got a search warrant for … Continue reading
D.Me.: A private searcher’s fervent desire to help the police is still a private search
A computer tech working on a computer saw “pictures of pre-teen girls in gymnast uniforms,” so he searched the search history and found searches for non-nude preteens and “pre-teen porn.” He reported it to the local police who did not … Continue reading
MI: Police told Best Buy employee to search for CP, thereby exceeding private search
A computer is an “effect” under the Fourth Amendment, and the police conducted a warrantless search by telling a Best Buy employee to search the computer for child pornography, thereby exceeding the private search. People v. Gingrich, 2014 Mich. App. … Continue reading
WaPo: The controversial device that helped catch alleged Philadelphia abductor
WaPo: The controversial device that helped catch alleged Philadelphia abductor by Abby Ohlheiser: Delvin Barnes was arrested with the help of a GPS device planted in his Ford Taurus by the dealership.
TN: Merely being on a cul-de-sac at 3:30 am where you don’t belong isn’t RS
A resident on a cul-de-sac called the police because a car that seemingly didn’t belong was driving around a few times. The police were called and stopped the car. Defendant was arrested for DUI. The stop lacked an objective basis … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Year long seizure of a hard drive without getting a warrant was unreasonable
A computer tech was hired to transfer information from an old hard drive to a new computer in 2007, and he stumbled upon child pornography and called the FBI. They met, and he brought the hard drive. Defendant’s email address … Continue reading
TX3: Private election actions don’t lead to unreasonable searches: it’s private action and court can intercede
Texas provides for a private right of action in some election matters. The statutes are not facially unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment due process in potential civil discovery disputes because these are private parties asking, and the … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: “Courts have been clear that police need not corroborate information given by known informants.”
“Courts have been clear that police need not corroborate information given by known informants. Like the CI in Harris, the CI in this case was known to provide reliable information that led to arrests. Thus, police corroboration was unnecessary. But … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Dirty license plate justified stop even though it was called in during stop
Defendant’s stop for having a dirty obscured license plate was justified even though the officer was able to call it in when parked right behind him. The butt of a shotgun was visible in the vehicle and defendant was a … Continue reading
OR: Exigent circumstances applies to animals in distress
Exigent circumstances permitted an entry onto property to seize and emaciated horse and get it to a veterinarian for care. State v. Fessenden, 2014 Ore. LEXIS 560 (August 7, 2014). The stop was 21 minutes long, but it was justified … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: A private party’s search of a thumb drive didn’t limit the government’s search when they provided it
A thumb drive was found with child pornography on it by a private party who turned it over to the government. The government wasn’t limited by the scope of the private party’s search as to how deep it could search. … Continue reading
CA7: Warrantless seizure of alleged contraband wasn’t covered yet by FTCA; GJ in session
The DEA’s warrantless seizure of the plaintiff’s fake incense products which the DEA considered contraband but wasn’t declared such until just after the seizure didn’t state a claim for separate relief yet for a seizure for forfeiture. The government apparently … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Gov’t instigated a private search, and it is suppressed
The government became actively involved in a private search of a computer for child pornography, and the search is suppressed. United States v. Lichtenberger, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65938 (N.D. Ohio April 30, 2014): The government argues that the intent … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: BOP nurse is not a law enforcement agent
A nurse in a federal prison was not acting in a law enforcement capacity in evaluating injuries to an inmate. United States v. Andrews, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56159 (N.D. W.Va. April 23, 2014). Two controlled buys were probable cause. … Continue reading