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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
D.Nev.: UPS employee conducted private search and allowing police to photograph contents did exceed private search
A UPS employee suspected contraband in a package shipped from Las Vegas to Florida, and a supervisor then opened. While it was open, police came and photographed it, and this did not exceed the private search. United States v. Washington, … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Def was handcuffed and in police car, so search incident didn’t apply; it was inevitable, however, inventory would happen
Defendant’s arrest led to a search incident of luggage, but he was handcuffed and in a police car. So, the search incident doctrine can’t apply, but an inventory would have inevitably occurred, so that provides an independent basis for the … Continue reading
MI: Electric company’s use of smart meters is not state action for 4A purposes
The electric company’s decision to install smart meters is not a Fourth Amendment issue because the company is a private actor. In re Consumers Energy Co., 2017 Mich. App. LEXIS 2161 (Oct. 10, 2017, published Dec. 28, 2017). The state … Continue reading
IL: ER dr. ordered forced catheterization from combative female for urine sample; wasn’t state action because two police officers helped hold her down
Defendant was involved in a vehicle accident and hospitalized. The ER doctor needed to know whether she was on drugs, and he ordered forced catheterization to get urine since defendant was combative. Two officers who also wanted to know whether … Continue reading
PA: Telling computer repair person to move files to a new hard drive was a waiver of REP
Defendant essentially waived his reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer hard drive when he took it in for repair, was told that the hard drive was failing and he needed a new one, and then directed them to move … Continue reading
FL5: Peeing in a parking lot is RS of “public nudity” justifying a stop
Peeing in a parking lot is reasonable suspicion of “public nudity” justifying a stop. State v. Harris, 2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 18994 (Fla. 5th DCA Dec. 15, 2017). Defendant’s rental company maintenance man was acting as a private citizen when … Continue reading
ID: Court-approved receiver acting on behalf of a creditor is not a state actor for 4A purposes
A court-approved receiver acting on behalf of a creditor is not a state actor for Fourth Amendment purposes. Wechsler v. Wechsler, 2017 Ida. LEXIS 332 (Dec. 6, 2017):
MassPrivateI: Police in two states use hospitals to take motorists blood without a warrant
MassPrivateI: Police in two states use hospitals to take motorists blood without a warrant:
IL: ER blood draw was private search for diagnostic purposes
“The mere filing of a motion [to suppress] is not proof that a search occurred.” Defendant first failed to prove that he was the subject of the search. Second, even if it was assumed, the hospital took the blood draw … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def was evicted once arrested and couldn’t go back to apt; landlord’s gathering stuff was a private search, and papers were made available to police
After defendant’s arrest, the landlord evicted him and gathered up his stuff. The police got the paperwork from the apartment from the landlord, and some of it was incriminating. Because the police didn’t instigate the landlord evicting him other than … Continue reading
WaPo: Man investigated after Best Buy technicians tipped off FBI has child pornography case dismissed
WaPo: Man investigated after Best Buy technicians tipped off FBI has child pornography case dismissed by Tom Jackman:
N.D.Cal.: Google is a private actor when it scans email for CP and then turns it over
Google is a private actor when it scans emails looking for child pornography by the images’ hash values. Google has an important interest in keeping CP off the internet and not being the vehicle for its transmission. There was no … Continue reading
CA9: Def’s wife was a private actor turning over his hard drive to the police
Defendant’s wife was not acting as an agent of the government when she turned over his hard drive to the police. The search warrant they obtained was clearly issued on probable cause. United States v. Wolff, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
TX14: Def’s gf’s private search of his cell phone finding CP wasn’t unreasonable search
Defendant’s girlfriend had free access to his cell phone because the password on the phone was shared with her and it was the same as the PIN on his debit card which she also used. She conducted a valid private … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Stopping def on the street because he vaguely matched the description of an assailant from three days earlier lacked RS
Defendant was approached on the street as he was walking past the police station because he was the same race as a man who was a suspect in an assault three days later. He gave his first name but kept … Continue reading
TX14: Private search in Texas not subject to statute exclusionary rule
Defendant’s girlfriend accessed his cell phones: his Android wasn’t password protected but his iPhone was but she knew the password. This was a private search, and the Texas statutory exclusionary rule doesn’t apply. Thomas v. State, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
TX4: Seizure and search of teacher’s cell phone by school administrator was private and not subject to TX statutory exclusionary rule
Defendant was a substitute teacher, and his cell phone was used to upskirt girls in the school. Some of the students figured it out and reported it to the school administration. One of the administrators confronted defendant and he admitted … Continue reading
DC: Time and proximity to a crime are important in RS, but here it was lacking
Time and proximity are important in the reasonable suspicion calculus. The closer in time with proximity to the scene of a crime, the more likely the suspect is involved in the suspected or already occurred criminal activity. Here, however, two … Continue reading
CA9: Getting some public funds doesn’t make a private actor public
A private school ejected plaintiff and he sued on several grounds. His Fourth Amendment claim (sounds problematic on its face) is rejected because the school is not a state actor despite receiving some federal funds. Nkwuo v. Angel, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading