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- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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)
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“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: § 1983 / Bivens
CA6: Officers who went to hospital room get QI on whether there was a REP in the shared room
Officers who visited plaintiff in his hospital room he shared with another were sued for allegedly violating his reasonable expectation of privacy. There is no clear controlling authority, and the officers get qualified immunity [and the issue goes undecided]. Bonds … Continue reading
CA9: Ptf’s affidavit there was no announcement before battering ram broke in her door makes her civil case survive summary judgment
Plaintiff showed enough of a fact question that officers never announced they were attempting to enter on a search warrant, breaking in her door, to survive their motion for summary judgment. They said, she said. Greiner v. Wall, 2019 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Utah: Heck barred § 1983 case over his search which produced only evidence in case
Essentially the only evidence supporting defendant’s conviction came from his search and seizure of evidence. Thus, his § 1983 case over the search is barred by Heck. Anderson v. Houston, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19246 (D.Utah Feb. 5, 2019).* For … Continue reading
CA3: Ptf adequately pled City had a pattern of illegal searches to state a § 1983 claim
Plaintiff was imprisoned for six months on a drug charge. After a successful motion to suppress, the charges were dropped. His § 1983 case against the officers fails, but it survives challenge against the city. “He has adequately alleged that … Continue reading
CA6: No showing insurance company’s investigative report was cause of his arrest; also didn’t plead state action
Plaintiff sued his insurance company for participating in his false arrest because they submitted their own investigative file to law enforcement. There is no evidence that law enforcement didn’t conduct its own independent analysis of what they received. In addition, … Continue reading
CA2: Def parole officer gets QI on whether 4A or NY case law applies to parole search
Plaintiff was subjected to a parole search, and he contended New York law applied rather than Samson et al. The officer gets qualified immunity on the question because it appears Samson should but we don’t even need to resolve it. … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Halfway litigating a motion to suppress in state court is collateral estoppel to later suit
Defendant first litigated his suppression issue in state court and lost. He didn’t appeal, and it became final. That’s collateral estoppel to a civil case over the same search. Freeman v. Indiana, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13863 (N.D. Ind. Jan. … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: Negligent investigation doesn’t state a 4A claim for malicious prosecution
Plaintiff is a dentist and he was investigated for alleged sexual molestation of a patient. He was tried and acquitted of the sexual assault, and then sued the police officers involved for malicious prosecution under the Fourth Amendment. The claim … Continue reading
CA3: Cabin search of cruise ship at border non-routine, but QI granted here
This is a suit over a 2008 search at USVI port of the plaintiff’s cabin on the Adventure of the Seas cruise ship. Plaintiff was in the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS), a CBP database for intel, from prior travels … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Ptf adequately pled that def officers used SWs as excuse to commit theft and robberies of search targets
Plaintiff adequately pled that defendant officers, members of CPD Team 6713, were engaged in a theft and robbery ring where they used bogus and apparently real search warrants to rob their victims. Motion to dismiss for failing to state a … Continue reading
CA7: Franks is settled law, and false statements to procure arrest warrant denied qualified immunity
Plaintiff stated a Franks claim that his arrest warrant was based on false evidence and omitted exculpatory evidence. The officer is denied qualified immunity. Rainsberger v. Benner, 17 2521 (7th Cir. Jan. 15, 2019):
SCOTUS: In QI in excessive force cases, a “clearly established” right needs to be defined with specificity
In confronting qualified immunity in excessive force cases, a “clearly established” right needs to be defined with specificity. City of Escondido v. Emmons, 17-1660 (U.S. Jan. 7, 2019) (per curiam) [pdf at 27]:
VT: No sovereign immunity for flagrant search and seizure violations; implied right of action under state constitution
“¶ 84. In sum, we conclude that a direct private right of action for damages based on alleged flagrant violations of Article 11 is available against the State. The common law doctrine of sovereign immunity does not preclude such an … Continue reading
CA10: Photographing partially undressed child at school for suspected child abuse gets QI
A state case worker who photographed a partially unclothed child at school gets qualified immunity for a special needs search of the child. No SCOTUS or circuit case says that the special needs doctrine does or does not apply here. … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Asst prosecutors at an investigation don’t get immunity for 4A violation they observed and allegedly condoned
Assistant prosecutors involved in an investigation do not get prosecutorial immunity for silence in the face of an alleged Fourth Amendment violation in their presence they allegedly condone. Fogle v. Pa. State Police, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217701 (W.D. Pa. … Continue reading
San Bernardino County Sun: San Bernardino County settles for $390000 with families of girls arrested to ‘teach them a lesson’
San Bernardino County Sun: San Bernardino County settles for $390000 with families of girls arrested to ‘teach them a lesson’. The case: CA9: School resource officer’s arrest of alleged bullying middle school girls ‘to prove a point’ and ‘make [them] … Continue reading
CA1: QI in excessive force shooting case; brief cases of reasonableness weren’t helpful
The grant of qualified immunity to the officer shooting defendant during execution of a warrant was not contrary to clearly established law. Comparing cases that show the use of deadly force was reasonable; however, isn’t helpful where excessive force is … Continue reading
CA7: State law right of privacy as to another prison inmate isn’t within the 4A
On appeal from 1915A screening, plaintiff does not a show a Fourth Amendment claim to be free from other inmates stealing his stuff. Here it was letters from his girlfriend by his former cellie then the cellie wrote to her … Continue reading
CA11: Supported claim of false testimony to frame ptf satisfied pleading requirement of § 1915A(b)(1)
Pro se inmate’s request to amend his complaint that he was framed with false testimony from an officer to get search warrant, corroborated by action by the state’s attorney, stated enough to get over the pleading hurdle of 28 U.S.C. … Continue reading
CA6: § 1983 claim over search that led to conviction barred by Heck while excessive force claim not
Plaintiff filed a 1983 claim against the officers who searched his place while his criminal appeal was pending. The illegal search claim is barred by Heck v. Humphrey because it implies the invalidity of the conviction. His excessive force claim, … Continue reading