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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
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Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
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D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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) -
“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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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, Little Rock 
Category Archives: § 1983 / Bivens
W.D.Mich.: In a prison male group strip search, def female guard doesn’t show QI from how it was done
In a prison group strip search, “Defendant has failed to properly support her motion for summary judgment with relevant evidence showing the existence of a legitimate penological need for the group strip search and why her presence inside the Chapel … Continue reading
CA6: Franks violation overcomes qualified immunity in § 1983 case
In this § 1983 case, the officer provided false information in the affidavit for the search warrant that was critical to the finding of probable cause. Without that information, there was no probable cause. The district court’s finding that qualified … Continue reading
CA9: Nominal damages for 20 min detention supported by evidence
“A jury could reasonably find that the Kovacics suffered no actual damages from an unreasonable search of the home. See George v. City of Long Beach, 973 F.2d 706, 708-09 (9th Cir. 1992). Although Jared Kovacic was detained for 20 … Continue reading
D.Md.: Officer gets QI for arresting person with same name but it turned out warrant was for far younger woman of different race
Plaintiff was legally blind but owned her car. She was a passenger in the back seat. After the vehicle was stopped, the officer found a warrant for a person with the same name as her. She protested she wasn’t the … Continue reading
CA3: FTCA doesn’t apply to TSA screeners
TSA screeners are not “investigative or law enforcement officers” for purposes of the Federal Tort Claims Act. Therefore, they are covered by the discretionary function exemption. Pellegrino v. United States Transp. Sec. Admin., 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 18821 (3d Cir. … Continue reading
D.Ore.: Even if ptf’s 4A violated in stop at Portland airport, exclusionary rule doesn’t apply in § 1983 case
“First, even assuming that Flinn had no lawful basis to stop and talk to Plaintiff in the first place, Plaintiff’s argument is not viable in a § 1983 claim. In a 2016 Ninth Circuit case, the court noted that the … Continue reading
CA5: Mass suspicionless strip search of a class of 6th grade girls was clearly unreasonable with a failure to train on policy that would have prevented it
“During a sixth-grade choir class, an assistant principal allegedly ordered a mass, suspicionless strip search of the underwear of twenty-two preteen girls. All agree the search violated the girls’ constitutional rights under Texas and federal law. Even so, the district … Continue reading
CA10: A KS child welfare pick-up order was valid on its face in CO and didn’t need to be registered to satisfy 4A
A Kansas court issued a pick-up order for ten children from one family for various allegations. At the time the family was found, they were in Colorado, and the order was executed there. There was no statutory or constitutional duty … Continue reading
CA7: Drug court staffers’ making arrests outside courthouse may have violated state law but were reasonable under 4A
In claims against a drug court out of control involving multi-month detentions for really short term ordered incarcerations, there was also a Fourth Amendment claim: Two drug court staffers, one a bailiff with no authority outside the courthouse, undertook to … Continue reading
SD: Electronic signature on a SW application sent in to magistrate is valid as an oath
An electronic signature on a search warrant application is still an oath for an affidavit required under state law, and the motion to suppress was properly denied. State v. Bowers, 2018 SD 50 (June 27, 2018). Juvenile defendant was interrogated … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Too many facts in dispute to grant QI dismissal on a claim of interference with right to pray after entry into the house; 4A claim revived after being waived
This pro se plaintiff alleged police came into her house for a complaint of her radio being too loud, and she was told to stop praying. The district court dismissed her First and Fourth Amendment claims for failure to state … Continue reading
CA2: If excising the tainted information from the affidavit still leaves PC, the search stands
“When an application for a search warrant includes both tainted and untainted evidence, ‘the warrant may be upheld if the untainted evidence, standing alone, establishes probable cause.’” Excising the challenged information here still yields probable cause on the totality. United … Continue reading
CA7: In the private search doctrine and QI, it’s not clearly established that the actors knowing each other isn’t enough
“But for purposes of official immunity, the question is whether existing law clearly establishes that a private search is treated as a governmental search when the public and private actors are friends and potential future coworkers.” It does not. There … Continue reading
CA11: The officer received easily verifiable information that the tattoo on the suspect didn’t match the tattoos of the perpetrator; the arrest was without PC
Before the arrest the officer received easily verifiable exculpatory information from a witness, that the citizen’s single tattoo did not match the multiple tattoos visible on the perpetrator in the crime scene photograph that the officer showed the witness. Despite … Continue reading
TX8: Hospital can’t be sued under § 1983 for medical negligence and battery in conducting intensive body, pelvic, and rectal searches for CBP that produced nothing at all
Plaintiff, an El Paso resident, was stopped at the border coming into El Paso from visiting a friend and subjected to several searches for drugs, including taking her to the appellant hospital for x-rays and a pelvic exam. Nothing was … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: QI not applied because it does protect those who knowingly violate constitutional rights
Law.com: “Deciding that qualified immunity has evolved to the point where it can protect police officers who intentionally flout constitutional rights, a federal judge in Brooklyn declined to grant it to four police officers who broke into a man’s house … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Suit over ptf’s strip search barred by Heck because that’s the basis of his conviction
Plaintiff’s pro se lawsuit over his strip search necessarily is an attempt to impugn the integrity of his criminal conviction for drug trafficking, so it is barred by Heck v. Humphrey. Johnson v. Waters, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96255 (N.D. … Continue reading
NC: 20 month old information wasn’t stale in a counterfeit goods case
The affidavit for search warrant in this counterfeit goods case at defendant’s house had information 20 months old. But, the keeping of the counterfeit goods was an ongoing operation being sold around the area, and the search warrant wasn’t stale. … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Parole search was valid despite def being in jail at time
Defendant was on parole and allegedly shot at somebody. That justified a parole search of his residence. The fact he was in jail at the time didn’t matter. United States v. Jaiman, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64797 (S.D. N.Y. Apr. … Continue reading
CA9: On the scene determination of PC justified arreat and detention for 47 hours, despite later dismissal
There was probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest based on the officer’s on the scene determination. He was held 47 hours and released. The jury in the civil case found for the defendants, and the district court did not abuse its … Continue reading