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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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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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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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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
OR: It’s the state’s burden to argue any exceptions to the warrant requirement
It’s the state’s burden to argue any exceptions to the warrant requirement. State v. Maciel-Figueroa, 273 Ore. App. 298, 356 P.3d 674 (2015) (under submission 2½ years), aff’d, State v. Maciel-Figueroa, 361 Ore. 163, 2017 Ore. LEXIS 166 (March 2, … Continue reading
CA9: Settled by 1984 that Brady applied to police; qualified immunity denied
Not a search and seizure case, but we need to know it: It was established in 1984 at the time of one plaintiff’s conviction and 1991 of the other plaintiff that police had a duty to provide exculpatory evidence to … Continue reading
CA5: Using a Taser on a person no longer resisting is excessive force
Using a Taser on a person no longer resisting is excessive force. The mentally ill plaintiff was at first resisting but then stopped. At that point, it became excessive. Carroll v. Ellington, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 15098 (5th Cir. August … Continue reading
CA7: Witness ID’s enough for arrest thus barring § 1983 case
Four witnesses ID’d defendant for a crime. The fact that the charges were later dropped didn’t form a basis for a § 1983 case. There was probable cause and no reasonable jury would conclude otherwise and that’s qualified immunity. Hart … Continue reading
CA9: Arrest of public defender summoned to court had no qualified immunity
A court security officer’s arrest of plaintiff public defender who was sent to get her to court had no qualified immunity for arresting her just because she sarcastically said “[i]f you want me to come right now, you’ll have to … Continue reading
DC: Because the circuit hasn’t ruled on the standard for seizure of a child from the home, officials get qualified immunity
The circuits are split on whether a Fourth Amendment seizure of children from the home requires reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Moreover, what is an exigency is not consistent among the circuits. The point is that this circuit has not … Continue reading
CA9: The statute of limitations for a § 1983 search claim runs from the date of the search
The statute of limitations for a § 1983 search claim runs from the date of the search. Belanus v. Clark, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 13648 (9th Cir. August 5, 2015). Defendant wasn’t prejudiced by defense counsel’s failure to challenge the … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Failure to challenge standing finding in R&R is waiver
Defendant was found without standing to challenge a search of an apartment, and he didn’t contest that in the R&R, so that’s binding. He did challenge the search of his person, and the case is remanded for further consideration of … Continue reading
CA8: Quantity of alleged excessive force against an arrestee based on extent of injury a jury question
A jail altercation in Ferguson, MO led to the arrestee getting injured and he sued. The district court dismissed on the narrow ground the injuries were “de minimus.” The Eighth Circuit says, no, that’s a jury question here. Davis v. … Continue reading
ME: Sufficient evidence supported searching passengers, too
Based on information that defendants’ car had drugs heading into Maine, the car was stopped and the occupants searched. It was all with probable cause, and Pringle controls the search of the passengers because it was reasonable to believe they … Continue reading
CA10: Not clearly established that confiscating weapons from a potential suicide even after he was removed to the hospital was unreasonable
It was not clearly established that confiscating weapons from a potential suicide even after he was removed to the hospital was unreasonable in 2010. Arden v. McIntosh, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 12725 (10th Cir. July 23, 2015):
Just Security: Are Cross-Border Shootings Heading to the Supreme Court?
Just Security: Are Cross-Border Shootings Heading to the Supreme Court? by Steve Vladeck: Two weeks ago, I wrote about an important new decision by the US District Court for the District of Arizona, holding that the Fourth Amendment does apply … Continue reading
CA7: Violation of state time limit for sheriff’s eviction didn’t state a Fourth Amendment claim
Plaintiff’s eviction by sheriff’s deputies took more time than state law allowed, and it was delayed, in part, by the presence of a skunk. He abandoned lots of stuff on the property, and it wasn’t possible to get it all … Continue reading
Wisconsin adopts Heien on reasonable mistakes of law
Wisconsin adopts Heien on reasonable mistakes of law, overruling all past cases. Reasonable suspicion is all that’s needed for a traffic stop, not probable cause. State v. Houghton, 2015 WI 79, 2015 Wisc. LEXIS 484 (July 14, 2015). Fleeing into … Continue reading
PA: DUI accident provided PC for automobile exception search
In a DUI accident, the officer had probable cause to search defendant’s vehicle for evidence of the impairment under the automobile exception. Commonwealth v. Best, 2015 PA Super 151, 2015 Pa. Super. LEXIS 409 (July 16, 2015).* The officer’s participation … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Talking about using drug dog in def’s presence was not “interrogation”
Discussing in defendant’s presence that they were going to use a drug dog as a part of their search was not “interrogation” under Innis. “Here, the conduct of the officers in discussing their investigation within hearing range of the defendant … Continue reading
CA10: Where no emergency suggested, welfare check entry violated Fourth Amendment
The officer here came to serve a summons at plaintiff’s house, and he looked through the window and saw the place was in disarray. He went to the door, and it was unlocked. He never knocked. He decided to perform … Continue reading
CA5: Decision to use SRT to execute search warrant was not shown to be unreasonable on the totality
“Based on the totality of the circumstances, Officer Vinson’s decision to deploy the SRT to execute the search warrant for Ms. Bullock’s residence did not constitute force excessive to the need, nor was it objectively unreasonable.” Bailey v. Lawson, 2015 … Continue reading
CA6: “[I]t is objectively unreasonable to frame an inmate” for a crime he didn’t commit
Plaintiff alleged an Art. III “injury in fact” in his claim that he was framed for a crime he didn’t commit. “Because it is objectively unreasonable to frame an inmate, we reverse the district court’s judgment and hold that Price … Continue reading
IL: “Premises known as xxx Street” in SW included detached garage on the curtilage
“[C]ourts have repeatedly and routinely held that a warrant that authorizes the search of ‘premises’ at a given residential address allows the search of detached garages, sheds, and other outbuildings even if these separate structures are not mentioned at all … Continue reading