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Recent Posts
- MD: Hot pursuit can be days later, here exigent CSLI to find him
- D.D.C.: Alleged illegal arrest doesn’t void DNA SW
- S.D.Fla.: Inventory that omitted “miscellaneous personal items” was not unreasonable
- CA4: The fact that ptf charged with witness intimidation didn’t do it again wasn’t material for Franks
- CO: Not 4A or state constitutional violation for govt to access def’s computer via peer-to-peer sharing with BitTorrent software
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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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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: Police misconduct
E.D.Mich.: That police were rude during the search isn’t a ground to exclude
Alleged police misconduct in how the search was conducted because they were rude and cavalier in handling the evidence isn’t a ground to suppress. United States v. Samonek, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88269 (E.D. Mich. June 30, 2014):
D.C.Cir.: False evidence for an arrest states a claim for relief
Plaintiff was a jail guard, and he was prosecuted for assaulting an inmate. Two years after the prosecution started he won. It was determined that the basis for the arrest was on knowing use of false evidence that he did … Continue reading
WaPo: New ACLU report takes a snapshot of police militarization in the United States
WaPo: New ACLU report takes a snapshot of police militarization in the United States by Radley Balko: Civil rights group studies 800 raids among 20 police agencies.
New Law Review Article: Federal Enforcement Of Police Reform
Federal Enforcement Of Police Reform, Stephen Rushin, 82 Fordham L. Rev. 3189 (2014). Abstract: Congress passed 42 U.S.C. § 14141 in an effort to combat police misconduct and incentivize proactive reform in local law enforcement agencies. The statute gives the … Continue reading
NYT: As Justice Department Scrutinizes Local Police, Cleveland Is Latest Focus
NYT: As Justice Department Scrutinizes Local Police, Cleveland Is Latest Focus by Erik Eckholm: CLEVELAND — As cries of “shots fired” shrieked from police radios, a caravan that grew to 62 patrol cars chased an old blue Malibu through 20 … Continue reading
Chicagoist: Peoria Mayor Is Still Unclear On How The First Amendment Works
Chicagoist: Peoria Mayor Is Still Unclear On How The First Amendment Works: Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis, made famous briefly for overreacting over a parody Twitter account, now faces a lawsuit from the account’s creator. The Illinois ACLU is suing Ardis … Continue reading
WaPo: Barry Township, Mich., asks state for protection–from its own police department
WaPo: Barry Township, Mich., asks state for protection–from its own police department by Radley Balko Residents accuse local police of threats, harassment.
E.D.Ark.: Use of SWAT tactics and 40-50 officers to execute document SW and corral employees stated claim
The use of a SWAT team and tactics with 40-50 officers with guns drawn surrounding property to execute a search warrant for business records of an economic crime against the Small Business Administration stated a claim for executing a search … Continue reading
ABAJ: Mistakenly arrested again, at court hearing in earlier mistaken-arrest case, woman plans to sue
ABAJ: Mistakenly arrested again, at court hearing in earlier mistaken-arrest case, woman plans to sue by Martha Neil: Twice arrested within six months by a single Florida law enforcement agency, for crimes in which another individual with the same name … Continue reading
WaPo: Aggressive police raids for thee, but not for me
WaPo: Aggressive police raids for thee, but not for me by Radley Balko: Former Utah AG Mark Shurtleff decries aggressive police tactics — but only after they were used on him.
Policy Mic: What Texas Police Are Doing Is Law Enforcement Corruption at Its Very Worst
Policy Mic: What Texas Police Are Doing Is Law Enforcement Corruption at Its Very Worst by Matt Connolly: Don’t mess with Texas. Unless you’re the cops, in which case you can seize millions of dollars from Lone Star State residents … Continue reading
The Atlantic: The City Where Blacks Suffer Under ‘Stop and Frisk on Steroids’
The Atlantic: The City Where Blacks Suffer Under ‘Stop and Frisk on Steroids’ by Conor Friedsdorf Police abuses in Miami Gardens, Florida, are staggering, but few Americans seem to care. Last year, police in Miami Gardens, Florida briefly made headlines … Continue reading
WaPo: Police misconduct roundup 5/20
WaPo: Police misconduct roundup by Radley Balko The good, the bad, and the ugly
WaPo: Editorial: Putting cameras on police officers is an idea whose time has come
WaPo: Editorial: Putting cameras on police officers is an idea whose time has come: Having successfully deployed cameras in patrol cars, a number of police departments, including the District’s, are now studying whether body-mounted minicams–attached to an officer’s lapel, for … Continue reading
CA3: Ptf’s § 1983 case implies invalidity of criminal case so it’s barred by Heck
Plaintiff’s fifth amended complaint necessarily implies the invalidity of his conviction and it’s barred by Heck v. Humphrey. Ollie v. Brown, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 8302 (3d Cir. May 2, 2014). Defendant’s guilty plea waived any claim that the consent … Continue reading
IA: No qualified immunity for overseizure in violation of SW; county attorney’s opinion conferred no additional immunity
The police here were held liable in a § 1983 case in state court for overseizure beyond the scope of the search warrant. They brought along the alleged victim who told them what else to seize and none of it … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh: Woman jailed two weeks for recording Chicago P.D.’s internal affairs officers can sue for a Fourth Amendment violation
WaPo: Volokh: Woman jailed two weeks for recording Chicago P.D.’s internal affairs officers can sue for a Fourth Amendment violation by Eugene Volokh: From Moore v. City of Chicago (N.D. Ill. Apr. 28, 2014) — it’s a long excerpt, but … Continue reading