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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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FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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General (many free):
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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
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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) -
“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: Arrest or entry on arrest
E.D.Ark.: Def’s parole search permitted at his mother’s house while he was visiting there; no REP
Defendant claims in his 2255 that, while he was on parole with a search waiver on file, he was searched at his mother’s house and not at his listed address, and his counsel was ineffective for not challenging it. He … Continue reading
IL: PC for arrest can arise from being with somebody else apparently committing a crime
Probable cause for arrest can arise just from defendant’s connection and close association with others. Here, others were arrested for passing counterfeit bills, and defendant arrived in the same car. People v. Braswell, 2019 IL App (1st) 172810, 2019 Ill. … Continue reading
WaPo: Authorities shot a woman during a botched raid at her home. The real suspect was already in jail.
WaPo: Authorities shot a woman during a botched raid at her home. The real suspect was already in jail. By Derek Hawkins (“Ann Rylee was curled up on her recliner, drifting back to sleep after seeing her fiance off to … Continue reading
CA1: Routine booking fingerprints even in an unlawful arrest not subject to exclusionary rule and are reasonable
Routine taking of booking fingerprints held not unreasonable, even if the arrest turned out to be unlawful. The district court held that they were admissible by inevitable discovery because the officers would have found that defendant was here unlawfully. The … Continue reading
IA: Arrest of the “wrong guy” under a warrant unreasonable where no effort made to determine if he was the right guy or not
Arrest of the “wrong guy” under a warrant here was unreasonable. Defendant claimed he was the wrong Troy Ford, and the officer searched him finding drugs before even attempting to verify whether he was the right one. It didn’t take … Continue reading
Daily Beast: Trump Is First to Use PATRIOT Act to Detain a Man Forever
Daily Beast: Trump Is First to Use PATRIOT Act to Detain a Man Forever by Spencer Ackerman (“Never in 18 years has the government used Section 412 of the PATRIOT Act, which permits indefinite detention of resident aliens on national-security … Continue reading
MI: Seizing def’s home without reason to believe a wanted person was inside violated 4A
“The police officers violated the defendant’s constitutional right to be free from an unreasonable search and seizure when they exceeded the proper scope of a knock and talk by approaching and securing the defendant’s home without sufficient reason to believe … Continue reading
CA11: Officer’s alleged lies to get arrest warrant denies QI
“With that in mind, we affirm the district court’s denial of qualified immunity. As indicated above, we accept for purposes of this appeal that Gill falsified information in the affidavits supporting his arrest warrants and therefore, he would not have … Continue reading
The Crime Report: Pre-Arrest Diversion: Where You Live Can Determine Whether You Go to Jail
The Crime Report: Pre-Arrest Diversion: Where You Live Can Determine Whether You Go to Jail (“Alternatives to detention are now widely available across the U.S. to justice-involved individuals who pose no risk to public safety. But a new survey shows … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Officer’s verifying def’s identity reasonably extended the stop
The extension of the stop wasn’t based on reasonable suspicion; it was the officer trying to determine why defendant’s license was revoked and whether defendant was who he said he was. “Under these circumstances, it is clear that the mission … Continue reading
CA11: Factual dispute as to where misd arrest occurred, in the house or out, denies QI; it appears force used was excessive
Arguable probable cause supported plaintiff’s misdemeanor arrest, but there is a factual dispute denying qualified immunity to the officers of where exactly the arrest started and how it ended up indoors. That remains for trial. The complaint also survives on … Continue reading
MA: Obtaining and executing arrest warrant in middle of night for a rash of burglaries was reasonable
Police were investigating a rash of burglaries, and woke up a magistrate in the middle of the night to get an arrest warrant for defendant. Officers went to arrest him and others were seeking a search warrant. At his apartment, … Continue reading
CA9: Arresting ptf for objecting to police coming into her house while she got money to pay a cab driver stated 4A claim with no QI
“Can a declined credit card for a $16.70 cab fare result in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action? One would think not. But here we are.” The cab driver called the police. Plaintiff offered to go into her apartment to … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Arrest warrant didn’t have to be in hand at time of arrest
When defendant was arrested on an arrest warrant, it was constitutionally required that officers have the warrant in hand at the time of the arrest. Rule 4 only requires the warrant be shown as soon as practical. Defendant was arrested … Continue reading
CA7: PC to arrest doesn’t usually go stale
Probable cause to arrest doesn’t go stale like probable cause to search does. “Haldorson’s primary contention is that the information from the controlled buy was too stale three weeks later to support probable cause for an arrest. The mere passage … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: Def’s coming to door and at threshold made him capable of being arrested without police entering home
When defendant came to the door and answered the officers’ knock, and moved into the threshold when they said they were “security forces,” he was subject to arrest right there without the officers violating the privacy of the home. They … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Arrest warrants don’t grow stale like SWs
The officer had probable cause to arrest defendant and conduct a search incident to arrest. Thus, the question of probation search is moot. The passage of time (here a little over two months) between knowledge of the arrest warrant and … Continue reading
CA11: PC or not, the warrantless entry to arrest ptf violated the 4A
The parties got into an argument, and plaintiff went back into his house. The defendant came in after him. “Without deciding whether Bailey’s arrest was supported by probable cause—or, as it goes in the qualified-immunity context, ‘arguable probable cause’—we reverse. … Continue reading
CA6: One prior excessive force claim isn’t pattern and practice in a § 1983 case
One other excessive force claim investigated by the City is not evidence of pattern and practice or failure to train. Stewart v. City of Memphis, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 30491 (6th Cir. Oct. 11, 2019).* Defendant’s successor 2255 also raises … Continue reading