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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
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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)
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"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: Excessive force
MI: 4A not violated by taking of fingerprints and photographs during a Terry stop
Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights were not violated by police officers taking their photographs and fingerprints based on reasonable suspicion during valid Terry stops, because plaintiffs had no reasonable expectation of privacy in physical characteristics that were constantly exposed to the … Continue reading
NY4: Summary judgment on false arrest and excessive force claim without considering officers’ testimony in underlying criminal trial was error
Summary judgment against the defendants for false arrest and excessive force was improperly granted without considering the transcript of plaintiff’s criminal trial and the officers’ testimony there. Hernandez v Denny’s Corp., 2019 NY Slip Op 08302, 2019 N.Y. App. Div. … Continue reading
CA4: Ptf shot and paralyzed during no-knock raid states a claim and survives QI
During a no-knock entry with a battering ram by plain-clothes officers for marijuana, plaintiff heard a commotion from the back of his house, reached for a gun, and was shot at 29 times, hit 9 times, and paralyzed. The officer … 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
GA: REP in a hotel room expires at checkout time
The reasonable expectation of privacy in a hotel room expires with the checkout time. Lindsey v. State, 2019 Ga. App. LEXIS 623 (Oct. 29, 2019). The defendant officers were properly entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff’s excessive force claim. Also, … Continue reading
CA3: Body cavity search for baggie of drugs was reasonable because of exigency of risk of overdose
Plaintiff’s body cavity search for a baggie of drugs in her vagina was reasonable by exigent circumstances because of a legitimate fear that she could be harmed and overdose if the bag leaked. Carbone v. Salem, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: “the issue is not whether the affiant omitted information the issuing judge may have found relevant; rather, the focus is on the affiant’s state of mind.”
“As indicated, however, the issue is not whether the affiant omitted information the issuing judge may have found relevant; rather, the focus is on the affiant’s state of mind. United States v. Jones, 208 F.3d 603, 607 (7th Cir. 2000). … Continue reading
CA6: Merely alleging pat-down search was done “without a legitimate reason” doesn’t state a 4A claim; more required
“Merely alleging that Jones’ conducting pat-down searches ‘without a legitimate reason’ is insufficient to state a plausible claim of a Fourth Amendment violation. Under the Fourth Amendment, ‘[t]he touchstone of whether a given search or seizure is reasonable is whether … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Protective sweep was properly limited and cell phones in plain view could be seized if it was readily apparent they were evidence
The officers’ protective sweep was justified by the facts, and it was constrained to areas large enough to hide a person. In plain view were two cell phones that were properly seized and then later searched with a warrant. United … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Def was a parole absconder with a cell phone; PC existed for a warrant for a ping of the cell phone to find him
Defendant was a state parole absconder, and the officers got a warrant for a tracking order on the phone to find him, and it was issued with probable cause he’d be found with his phone. In any event, the good … Continue reading
ABC News: After police shot the wrong man, city’s lawyer argues man didn’t have constitutional rights because he was undocumented
ABC News: After police shot the wrong man, city’s lawyer argues man didn’t have constitutional rights because he was undocumented by Meghan Kenally. Except undocumented people have Fourth Amendment rights. I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032 (1984).
Forbes: Sleeper Supreme Court Case Could Make Suing Rogue Federal Agents Almost Impossible
Forbes: Sleeper Supreme Court Case Could Make Suing Rogue Federal Agents Almost Impossible by Nick Sibilla:
CA3: Ptf’s stabbing a police dog, which he threatened to do if they had it attack him, didn’t justify deadly force in shooting him seven times
Police were in a stand off with plaintiff who had a knife, and they had guns and a dog. Frustrated that he wouldn’t comply, officers threatened to unleash the dog on him if he didn’t put down the knife. Plaintiff … Continue reading
CA2: US citizen jailed without PC as an undocumented immigrant states a FTCA claim
A federal tort claims act case was properly stated for an American citizen plaintiff’s four day detention in an immigration facility as lacking probable cause. Hernandez v. United States, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 28081 (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2019). Defendant … Continue reading
OH6: Trial court didn’t commit plain error in not inquiring into drug dog’s training when defense didn’t
The trial court did not commit plain error in not inquiring into the drug dogs training when defendant didn’t raise it. State v. Jones, 2019-Ohio-3704, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 3777 (6th Dist. Sept. 16, 2019). The particulars of a drug … Continue reading
IL: Disorderly conduct can justify a Terry stop
Police received a 911 call about a man with a blue hoodie on a bicycle shouting profanities. Because the call was to 911 and recorded and logged with caller ID, it was more reliable. On seeing the man, the officer … Continue reading
CA6: Tightening handcuffs more when arrestee complains and threatening her life overcame QI
“A group of masked City of Detroit police officers broke down plaintiff Katrina McGrew’s door, threw her to the ground, and handcuffed her so tightly it left bruises. When she complained about how constricting the handcuffs were, the officers threatened … Continue reading
VI: RS exists on smell of marijuana in a car even though locally small amounts of MJ was decriminalized
Despite decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana in VI, reasonable suspicion of possession of a small amount of marijuana is still contraband (an issue already settled here) that can justify a stop. Here, officers were watching a high crime area … Continue reading
OH5: Failure to put SW affidavit into evidence denies review of PC determination
Appellant failed to put the affidavit for search warrant into evidence at the suppression hearing, so it is unavailable for review on whether it showed probable cause. State v. Hill, 2019-Ohio-3432, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 3524 (5th Dist. Aug. 27, … Continue reading
CA10: Dist Ct credited that defendant was “unusually nervous” rather than just “nervous” as a contributing factor to RS
The district court credited that defendant was “unusually nervous” rather than just “nervous” as a contributing factor to reasonable suspicion. Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and the officer asked for consent to search. Defendant asked what would happen … Continue reading