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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)
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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
CA5: Violation of policy against hogtying arrestee isn’t a constitutional violation
Decedent was Tasered when he was fighting officers and wouldn’t comply with repeated requests. He was finally hogtied, too, and he stopped breathing. Paramedics were called, and he ultimately died. Viewing the undisputed facts most favorably to the estate, the … Continue reading
WaPo: Only 53 police agencies participating in national push for use of force statistics
WaPo: Only 53 police agencies participating in national push for use of force statistics by Tom Jackman:
CA11: Officers’ reasonable explanation for shooting ptf’s decedent in back was unrebutted and supports qualified immunity
Plaintiff’s decedent was shot in the back six times, and the officers’ version was that they told him to get on the ground, and he quickly turned into his house and they thought he was going for a weapon. On … Continue reading
WaPo: Video: Illegal traffic stop leads to beating and illegal medical procedures in S.C.
WaPo: Video: Illegal traffic stop leads to beating and illegal medical procedures in S.C. by Radley Balko. Clearly illegal stop; cop denied qualified immunity; promoted, case settled.
CA9: It was not clearly established at the time that Tasing a noncompliant detainee was excessive
“Responding to a possible domestic violence call, officer Dillard demanded that plaintiff submit to a Terry frisk for a search of weapons. When plaintiff refused to be searched, officer Dillard tased him. The panel held that although the domestic violence … Continue reading
CADC: Shooting dog that bit through officer’s leather boot wasn’t excessive
DC police did not act unreasonably in shooting a dog named Wrinkles that had bitten a police officer hard enough to puncture leather boots. Even though it was lying down when shot, they couldn’t be certain that the dog did … Continue reading
CA9: City’s policy on dogs that attacked innocent worker asleep in building keeps city in case
Plaintiff stopped at work after an evening of drinking to sleep on the couch rather than drive home. She got up to pee in the night and accidentally set off the building silent burglar alarm, and she went back to … Continue reading
D.Nev.: On Franks challenge, officer credited that the time stamp on digital pictures was just erroneous
The Franks issues did not rise to materiality. The officer was credible that the time stamp on the digital photograph showed the picture taken before the search rather than after was an error on the camera because he didn’t check … Continue reading
CA5: No factual findings of exigency for automobile exception applies; remanded
Defendant was followed to his house from a bank robbery, and his car was searched in the driveway. However, “[i]n this case, the district court did not make factual findings about whether exigent circumstances were present sufficient to justify a … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: No First Amd. right to video police on the job in CA3, but excessive force claim goes to trial
There is no First Amendment right to record police on the street doing their job in the Third Circuit. The First Amendment claim has to include expressive conduct, and this isn’t. The plaintiffs’ excessive force and false arrest claims, however, … Continue reading
NPR: Court Ruling Forces Police In Southern States To Reconsider Use Of Tasers
NPR: Court Ruling Forces Police In Southern States To Reconsider Use Of Tasers by Martin Kaste: The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unexpectedly ruled to limit how officers may use Tasers or other stun guns. In states such as … Continue reading
Conn.L.Trib: Editorial: Court Rulings Suggest That Police Should Consider Nonlethal Alternatives
Conn.L.Trib: Editorial: Court Rulings Suggest That Police Should Consider Nonlethal Alternatives Courts have held that the Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to choose the least intrusive alternative, only a reasonable one. As we see more and more innocent … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Judgment of acquittal by court for spinal injury of elderly Indian taken down during arrest
A Madison AL police officer convicted of violating the civil rights in February 2015 of an elderly Asian Indian national out for a walk gets a judgment of acquittal. The officer was convicted by a jury of using excessive force … Continue reading
CA4: Repeatedly tasering mentally ill man for refusing to release a pole was excessive force, but officers get QI
Decedent suffered from bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, and his sister convinced him to go to a hospital. However, he ended up in the street dodging traffic and behaving bizarrely, eating grass and putting his cigarette out on his tongue. … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Withheld video of CPD shooting revealed during trial leads to new trial, attorney’s fees, and resignations
Plaintiffs are entitled to a new trial and attorneys fees for litigating the mid-trial disclosure of a CPD video of decedent’s shooting in this Fourth Amendment excessive force case. The City denied all along there was a video, and the … Continue reading
CA11: Unarmed, compliant, and nonresisting arrestee shot in the back while lying on the ground was excessive force and violates clearly established law
Unarmed, compliant, and nonresisting arrestee shot in the back while lying on the ground was excessive force and violates clearly established law. Denial of qualified immunity denied. The officer’s subjective belief that force was necessary doesn’t carry any weight when … Continue reading
MA: While statute didn’t authorize arrest for this misdemeanor, common law might still
“We conclude that there is no statutory authority to arrest an individual for operating a motor vehicle with a revoked registration but that, under circumstances not present here, an arrest may be made under the established common law rule pertaining … Continue reading
NPR: Police Expert: Tasers Should Be Used Only When Suspects Are Threats
NPR: Police Expert: Tasers Should Be Used Only When Suspects Are Threats: The Chicago Police Department is doubling its supply of Tasers in an effort to reduce the use of lethal force. NPR’s Rachel Martin speaks with former Baltimore police … Continue reading
NYTimes: Op-Ed Contributors: A Better Standard for the Use of Deadly Force
NYTimes: Op-Ed Contributors: A Better Standard for the Use of Deadly Force by Olevia Boykin, Christopher Desir, Jed Rubenfeld: IN police shooting cases like that of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, grand jurors are typically asked to focus on one … Continue reading