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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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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)
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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
WaPo: Justice review finds racial bias among Ferguson police
WaPo: Justice review finds racial bias among Ferguson police by Sari Horwitz: The Justice Department will issue findings this week that accuse the police department in Ferguson, Mo., of racial bias and routinely violating the constitutional rights of citizens, including … Continue reading
Does the TSA run warrants on all passengers? Maybe
Defendant’s consent to search a box when he was in custody in a holding cell in Seattle airport’s jail was shown to be voluntary. He said “Go ahead. It’s just helicopter parts.” Heroin and meth were found in a radio … Continue reading
WaPo: Police accountability measures flood state legislatures after Ferguson, Staten Island
WaPo: Police accountability measures flood state legislatures after Ferguson, Staten Island by Reid Wilson: More than a dozen states are considering new legislation aimed at increasing police accountability in the wake of incidents in Ferguson, Mo.; Staten Island, N.Y.; and … Continue reading
CA10: Qualified immunity, clearly established law, and tasering as excessive force
Qualified immunity, clearly established law, and tasering as excessive force. Aldaba v. Pickens, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 1822 (10th Cir. February 4, 2015): B. Clearly Established Law Having held that the alleged facts regarding the initial taser strike would be … Continue reading
CA5: Use of deadly force to stop a fleeing driver with officer on running board was objectively reasonable
An officer attempted to arrest the driver of a vehicle on a warrant, but the driver refused to submit and drove off, with the officer on the running board. Ultimately, the officer shot and killed the driver. The use of … Continue reading
CA11: Ptf’s motorcycle crash fleeing police was not excessive force
Plaintiff led officers on a high-speed chase on a motorcycle through two counties, at times reaching 110 mph. In a city, “[i]ndeed, the video shows that he covered the 4.8 miles between the intersections of Z-Horse Charters and South East … Continue reading
WaPo: The Watch: Fairfax police stage a SWAT raid on poker players
WaPo: The Watch: Fairfax police stage a SWAT raid on poker players by Radley Balko: Playing cards could be dangerous. Better just stick to the lottery.
The New Yorker: Letter from Albuquerque: Your Son Is Deceased
The New Yorker: Letter from Albuquerque: Your Son Is Deceased by Rachel Aviv: The city has one of the highest rates in the country of fatal shootings by police, but no officer has been indicted.
The Marshall Project: Does tear gas belong in schools? Do police?
The Marshall Project: Does tear gas belong in schools? Do police? by Dana Goldstein: On Jan. 20, a federal court in Birmingham began hearing arguments in a class-action lawsuit alleging that school-based police officers used excessive force in spraying disabling … Continue reading
MS: No requirement that owner of property be named in a SW
Neither the Fourth Amendment nor the state constitution require that the owner of property be named in the search warrant. The factual dispute over whether a signed warrant was present at the search was found against the defendant, who also … Continue reading
WaPo: The flashbang menace
WaPo: The flashbang menace by Radley Balko: The common use of flashbang grenades has put officer safety above the safety of the citizens the police are supposed to serve. In my hometown, no less:
NYTimes: Police Gave Boy No Aid After Shooting in Cleveland
NYTimes: Police Gave Boy No Aid After Shooting in Cleveland by Richard A. Oppel, Jr.: The two Cleveland police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was carrying a pellet gun, stood by without … Continue reading
WaPo: Still waiting for justice after SWAT team member kills innocent grandfather
WaPo: Still waiting for justice after SWAT team member kills innocent grandfather by Radley Balko: When drug raids turn tragic, everyone is sorry. But no one is held accountable, and few are made whole.
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: A drug informant lied, SWAT pounced, a man died
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: A drug informant lied, SWAT pounced, a man died: Back in July, we looked at the case of Jason Wescott, a Florida man shot and killed by a police SWAT team during a drug … Continue reading
Miami New Times: Miami Cops Misuse Tasers, With Deadly Results
Miami New Times: Miami Cops Misuse Tasers, With Deadly Results by Michael E. Miller: Richard Rosengarten walked into Publix at 4:20 p.m. November 15, 2013. Normally, not even Rosengarten, a brilliant and bespectacled University of Miami law student, would remember … Continue reading
The New Yorker: Who Should Investigate Police Abuse?
The New Yorker: Who Should Investigate Police Abuse? by Jeffrey Toobin: To date, one serious proposal for reform has emerged. On December 8th, Eric Schneiderman, the Attorney General of New York, proposed that Governor Andrew Cuomo name him, Schneiderman, as … Continue reading
WaPo: Your police raid outrage of the day
WaPo: Your police raid outrage of the day by Radley Balko: Police stage a violent raid on a depressed man because he didn’t answer the door, then charge him with resisting arrest.
The Guardian: Video shows John Crawford’s girlfriend aggressively questioned after Ohio police shot him dead in Walmart
The Guardian: Video shows John Crawford’s girlfriend aggressively questioned after Ohio police shot him dead in Walmart by Jon Swaine: Video shows Ohio detective accusing her of lying and threatening her with jail Tasha Thomas only told of Crawford’s death … Continue reading
WaPo: Editorial: What we don’t know about police killings
WaPo: Editorial: What we don’t know about police killings: Congress, as we have urged, should put in place a system that ensures the collection of accurate information to assess the problem and inform the debate over reform. But there is … Continue reading
The Economist: America’s police on trial
The Economist: America’s police on trial The United States needs to overhaul its law-enforcement system THE store camera tells a harrowing tale. John Crawford was standing in a Walmart in Ohio holding an air rifle—a toy he had picked off … Continue reading