June 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA6: CI’s lie to get into def’s house to video him making a drug deal with the CI didn’t violate 4A
- TN: Def lived in a van left wide open in a public area, but it didn’t belong to him, so no REP as to interior
- VI: Despite ubiquity of cell phones, nexus has to be shown to alleged crime
- N.D.Ga.: PIT maneuver here was not excessive force
- LA4: Acting like carrying a gun and wearing a ski mask in New Orleans in June was RS
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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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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: DNA
New Scientist: DNA database opts a million people out from police searches
New Scientist: DNA database opts a million people out from police searches by Adam Vaughan:
E.D.Tex.: Driver’s arrest justified impoundment and inventory under dept’s policy
“In this case, Defendant, the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle, had been arrested. It was likely the vehicle would be unattended for an extended period of time. Per department policy, the arresting officers caused the vehicle to be … Continue reading
Wired: What the Golden State Killer Tells Us About Forensic Genetics
Wired: What the Golden State Killer Tells Us About Forensic Genetics:
NYT: Sooner or Later Your Cousin’s DNA Is Going to Solve a Murder
NYT: Sooner or Later Your Cousin’s DNA Is Going to Solve a Murder by Heather Murphy: The Golden State Killer case was just the start. Hundreds of cold cases are hot again thanks to a new genealogy technique. The price … Continue reading
Business Week: A Researcher Needed Three Hours to Identify Me From My DNA
Business Week: A Researcher Needed Three Hours to Identify Me From My DNA by Kristen V Brown: Using just my DNA, a genealogist was able to identify me in three and a half hours. It wasn’t hard. I’d previously sent … Continue reading
Lexology: Has Investigative Genealogy Become the Wild, Wild West?
Lexology: Has Investigative Genealogy Become the Wild, Wild West? by Kathleen E. Dion
MA: There were objectively PC and exigency for a warrantless search of def’s hands for DNA from a homicide
There was objective probable cause for a warrantless search of defendant’s hands for potential DNA in a murder case because it was easily destructible. There was also sufficient probable cause for a search warrant for his apartment for further evidence … Continue reading
Slate: The U.S. May Soon Have a De Facto National DNA Database
Slate: The U.S. May Soon Have a De Facto National DNA Database by Natalie Ram We need to close the loopholes that allow law enforcement to take advantage of consumer genetics.
DE: No error in order denying production of a DNA warrant in an unrelated case without showing any relevance
There was no abuse of discretion in the trial court refusing to make the state produce a DNA affidavit and search warrant in another case not shown to be relevant here. White v. StateWhite v. StateWhite v. State, 2019 Del. … Continue reading
Law.com: What’s Next for DNA Privacy: Catching Killers, Ancestry Sites and the Fourth Amendment
Law.com: What’s Next for DNA Privacy: Catching Killers, Ancestry Sites and the Fourth Amendment by Vanessa Blum: A Q&A with Marcia Hofmann of Zeitgeist Law on Fourth Amendment protections, insurance considerations and other legal questions that arise when companies control … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Def has no standing to challenge SW for another person’s Facebook account
Defendant was charged with drug dealing and the overdose death of A.C. He has no standing to challenge the search warrant for A.C.’s Facebook account. United States v. Brewer, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220055 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 18, 2018). Despite … Continue reading
WaPo: Police seeking DNA of male staff at health-care facility where woman in vegetative state gave birth
WaPo: Police seeking DNA of male staff at health-care facility where woman in vegetative state gave birth by Herman Wong and Cleve R. Wootson Jr.: Police investigators are seeking DNA samples from male staff members at a private care facility … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Federal criminal complaint supported PC for DNA sample
A federal criminal complaint can satisfy the probable cause requirement for a DNA sample. United States v. Mercado-Gracia, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182458 (D. N.M. Oct. 24, 2018). Defendant’s term of probation permitting searches of his residence includes temporary quarters, … Continue reading
Atlantic: VIDEO: You Should Be Worried About Your DNA Privacy
Atlantic: VIDEO: You Should Be Worried About Your DNA Privacy by Vishakha Darbha & Sarah Zhang: As DNA tests such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA become increasingly prevalent, concerns about genetic privacy are mounting-and with good reason, says the Atlantic writer … Continue reading
CO: Unauthorized taking of juvenile’s DNA requires suppression
Unauthorized collection of DNA from a juvenile offender is subject to suppression and it should be purged from CODIS. Casillas v. People, 2018 CO 78M, 2018 Colo. LEXIS 832 (Oct. 15, 2018). A routine traffic stop outside of a municipal … Continue reading
NYTimes: How an Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations
NYTimes: How an Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations by Heather Murphy: Fifteen murder and sexual assault cases have been solved since April with a single genealogy website. This is how GEDmatch went from a casual side project … Continue reading
NY Times: Most White Americans’ DNA Can Be Identified Through Genealogy Databases
NY Times: Most White Americans’ DNA Can Be Identified Through Genealogy Databases by Heather Murphy: And, of course, it can be subpoenaed by the government.
CO: Def’s DNA was unlawfully collected in a juvenile proceeding and entered into CODIS, and the exclusionary rule is applied
Defendant’s DNA was unlawfully collected in a juvenile proceeding that was ultimately dismissed with deferral. It wasn’t removed from CODIS, and defendant was later linked to a carjacking from his DNA. The exclusionary rule is applied because the first search … Continue reading
Cal.4th: Retroactive conversion of felony MJ conviction to civil infraction didn’t require lawfully collected DNA be purged from database
California’s retroactive conversion of personal use felony marijuana convictions to civil infractions does not warrant removal of defendant’s DNA from the system. People v. Laird, 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS 841 (4th Dist. Aug. 30, 2018), ordered published Sep. 21, 2018. … Continue reading