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- FL: Violation of knock-and-announce statute doesn’t require exclusion
- TX3: DUI blood draw while in restraint chair not 4A unreasonable
- TX1: Def has a duty to make his record on PC and the SW; missing affidavit was on him
- N.D.Ala.: SW not invalid because issuing judge previously represented the target
- The Guardian: ‘We should be worried’: report sheds light on ICE’s booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools
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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)
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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: Probation / Parole search
E.D.Tenn.: Def doesn’t even attempt a Franks offer of proof and it fails
“Defendant fails to provide the requisite offer of proof to make a substantial preliminary showing that Agent Celeste intentionally or recklessly included false information in the Affidavit. Likewise, defendant fails to explain the absence of such an offer of proof, … Continue reading
CA2: NY Family Court orders can suffice as SWs
“New York Family Court orders provide an independent basis for police officers to enter peoples’ homes. We have repeatedly recognized that, ‘[i]n child-abuse investigations, a Family Court order is equivalent to a search warrant for Fourth Amendment purposes.’ Southerland v. … Continue reading
WV: SW not needed to seize cell phone from a person, even when it’s expected to be found
The warrantless seizure of defendant’s cell phone was reasonable. The officers didn’t need to get a search warrant before taking it off his person. State v. Deem, 2020 W. Va. LEXIS 706 (Oct. 20, 2020). The officer’s prior knowledge of … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Arrest was with PC, despite lack of state grand jury indictment
Defendant was charged with child pornography after his computer system password was linked to it. A state grand jury declined to indict him. He sued under § 1983 in state court, and it was removed to federal court. “Without providing … Continue reading
CA6: PO’s seizure of cell phone for search lacked RS and is suppressed
The probation seizure and then warranted search of defendant’s cell phone was unreasonable and conducted without reasonable suspicion. Probation seized the phone and then got a search warrant for it, but it all lacked justification. There wasn’t reasonable suspicion because … Continue reading
CA6: Parole “stalking horse” rationale likely no longer good law; question is whether state parole law allowed the search
The probation and parole search “stalking horse” rationale probably is no longer good law. Defendant here was a person of interest in a homicide, and the police got his parole officer to conduct a search which was valid under state … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Officer doesn’t need RS before contacting def with a suspicionless search waiver
Defendant had a suspicionless parole search waiver, and the officer doesn’t even need cause for the encounter. United States v. Jackson, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 189471 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 13, 2020). The affidavit for the search warrant of defendant’s tax … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Finding a gun during an automobile exception search doesn’t mean the search should end
Having found a gun during an automobile exception search, the officers weren’t obliged to stop the search. United States v. Green, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180561 (W.D. N.Y. Sept. 30, 2020). A CI’s information was reasonable suspicion for a probation … Continue reading
TN: Parole search is a question of standing
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenge defendant’s parole search. In fact, “Because the search was a condition of his parole, the petitioner does not have standing to contest the search. Oody, 823 S.W.2d at 560; Turner, 297 S.W.3d at … Continue reading
CA9: Unjustified emergency entry didn’t become justified by learning of a supervised release search waiver
The officers’ warrantless entry into defendant’s home thinking he needed emergency assistance wasn’t justified. They took him out. They found he had a supervised release search waiver on file which they didn’t know about before. They reentered and searched under … Continue reading
MT: Renter of person on probation isn’t subject to landlord’s probation search
Defendant rented an outbuilding as a residence from a person on probation. His separate room was not subject to the landlord’s probation search waiver. In addition, one doesn’t have to lock his residence to have a reasonable expectation of privacy … Continue reading
D.N.M.: POs with PV warrant authorized to enter hotel room def was visiting under Payton
Parole officers had a warrant for defendant’s arrest for absconding from supervision. His location at the motel room of another was given to the PO and an apprehension team went to get him. As they approached, the door was opened … Continue reading
OH2: Officer may ask motorist if he’s armed
A police officer may ask a stopped motorist in a traffic stop whether he is armed without violating the Fourth Amendment. State v. Ferguson, 2020-Ohio-4153, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 3051 (2d Dist. Aug. 21, 2020). Defendant’s traffic stop evolved into … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: No REP against photographing tattoo on chest at time of arrest
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy not to have a tattoo on his chest under his shirt photographed on his arrest. Therefore, defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not raising it. Shumpert v. United States, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 149584 … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Ptf’s claim he was held past his sentence expiring stated a 4A claim
Plaintiff’s claim he was held in jail past his sentence expiration date survives summary judgment as a Fourth Amendment claim. Barrese v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep’t, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143360 (D. Nev. Aug. 10, 2020). The trial court … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Officer had something at least close to RS to investigate def as a probation violator and there was no bad faith or flagrantly unreasonable action
If the officer didn’t have reasonable suspicion defendant was a probation violator, he had something really close to it. Also, nothing about the officer’s investigation was flagrant or in bad faith. United States v. Galliher, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140901 … Continue reading
CA10: Parolee’s § 1983 claim he was wrongfully arrested on parole doesn’t state a claim because he’s always “in custody”
Plaintiff’s claim that he was unreasonably arrested for a parole violation before actually getting on parole is rejected because a parolee is still in custody no matter what. “Similarly, there is no authority to support Mr. Neilsen’s argument that an … Continue reading
CA4: That Bivens shouldn’t recognize this claim wasn’t raised below and it’s waived
“Here, the officers argue that their case – notwithstanding its similarities to Bivens, which likewise involved a Fourth Amendment claim against federal law enforcement officers – presents a ‘new Bivens context,’ and that allowing it to proceed runs afoul of … Continue reading
MI: Unlawfully extended probation can’t be used to justify a probation search
Where the trial court lacked the power to extend probation, a probation search during the unlawfully extended term was unreasonable. People v. Vanderpool, 2020 Mich. LEXIS 1207 (July 13, 2020). A probation search doesn’t violate the state constitution. State v. … Continue reading
D.Del.: Mere denials of the facts doesn’t make a Franks claim
Just saying in a motion to suppress the defendant “‘denies telling law enforcement that additional drugs could be found within his apartment’ and ‘disputes the accuracy’ of the statement that officers detected the odor of burnt marijuana in the apartment” … Continue reading