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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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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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"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
Cal.1: An electronic device probation search condition is reasonable to aid rehabilitation; but here it needs to be narrower
An electronic search condition for this juvenile involved in car burglaries was reasonable in its inception, but it had to be narrowed. The court finds an electronic search condition reasonable because of the inordinate amount of time he spends on … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Parolee has no REP in own home as to parole search
The court holds that defendant’s status as a parolee literally gave him no reasonable expectation of privacy in his own trailer from a parole search. He seeks narrowing the search under Griffin to avoid Samson and Knights. The court rejects … Continue reading
NC: Failure to prove nexus to real property in SW requires suppression
The affidavit for search warrant failed to connect defendant to the premises sufficient for there to be probable cause, and the court of appeals decision to suppress is affirmed. As to a vehicle, the officer had more information but didn’t … Continue reading
NC: On remand from Grady, lifetime monitoring of sex offense “recidivists” off parole or any community control violates 4A
On remand from Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368 (2015), North Carolina’s lifetime satellite based monitoring system is unconstitutional as applied to those “recidivists” who have completed parole and all post-release supervision. The court does not go into … Continue reading
DC: Probationer on GPS monitoring could be checked against crime data to connect him to crime without violating 4A
Defendant was on supervised release and was required to wear a GPS monitor. After a crime, probation officers checked to see if perchance any of their probationers were at the scene at the time, and defendant was. The examination of … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Def was on supervised release with a reasonable searches condition, and his CP search was reasonable with that and a SW
Defendant had previously been convicted of child pornography, and he had lifetime supervision with a “reasonable” search condition. Despite that, officers got a search warrant for his house and computers for another such offense. First, there was justification for a … Continue reading
Cal.: Probation search condition of electronic devices not related to underlying offense and quashed
The juvenile here was adjudicated guilty of burglary. A probation search condition of his electronic devices wasn’t reasonably related to the offense and it is ordered removed. In re Ricardo P., 2019 Cal. LEXIS 5949 (Aug. 16, 2019). The seizure … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: Merely showing that a foregone motion to suppress was “arguable” isn’t IAC
Merely showing that a foregone motion to suppress was “arguable” isn’t IAC. Petitioner has to show it would have prevailed. Accordingly, he cannot show that counsel’s decision not to file a motion to suppress was objectively unreasonable.” Silva v. United … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Suspicionless probation search condition doesn’t need to be part of the sentencing order to be valid
Defendant was properly subject to a suspicionless state probation condition. He had no right to have it announced in court as a part of the sentence. It occurs by operation of law. United States v. Linder, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA5: Home visitation and search condition not unreasonable (plain error review)
Defendant challenged his home visitation condition under the Fourth Amendment on appeal without having objected below. It is reviewed for plain error, and it’s certainly not. United States v. Dominguez-Villalobos, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 23184 (5th Cir. Aug. 2, 2019).* … Continue reading
CA8: Parole search of cell phone was reasonable
Defendant was on supervised release in Minnesota as a result of a state conviction. His cell phone was subject to search on reasonable suspicion, and Riley does not bar a parole or probation search of a cell phone. Moreover, his … Continue reading
NY1: Parole officer’s search of def on arrest revealed gun; trial court erred in suppressing
Defendant’s parole officer had a warrant for defendant, and a patdown with the arrest resulted in plain feel of a gun. The trial court erred in suppressing the gun because it was validly found. People v. Jennings, 2019 NY Slip … Continue reading
NY4: Exclusionary rule wouldn’t be applied to probation search during a time of uncertainty in the law where law now settled; no deterrence possible
The exclusionary rule would not be applied to what turned out to be an illegal probation search at a time when the law was unclear. There is no deterrent effect to be gained by applying the exclusionary rule when other … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Under probation interstate compact, probationer subject to rules of both states
Defendant was placed on probation in Arizona, and he was subject to suspicionless searches there. He transferred probation to Nevada under the Interstate Compact for probationers, but Nevada required reasonable suspicion. He knew he was subject to the probation conditions … Continue reading
CA4: Arrest for obstruction wasn’t objectively justified and QI denied
The actions of the plaintiff didn’t reasonably rise to the level of obstruction of an officer, and her arrest and throwing her to the ground was unjustified. Qualified immunity is denied. Hupp v. Cook, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 22208 (4th … Continue reading
CA9: Def’s two probation searches, back to back, were reasonable
Defendant was properly subjected to a probation search. The first search led to a second search. United States v. Hardesty, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 20724 (9th Cir. July 12, 2019).* Defendant doesn’t get discovery of the entire breadth of this … Continue reading
KS: Random suspicionless drug testing of any probationer is reasonable under special needs
Random suspicionless drug testing of any probationer (even those from nondrug cases), satisfied the Fourth Amendment and state constitution under special needs. State v. Hinnenkamp, 2019 Kan. App. LEXIS 44 (July 5, 2019):
Cal.3: Broad electronic parole search condition was reasonable and related to the crime
Defendant was convicted of identity theft and he had an electronic search condition for his release. The computer search release condition was reasonable and not overbroad, and it was related to the underlying crime and how it was committed. People … Continue reading
CA10: SW not needed to obtain GPS location information from parolee’s GPS monitor
Defendant was on community supervision with GPS monitoring. He does not contest that, just the fact the location information was obtained without a search warrant. The probation-parole search exception doesn’t require a search warrant to obtain that information. United States … Continue reading
LA2: State law at time required PO be present at search, and he wasn’t; suppressed
Defendant’s probation officer wasn’t present for his probation search, and that was required at the time by state law (since changed but prospectively). Still, that voided his probation search. State v. Carter, 2019 La. App. LEXIS 1152 (La. App. 2 … Continue reading