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- CA3: Ptf was arrested on an apparent but recalled warrant, then officers confirmed it and let him go; the arrest was reasonable
- N.D.Ohio: Failure to serve state SW within state mandated time not 4A violation
- NY1: Gunshot through floor from apartment above was exigency
- Reason: Most Civil Forfeiture Victims Never See the Inside of a Courtroom
- CA8: Admission of anonymous tip that led to stop violated Confrontation Clause
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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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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)
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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: Scope of search
MD: SW for car didn’t include cell phone in def’s pocket when stopped
The search warrant for defendant’s car was specific as to the car and it’s contents, but didn’t include a cell phone found in defendant’s pocket when the car was stopped. State v. Zadeh, 2020 Md. LEXIS 173 (Apr. 3, 2020).
CA8: SW to seize a car implicitly includes seizing the keys to it
A search warrant to seize a car implicitly includes seizing the keys to it. “Thiel also maintains that Baker and Minor went too far in executing the second warrant when they seized antique handguns, handguns in unopened boxes, and gun … Continue reading
CA8: SW for already seized cell phone came from SW for far more; apparently created confusion, but not suppression
Officers had seized defendant’s phone and applied for a search warrant for it and other things at the same time, and that led to a motion to suppress the phone search. “Suellentrop argues that the search of the phone was … Continue reading
CA5: Def’s office in building behind his house was properly searched under IRS SW for house/office for records where officers relied on address publicly listed
IRS agents’ search of the home office behind defendant’s home was reasonable and did not violate the Fourth Amendment where the search warrant described defendant’s primary residence but the office carried a different address. It was reasonable to believe the … Continue reading
DE: Def’s consent overcame overbreadth issue; “all digital contents” includes photos
The scope of the search of defendant’s cell phone data was overbroad, but defendant consented: “However, Defendant consented to the search of ‘all digital contents’ of his cell phone. Based on the scope of this consent, the police were permitted … Continue reading
GA: SW for “electronic data” includes photos on a cell phone
Defendant claimed to be staying in a vacant apartment with the permission of a friend (who was not the landlord). There was probable cause to arrest him for theft of services (not to mention trespass). Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for … Continue reading
TX14: Client had standing to object to seizure of her files from her attorney’s office for his misapplication of her fee into trust account
A search warrant was executed on a divorce lawyer’s office for some client files after a $75,000 retainer was paid into the IOLTA account which had a -$49,000 balance. The district court erred in holding the client had no standing … Continue reading
CA8: “Other media” in a SW includes cell phones
“Other media” in a search warrant includes cell phones. United States v. Oliver, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 5035 (8th Cir. Feb. 19, 2020):
WA: Cell phone search must be strictly limited to the PC that authorized it
“Modern cell phones are unique devices, capable of storing vast amounts of personal data. To guard against governmental invasion of this information, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution generally requires explicit authorization to search a cell phone through … Continue reading
CA9: When arresting a vehicle passenger on a felony warrant, a frisk of others in the car is permissible for officer safety
When executing a felony arrest warrant on an occupant of a car, frisking companions in the car is reasonable for officer safety. United States v. Abbassi, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 3575 (9th Cir. Feb. 4, 2020). “In her informal brief … Continue reading
OH11: “Hand swabs” in SW for person fairly includes fingernail scrapings; no REP in clothing removed at ER by nurses
Defendant was brought to a hospital for alleged injuries. He was exceedingly drunk for a juvenile and covered in blood. He was cleaned up at the ER and no injuries found. The nurses there took his clothes. Police later seized … Continue reading
Reason: Does Letting Police Enter Your House Give Them Permission To Wreck It?
Reason: Does Letting Police Enter Your House Give Them Permission To Wreck It? by Jacob Sullum The Institute for Justice asks the Supreme Court to clarify a doctrine that shields cops from responsibility for outrageous conduct.
ID: Visitors during a parole search were subject to reasonable questioning
Visitors on the premises during a parole search are subject to at least some questions under Summers without it being an unreasonable detention. State v. Phipps, 2019 Ida. LEXIS 239 (Dec. 20, 2019):
CA9: There is no heightened duty of a court to better explain the supervised release search condition
There is no heightened liberty interest in defendant’s being subjected to supervised release searches that require a heightened explanation from the court when it’s imposed. United States v. San Nicolas, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 37093 (9th Cir. Dec. 16, 2019). … Continue reading
D.N.M.: A SW for CP doesn’t need to be limited to only devices on the premises police think were used; all can be searched
In a search warrant for child pornography, the warrant does not have to attempt to be limited to the only devices that the officers think downloaded the images; all devices on the premises can be searched, following codefendant’s case, United … Continue reading
FL1: Patdown for drugs permitted cutting hole in def’s underwear to retrieve that which wouldn’t fall out
The officer smelled the strong odor in defendant’s car and got him out. There was the strong odor on defendant’s person, too. A patdown revealed a lump under defendant’s shorts. The officer tried to shake it loose and couldn’t. He … Continue reading
IL: Once def was acquitted, seized computer data should have been returned, not searched again without a warrant
Defendant was a Peoria police officer being accused of sexual assault, and the Illinois State Police obtained a search warrant for his computer and other devices. The hard drives were copied with EnCase software. Defendant was tried on the sexual … Continue reading