September 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
- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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)
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: Motion to suppress
NY1: Facebook can’t challenge SWs for customer accounts pre-enforcement
There is no pre-enforcement right to challenge search warrants. There are plenty of post-enforcement proceedings available. In re 381 Search Warrants Directed to Facebook, Inc. v New York County Dist. Attorney’s Off., 2015 NY Slip Op 06201, 2015 N.Y. App. … Continue reading
OH2: A general motion to suppress did not put state on notice to issue it wasn’t prepared to litigate; waiver found
Defendant’s motion to suppress did not put the state on notice that his primary issue was the qualifications of the drug dog and handler, so the issue was not preserved for appeal. State v. Matthews, 2015-Ohio-1750, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA5: Suppression hearing not required when def doesn’t make a showing for one
On the face of the papers, the motion to suppress and the government’s response, defendant doesn’t show an issue for an evidentiary hearing. Denial of a suppression hearing is governed by the abuse of discretion standard, and there was no … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Generic motion to suppress without factual or legal argument could be denied on that basis alone
“Defendant’s written motion to suppress the results of the search and seizure is brief, generic, and devoid of factual or legal argument specifically addressing the search warrant at issue now before the Court. Because Defendant has offered no sufficiently specific … Continue reading
LA4: No procedure to reopen a motion to suppress after the verdict
No motion to suppress had been filed, so the appellate court doesn’t consider it. There’s also no procedure to reopen a motion to suppress after the verdict. State v. Marx, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 435 (La.App. 4 Cir. March 4, … Continue reading
CA6: Motion to suppress body-cam video wasn’t timely or specific; evidentiary prejudice only real issue
Body-cam video admitted, and the motion to suppress it wasn’t timely, even if it would have been granted as showing a potential Miranda violation. The video showed what officers would testify to; to limit it would require it be overly … Continue reading
EFF.org: The Many Problems with the DEA’s Bulk Phone Records Collection Program
EFF.org: The Many Problems with the DEA’s Bulk Phone Records Collection Program by Hanni Farkhoury: Think mass surveillance is just the wheelhouse of agencies like the NSA? Think again. One of the biggest concerns to come from the revelations about … Continue reading
KY: Suppression and dismissal during bench trial is double jeopardy; error or not
In a bench trial, the defendant moved to suppress during the trial, and it was granted. Based on that, the state called no witnesses, and the trial court dismissed the case. Correct or not, the defendant can’t be retried because … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: The difference between a motion in limine and a motion to suppress
The difference between a motion in limine and a motion to suppress is discussed in United States v. Perez-Gomez, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165439 (M.D. Ala. November 26, 2014): n.2. This is as opposed to a motion to suppress. Black’s … Continue reading
VA: Lack of particularity in motion to suppress was waiver under statute
Defendant’s failure to refer to a Miranda violation as a product of an illegal arrest in the motion to suppress was a waiver. It did come up at the hearing, but it’s still considered waived. [See Treatise § 60.31] Gregory … Continue reading
Nebraska holds for first time that rules of evidence don’t apply to suppression hearings
“Because our interpretation of the rules of evidence is meant to be the same as the federal rules, we conclude that under § 27-104 [Rule 104], the rules of evidence do not apply at hearings to determine preliminary questions of … Continue reading
AR: Locked safe in car could be searched without warrant under automobile exception
Where the automobile exception applies to a car, the state does not need a search warrant to search a locked safe found in it. State v. Crane, 2014 Ark. 443, 2014 Ark. LEXIS 586 (October 30, 2014). The government did … Continue reading
PA: Search of an aspirin bottle on entering a courthouse was reasonable; cocaine found
Defendant entered a county courthouse and emptied his pockets for the metal detector. He left an aspirin bottle in the tray which the officer shook. He concluded it contained something other than aspirin. Defendant wasn’t detained but the bottle was. … Continue reading
DC: Withheld information about a viable search issue was a Brady violation
Withheld information about a search issue that would likely have been successful is Brady information. Here, the issue developed during trial. Biles v. United States, 2014 D.C. App. LEXIS 439 (October 23, 2014): Turning to the merits, the government, again, … Continue reading
CA4: A motion to suppress raised after the government rested in a jury trial is a waiver; early notice is vital
A motion to suppress raised after the government rested in a jury trial is a waiver. The pretrial filing rule exists for important reasons of notice to the parties. United States v. Moore, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 19648 (4th Cir. … Continue reading
MS: RS justified def’s “detainment” and it turned into search incident
Officers were investigating an armed robbery and were looking for suspects. Defendant conceded in his motion to suppress that the stop was valid, so he can’t argue to the contrary on appeal. In his patdown, something rolled up was found, … Continue reading
TN: Named eyewitness to shooting was not a “CI” needing corroboration
The “CI” in this homicide case was a known eyewitness who knew the defendant. He was a citizen informant, not a mere snitch, and his version had a presumption of reliability. State v. Dotson, 2014 Tenn. LEXIS 694 (September 30, … Continue reading