Archives
-
Recent Posts
- 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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
-
“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: Reasonableness
CA7: Prison inmates have 4A reasonableness protection against abusive strip and body cavity searches
Prison inmates retain a Fourth Amendment reasonableness right against abusive strip and body cavity searches enough to state a claim here. Qualified immunity is reserved for later. Henry v. Hulett, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 25390 (7th Cir. Aug. 11, 2020) … Continue reading
CA9: It was well established that “illegal presence” in the U.S. was not a crime, so ptf’s arrest was unreasonable
Illegal entry is a crime, but not mere presence, and that was well established since 2012. Defendant’s arrest of plaintiff in a courtroom as a witness on suspicion of being here illegally at the request of a JP was unreasonable. … Continue reading
CA7: Violation of police dept regulations can’t reasonably be a § 1983 claim or 4A violation
Violation of department violations can’t reasonably be a § 1983 claim or violation of the Fourth Amendment. Estate of Biegert v. Molitor, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24211 (7th Cir. July 31, 2020):
CA10: Shooting of decedent when he raised a gun at his arrest appears justified
When officers, including the SWAT team, came to arrest the decedent, he had a gun in hand and raised it. He was already known to be potentially violent, and the shooting was reasonable under the circumstances. Estate of Valverde v. … Continue reading
CO: Traffic stop was objectively reasonable even though officer cited wrong statute
Defendant’s stop was objectively reasonable, even though the officer cited the wrong statute. People v. Ambrose, 2020 COA 112, 2020 Colo. App. LEXIS 1384 (July 23, 2020). “[W]e need not address Salas’s argument that a slight delay to conduct a … Continue reading
CA7: Unreasonable administrative delay in releasing pretrial detainees entitled to release violates 4A
Unreasonable administrative delay in getting people out of jail that are entitled to it violates the Fourth Amendment under Gerstein and County of Riverside. Williams v. Dart, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 23132 (7th Cir. July 23, 2020):
N.D.Ohio: Some discretion in inventories doesn’t make them unreasonable
The driver’s suspended DL was reason under policy to tow the car, and that led to a valid inventory. The inventory issue turned on whether a key was “readily available” to unlock the glove compartment, and a key found in … Continue reading
L.R. Article: The Questionable Objectivity of Fourth Amendment Law by Orin S. Kerr
The Questionable Objectivity of Fourth Amendment Law by Orin S. Kerr, forthcoming in 41 Tex. L. Rev. Abstract:
DE: Subpoena duces tecum from State Escheator was shown reasonable
A subpoena duces tecum from the State Escheator is subject to Fourth Amendment reasonableness. “The resulting legal framework for enforcing an administrative subpoena involves a shifting burden of proof. The agency has the initial burden of showing that its subpoena … Continue reading
CA6: CSLI 7 years before Carpenter subject to GFE
Two months of CSLI seven years before Carpenter was subject to the good faith exception. United States v. Pritchard, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 21030 (6th Cir. July 7, 2020)* (a valiant try based on the circuit’s Warshak email decision). “What … Continue reading
MT: Field test of seized drugs is a reasonable search
A field test of drugs seized off defendant’s person finding them presumptively methamphetamine is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. There is no enlarged reasonable expectation of privacy as to them when seized. State v. Funkhouser, 2020 … Continue reading
Law Rev. article: A New Report of Entick v. Carrington (1765)
T. T. Arvind & Christian R. Burset, A New Report of Entick v. Carrington (1765), Notre Dame Legal Studies Paper No. 200131 (2020). Abstract:
CA10: 15-minute call to EPIC when officer given inconsistent travel plans wasn’t unreasonable
Inconsistent travel plans coming from the driver and passenger justified a 15 minute call to EPIC to see if the vehicle had crossed the border recently, and this was not unreasonable. United States v. Morales, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 17865 … Continue reading
MA: Owner’s DL was suspended, and it wasn’t apparent that driver wasn’t owner when stop occurred
Similar to Glover, Massachusetts held well before that the suspension of the owner’s DL can justify a stop. There was no indication [such as gender] here that the driver could not be the owner, so the stop was with reasonable … Continue reading
AR: No abuse of discretion in not forcing state to disclose that which it couldn’t get from HBO camera crew being at search
An HBO crew was present at the drug raid here while filming “Meth Storm.”The prosecutor didn’t know about it until the eve of trial, and he sought to get the video and couldn’t, and he disclosed to the defense. The … Continue reading
KY: Criminal history check during traffic stop is reasonable; the officer needs to know who he or she is dealing with
The stop had not concluded, and it wasn’t unreasonably extended by the officer. Criminal history checks are reasonable. “Accordingly, the officer may take reasonable steps to ascertain whether the persons with whom he is dealing might be dangerous. To this … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Open container in car justified search
An open container violation is an offense justifying a search of a vehicle for more. United States v. Hoskins, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90256 (E.D. Wis. May 22, 2020).* The stop reached the level of reasonable suspicion before dispatch responded, … Continue reading
D.C.: Four day delay in getting SW for car and then searching it was unreasonable and interfered with def’s possessory interests
A four day delay between the seizure of defendant’s car and obtaining a search warrant for it unreasonably infringed on defendant’s possessory interest in the car. The exclusionary rule should be applied here because the delay was all the actions … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Holding def’s computer for 6 hrs to get SW after he revoked consent was reasonable
Defendant at first consented to the government holding and then searching his cell phone and laptop. The next day he revoked his consent on the computer. The government continued to hold the laptop to preserve evidence and got a search … Continue reading
CA11: Officer reasonably mistook dog’s whimper inside for person in distress; entry valid
“The major question presented on appeal is whether it was reasonable for officers, mistaking a dog’s whimper for a person in distress, to enter Evans’s home without a warrant. Given the totality of the circumstances, we say yes.” United States … Continue reading