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- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
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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)
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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) -
“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: Rule 41(g) / Return of property
E.D.Tenn.: When state officers seize and hold property in federal case, return of property under Rule 41(g) not possible
State officers obtained a search warrant for defendant’s property which they held but was being used in a federal prosecution. Rule 41(g) does not enable the defendant to get return of property held by state officials even though there is … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Limited motion for return of property doesn’t prevent transfer from feds to state; privilege issues can still be litigated later
The petitioner moved for return of property, seized computer information, under Rule 41(g) for purposes of conducting business. The government moved to transfer the information to state authorities for their own investigation. The fact there is a potential attorney-client privilege … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Rule 41(g) requires there be no adequate remedy at law; here there is one, so denied
The government didn’t seize $15,000 at issue here: It allegedly told counsel to hold on to it, and that’s in the District of Kansas. This is the wrong forum and there’s an adequate remedy at law, so the Rule 41(g) … Continue reading
CA6: Rule 41(g) motion for return of property doesn’t lie in federal court when state officers seized, even in a federal prosecution
Rule 41(g) motion for return of property requires that officers of the federal government have seized it. Where state and local authorities seized the property, a 41(g) motion doesn’t lie in federal court. United States v. Price, 2016 U.S. App. … Continue reading
NE: Def is presumptively entitled to return of noncontraband property seized from him when his case is over
Defendant is presumptively entitled to return of noncontraband property seized from him when his case is over. “As in State v. Agee, supra, we conclude that once the criminal proceedings against Dubray were concluded, Dubray was presumptively entitled to the … Continue reading
OH: Court couldn’t order return of property where statute gave executive branch discretion to not return
A warrant was issued to permit ODA officers to enter property to look for wild animals being kept there. The warrant did not require seizure but referred to the statute that vests that discretion in the Director. The judge thus … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Rule 41(g) proceeding can’t be used to relitigate lost forfeiture
Rule 41(g) on return of property cannot be used to relitigate a final forfeiture order. United States v. Varnedoe, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55933 (M.D.Fla. April 26, 2016). Defendant’s warrantless blood draw was unlawful because defendant was presented with the … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: No right to return of electronic data where def already has it from gov’t
A motion for return of property under Rule 41(g) is properly denied where the defendant has complete electronic versions of the records. United States v. Womack, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39097 (W.D.Mo. March 25, 2016). Defendant was pulled over because … Continue reading
D.Conn.: While def should have presented affidavit of standing, the SW inventory supports his standing
In a corporate office search, defendant should have presented an affidavit to show his standing in the office space. Despite that, however, the government’s search inventory strongly supports his standing because it shows documents taken from what was described as … Continue reading
AL: Federal adoption of a forfeiture deprives the state court of jurisdiction to order return of property
Federal adoption of a forfeiture deprives the state court of jurisdiction to order return of property. Gray v. City of Opelika, 2015 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 254 (Nov. 6, 2015). A traffic offense justified this stop, then “the smell of … Continue reading
LA3: The person who owned a document obtained by SW clearly has standing for its return
Somebody was denied a job at a hospital, and complained to the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff’s Office who sought a search warrant for the letter received that apparently caused the job denial. A judge pro tem issued the search warrant … Continue reading
TN: Motion for return of property doesn’t require a motion to suppress and can come after judgment
A state motion for return of property does not require a motion to suppress. “Additionally, the State’s argument that the trial court lacks jurisdiction because the judgment has become final is misplaced. The Defendant is not seeking to challenge his … Continue reading
D.Colo.: Motion for return of property denied until post-conviction process over
Defendants moved for return of their property after conviction and the appeal was affirmed. The government gets to keep it pending conclusion of any collateral review which might be filed. United States v. Banks, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107994 (D.Colo. … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Police daily briefing provided PO with RS of a probation violation
Defendant’s PO received a daily brief from the police that mentioned that defendant was in a car stopped and identified as a gang member. One of his conditions of parole was to avoid gang activity. That was justification for a … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Def gets return of property seized 7½ years ago
Defendant is entitled to return of property originally seized 7½ years ago to prosecute him that is not contraband and no longer needed. United States v. Green, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85174 (E.D.Pa. June 30, 2015). A state law enforcement … Continue reading
CA9: Once criminal proceedings are over, the original search isn’t an issue in Rule 41(g) proceedings for return of property
Defendant’s Rule 41(g) motion was granted in part and denied in part. The district court did not err in refusing to reconsider the original search question. “[I]n the context of Rule 41, that after criminal proceedings are completed, ‘the legality … Continue reading
Cal.3: “Reason to believe” in administrative search law means same as PC
Treating an examination of an insurance company’s unclaimed property as an administrative search, “reason to believe” in the California unclaimed property law is no greater than probable cause to get a search warrant, following Lincoln Bank & Trust Co. v. … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Notice of forfeiture certified mail to jail is proper notice
Certified mail of notice of a forfeiture to the jail defendant was residing in was sufficient notice. A motion for return of property under Rule 41(g) has to be filed in the district where the property was seized, and this … Continue reading