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)
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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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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: Seizure
C.D.Cal.: Admin SDT is not a 4A seizure
The Secretary of Labor’s administrative subpoena duces tecum here did not violate the Fourth Amendment. “A warrant is required only when government officials enter onto a private party’s premises without consent and forcibly take possession of documents.” Walsh v. Int’l … Continue reading
CA7: Merely knocking on the door to def’s motel room and him answering isn’t a seizure
Merely knocking on the door to defendant’s motel room and him answering isn’t a seizure. Moreover, showing him an arrest warrant for 15-20 seconds was not a seizure (but he didn’t even adequately brief it). He then consented to entry … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Garnishment of wages is not a 4A seizure
Garnishment of wages is not a Fourth Amendment seizure. Williams v. Drakaina Logistics, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 248750 (E.D.Cal. Dec. 30, 2021). Defendant’s property was seized on exigency after an apparent crime, and seizure was required to prevent destruction. United … Continue reading
W.D.Okla.: Military vaccine mandate applies to National Guard and it is not a search or seizure
The Covid vaccination mandate for the military does not exempt the National Guard. Oklahoma v. Biden, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 246534 (W.D.Okla. Dec. 28, 2021). As to the Fourth Amendment claim:
CA7: Holding one’s DL it not itself a seizure; what does the totality show?
The officer’s holding defendant’s driver’s license and rental agreement is not itself a seizure. The question is how long they are held and the circumstances they were held. United States v. Ahmad, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 37991 (7th Cir. Dec. … Continue reading
D.Del.: 4A child seizure claim requires the child be a party
A Fourth Amendment child seizure claim requires the child be a party, even if the parents assert the child’s rights. Spahr v. Collins, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 241127 (D.Del. Dec. 17, 2021). Defendant in his 2255 cannot show defense counsel … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: 2254(d) “unreasonable application” review considered whether correct case law applied
In this 2254, the argument was that the state court’s application of law violated 2254’s “unreasonable” application standard, but it didn’t. The question was whether Michigan v. Long or Arizona v. Gant applies. “In sum, the State courts’ reliance on … Continue reading
PA: Sometimes a police-citizen encounter is “a legal fiction” in an “Alice in Wonderland scenario,” like here, but they’re bound by it
The officers’ seeing the outline of a gun on defendant’s person as they drove by justified their turning around and encountering him. Under existing law, “a legal fiction” in an “Alice in Wonderland scenario” the court is bound by, defendant … Continue reading
OR: Proximity to others probably committing a crime isn’t PC
“[T]he facts supporting [the officer’s] belief that defendant committed a crime were not specific to defendant and related instead to defendant’s proximity to drug use by others.” “Because the totality of the circumstances here fail to demonstrate a probability that … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: Temporary beachfront closure because of Covid restrictions not a 4A seizure
Temporary closure of part of plaintiffs’ beach use inland from the public beach because of Covid restrictions was not a Fifth Amendment taking nor a Fourth Amendment seizure. Ki Fla. Properties v. Walton County, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 226830 (N.D.Fla. … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Prolonging detention after conviction is an 8A claim, not 4A
Prolongation of detention after conviction is an Eighth Amendment claim, not Fourth Amendment. Trapani v. Annucci, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 223605 (N.D.N.Y. Nov. 19, 2021). Plaintiff’s claims that a TV she bought at Walmart is video spying on her and … Continue reading
CA3: Federal court should abstain from entering state court red-flag proceeding
Federal court should abstain under Younger from a state red-flag law proceeding to remove firearms from the plaintiff. Greco v. Bruck, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 33660 (3d Cir. Nov. 12, 2021). Defendant’s being in an alley known for druggies and … Continue reading
MS: Judicial notice proper that SW execution at 11 pm is not during daylight hours
A court can take judicial notice that execution of a search warrant at 11 pm is not during daylight hours in Mississippi. Doe v. Doe, 2021 Miss. App. LEXIS 473 (Nov. 9, 2021) (only recognizing rule; this is not a … Continue reading
CA3: Merely being on bail isn’t a seizure without serious restrictions
An employment dispute devolved into plaintiff’s arrest for theft of email and a claim of official misconduct. She was acquitted and sued. “Unlike the Appellants in Black or Gallo, Lentz did not experience any significant pretrial restrictions such as extensive … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Handing over DL on request for police look wasn’t a seizure
Defendant was asked by the police for his ID. He gave it over and they noted it and gave it back. This was not a seizure. United States v. Stephenson, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206467 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 26, 2021).* Defendant’s … Continue reading
ID: Officer taking DL and handing it to another officer to check was a seizure requiring RS; anonymous CI was not corroborated
Reasonable suspicion was required when the officer retained defendant’s driver’s license by taking it, leaving her presence, and giving it to another officer to run a license check. Defendant was thus detained because a reasonable person in her position would … Continue reading
CA5: Five day delay and rerouting of package for search was reasonable
United States Postal Inspection Service and Department of Homeland Security officers reasonably suspected the package coming to defendant contained contraband. There was difficulty locating the package in the “mail stream.” They finally got to it before delivery and had it … Continue reading
CA1: Stopping def’s vehicle by heading into it was a seizure, and here it was with PC
Defendant’s vehicle “containment” where police stopped him by coming front bumper to bumper was a seizure under Brower v. County of Inyo. He attempted to flee by backing into other police cars and a civilian’s car. The seizure was with … Continue reading
CA6: 4A does not apply to a growing tree; it is not an “effect”
The Fourth Amendment does not apply to a growing tree which is part of the real property. “But the Supreme Court has told us that real property is not an ‘effect’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Oliver v. … Continue reading