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- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
- S.D.W.Va.: “Shocking” nature of immigration raid on a Mexican restaurant at lunchtime didn’t warrant suppression
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Feedspotâs Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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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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)
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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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NACDLâs Domestic Drone Information Center
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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."
âMe -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
âJosh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
âI am still learning.â
âDomenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
âShemaya, 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."
âCharles Dickens, âThe Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.â 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."
âWilliams 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."
âMapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
âYale 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."
â 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."
âEntick 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."
âUnited 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 notâto put it mildlyârun smooth."
âChapman 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."
âArizona 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."
âKatz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
âExperience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Governmentâs 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.â
âUnited States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
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âLibertyâthe freedom from unwarranted intrusion by governmentâis 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.â
âUnited 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."
âMick 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 meâand by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
âMartin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
âChildren grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. Itâs crap. Becoming a man is realising that itâs all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, thatâs freedom.â
â John le CarrĂ©, 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."
âJohnson 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
CA6: Reference to water emoji đŠwith dual meaning not a Franks violation
âSwanagan did not make an adequate preliminary showing that Budde’s interpretation of the water emoji was intentionally or recklessly false, so the district court did not clearly err in finding the affidavit truthful. Swanagan asserts that he âprovided dictionary support … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Neither RS nor PC required for electronics search at border
Neither reasonable suspicion or probable cause is required for a border search of electronic equipment. Here, it was at Newark airport. United States v. Bill, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 234680 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 2, 2025). Defendant who had 19 prior … Continue reading
CA6: Zoning officer’s attempting to post a stop work order was not a seizure of real property
Defendant had no constitutional right to build a greenhouse in his front yard in violation of a city zoning ordinance, and the zoning official did not seize his property by attempting to post a stop work order on it. “While … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: SW for cell phone at border after warrantless search was reasonable
CBP seized and searched defendantâs cell phones at the border under existing authority. After subsequent case law called that into question, the government sought a search warrant for the phones disclosing all the facts. The subsequent warrant was valid. United … Continue reading
ABA: High Risk, Low Return: The Case Against Non-Public-Safety Traffic Stops
Jared Fishman & John J. Choi, High Risk, Low Return: The Case Against Non-Public-Safety Traffic Stops, 40 Criminal Justice No. 3 at 35 (Fall 2025) (not online yet, print only)
GA: SW to photograph a tattoo was reasonable
A search warrant to photograph a tattoo was reasonable. Here, a sex assault assailant was described as having a particular tattoo, and defendant was the suspect. They found a matching tattoo. Grier v. State, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 484 (Oct. … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Frequency of cell searches not a 4A claim
âPlaintiff complains of cell searches that are unscheduled or more frequent than she believes they should be. Such a claim does not state a constitutional violation. Even assuming that TDCJ policy dictates the frequency of searches, additional searches are not … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: There is no 4A claim by a dead person
There is no Fourth Amendment claim by a dead person. âBecause the investigation failures and denial of access to the Courts are based on facts alleged to have occurred entirely after decedent’s death, Plaintiff cannot assert these claims either on … Continue reading
PA: Yelling “Hey, fellas” to defs who fled was not a seizure
âBased upon our review of the record and the applicable authority, we conclude that Officer Crist calling out âhey, fellasâ to Stoney and Holmes did not amount to a seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes, as it did not amount to … Continue reading
Reason: The Constitution Does Not Allow the President To Unilaterally Blow Suspected Drug Smugglers to Smithereens
Reason: The Constitution Does Not Allow the President To Unilaterally Blow Suspected Drug Smugglers to Smithereens by Sen. Rand Paul (“Somewhere off the coast of Venezuela, a speedboat with 11 people on board is blown to smithereens. Vice President J.D. … Continue reading
If a shooting is a seizure, what about blowing up a boat with people in it?
WSJ: Lawmakers From Both Sides Pressed Pentagon on Legal Basis for Drug Boat Strikes by Lara Seligman, Alexander Ward, and Siobhan Hughes (“Senators on both sides of the aisle pressed the Pentagonâs top lawyer in a closed-door meeting to provide … Continue reading
WA: DV order of protection can include disarming respondent
A proven domestic violence order of protection can provide justification for the respondent to give up his firearms under the Fourth Amendment and state constitution. In re Domestic Violence Prot. Ord. For Hernandez, 2025 Wash. App. LEXIS 1953 (Sep. 30, … Continue reading
TX4: Bullet holes in truck justified its seizure for SW
Plain view of bullet holes in defendantâs truck justified its seizure and transport to police impound lot where it was searched with a warrant. Lee v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 7569 (Tex. App. â San Antonio Sep. 30, 2025). … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Southwest employee wasn’t acting as govt agent in inventorying a suitcase and finding drugs
Defendant tried to retrieve a suitcase from Southwest Airlines in Omaha while not having been on a flight or having a claim check. The suspected bag arrived on the next flight from Phoenix, and it was taken by a SWA … Continue reading
CA11: Police shooting and hitting a car is a 4A seizure
Police shooting at and hitting a car is a Fourth Amendment seizure, drawing from a common law case that striking a horse is the same as striking the rider. Watkins v. Davis, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 24904 (11th Cir. Sep. … Continue reading
CA8: A summons to come to court is not a 4A seizure
A summons to come to court is not a Fourth Amendment seizure. Brown v. City of Dermott, Arkansas, 23-3073 (8th Cir. Aug. 19, 2025). The search of defendantâs vehicle was valid both under the automobile exception and inventory. United States … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Failure to plead how 4A was violated denies return of laptop
The motion for return of the targetâs laptop for violating the Fourth Amendment is denied because he doesnât plead how the Fourth Amendment was violated. Commodities Future Trading Commission v. Alexandre, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160456 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 19, 2025). … Continue reading
MN: Mere propinquity to armed person not RS
Frisk of appellant for merely being near an armed person was without reasonable suspicion. In re C.T.B., 2025 Minn. LEXIS 392 (Aug. 13, 2025). There was arguable probable cause for defendantâs arrest. The claim that evidence was fabricated fails. âBut … Continue reading
CA5: Officer’s resting hand on truck while talking to def wasn’t a seizure
The officer resting his hand on defendantâs truck while talking to him during a stop was not a separate seizure of him. United States v. Larremore, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 20757 (5th Cir. Aug. 14, 2025). The closest case plaintiff … Continue reading
CA6: No property interest shown in blood taken from all infants at birth
The state requiring the taking of some blood from newborn infants for testing and keeping it did not constitute a seizure because plaintiffs proved no property interest. Parental consent is required for any later use. Kanuszewski v. Mich. Dep’t of … Continue reading