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: Seizure
CA10: Eight-hour seizure of home investigating OD before getting SW was unreasonable
“After Corban Elmore’s teenage son suffered a drug overdose at Elmore’s home, law-enforcement officers secured the scene and prohibited anyone from entering the house. The officers then continued to investigate and allowed almost eight hours to elapse before applying for … Continue reading
MA: Cell phone call logs don’t require a search warrant
Cell phone call logs don’t require a search warrant to get them. “Despite the narrowing of the third-party doctrine in other contexts, it remains applicable to call detail records. Notwithstanding recent technological changes, the phone numbers an individual dials are … Continue reading
DC: Lights, coming out of car with hand on gun, and “Let me see your hands” was a seizure
This was a show of authority: “With the emergency lights activated, each officer exited the vehicle and yelled, ‘Let me see your hands’ and quickly approached Mr. Mitchell. Officer Phillip had a hand on her firearm while doing so. Officers … Continue reading
DE: Officers approaching men on a stoop at night with a police dog saying “nobody move” was a seizure
Officers approaching men on a stoop at 10 pm with a police dog and saying “nobody move” was a seizure. Here it was with reasonable suspicion based on a CI’s information that was detailed, reliable, and significantly corroborated. State v. … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Affidavit for SW doesn’t have to say CI was reliable when the facts and circumstances alleged showed it
Defendant’s allegations of the police not saying in the warrant affidavit the CI was reliable doesn’t matter because the affidavit for warrant shows otherwise why the CI was credited. There was probable cause. To the extent this would be considered … Continue reading
CA9: Officer stopping to check on an already stopped motorcycle wasn’t a seizure
Defendant’s motorcycle was already stopped on the side of the road. The officer pulling up to check on him wasn’t a seizure. United States v. Melgoza, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 8384 (9th Cir. Apr. 8, 2024). FISA warrants have a … Continue reading
CA10: Def’s possession of a gun six days ago can add to RS now
In the reasonable suspicion calculus, the fact defendant had a gun six days earlier can be a factor in reasonable suspicion now. United States v. Minners, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 7734 (10th Cir. Apr. 2, 2024). Plaintiffs were loaded on … Continue reading
NV: The state’s ability to seize a cell phone with exigency doesn’t include the power to search it
The ability to seize a cell phone with exigent circumstances doesn’t include the state’s ability to search it without a warrant. Smith v. State, 2024 Nev. LEXIS 14 (Mar. 28, 2024). Defendant wasn’t seized when the officer first approached him. … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Telling def to “chill out” not a seizure
“Officer Jones never made such a show of authority; he simply told Hagan, while in uniform and in a ‘conversational tone,’ to ‘chill out.’ … Jones neither told Hagan to stop nor asked him any questions. An approach by a … Continue reading
Iowa does not recognize state constitutional torts; here excessive force
Iowa does not recognize state constitutional torts; here excessive force. “Krystal Wagner, individually and as the administrator of the estate of her son, Shane Jensen, appeals the district court decision granting summary judgment to the State and Officer William Spece … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Defense of denial of possession in drug case meant no assertion of standing to challenge the search, so no IAC
Since the defense was not my dope, not filing a motion to suppress where standing would have to be pled and shown was not ineffective assistance of counsel. United States v. Robinson, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52526 (S.D. Ohio Mar. … Continue reading
VA: Asleep in one’s car isn’t RS
Defendant asleep in his car wasn’t reasonable suspicion. Marijuana found. Harvell v. Commonwealth, 2024 Va. App. LEXIS 142 (Mar. 19, 2024) (unpublished).* Plaintiff’s excessive force claim under Bivens is barred by Egbert. Butler v. Trett, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 6469 … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Police missing target and shooting innocent bystander is a 4A seizure, but with QI
Shooting at a suspect and hitting an innocent bystander is a Fourth Amendment seizure under Brower and Torres, but it gets qualified immunity. Larocca v. City of L.A., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45650 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 14, 2024):
E.D.Mo.: Strip search of civilly committed patient refusing pat search was reasonable and with QI
Plaintiff was strip searched when civilly committed when she refused to permit a pat search. “Considering all the circumstances described in Plaintiff’s Complaint, the search Plaintiff underwent, though surely unpleasant, was not unreasonable. “But even if the Court concluded the … Continue reading
AR: Computer crash losing drug dog’s performance record doesn’t doom search
The loss of the drug dog’s performance record from a computer crash didn’t make the dog’s alert on the highway unreasonable because those records are of marginal importance. The circuit court resolved credibility questions. No inference of spoliation will be … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Assuming without deciding standing to challenge a college email account, there was PC for the email warrant
Defendant sent threatening emails through his Georgia Tech account. He also sent private emails with tax and property information. He raised a Franks challenge, too. Assuming without deciding he has standing to challenge the email search, there was probable cause … Continue reading
TX5: lack of a prompt determination of PC to detain def is moot by the time the trial starts
The lack of a prompt determination of probable cause to detain defendant is moot by the time the trial starts. Moses v. State, 2024 Tex. App. LEXIS 950 (Tex. App. – Dallas Feb. 6, 2024). “Taking as true that Agent … Continue reading