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- CO: Anonymous report of student smoking pot in school justified backpack search
- CA6: CI’s lie to get into def’s house to video him making a drug deal with the CI didn’t violate 4A
- TN: Def lived in a van left wide open in a public area, but it didn’t belong to him, so no REP as to interior
- VI: Despite ubiquity of cell phones, nexus has to be shown to alleged crime
- N.D.Ga.: PIT maneuver here was not excessive force
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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)
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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: Overbreadth
LA5: SW for cell phone including “cloud based storage accessible by the device” not overbroad
The search warrant for defendant’s cell phone included “or within cloud based storage accessible by the device.” The warrant was not overbroad. State v. Pampas, 2026 La. App. LEXIS 848 (La. App. 5 Cir May 5, 2026). Defense counsel’s failure … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Inventory that omitted “miscellaneous personal items” was not unreasonable
A “clumsy” inventory that omitted “miscellaneous personal items” was not an unreasonable inventory. No level of specificity is required. United States v. Samuels, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96304 (S.D. Fla. May 1, 2026). The CSAM search warrant here for ten … Continue reading
GA: Virtually all-inclusive list of items to be seized wasn’t overbroad
The warrant was all inclusive of drug information including use of the proceeds, and it didn’t violate particularity. Ball v. State, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 222 (Apr. 30, 2026):*
E.D.Va.: Search incident could be done on FTA arrest
Defendant was arrested on a state Capias for FTA issued in open court. The search incident to the arrest was valid. United States v. Barnhart, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91284 (E.D. Va. Apr. 24, 2026). Defendant’s conviction is affirmed. There … Continue reading
CA3: Cell phone warrant for CSAM could be broad because of possible hiding and misidentifying files
This CSAM cell phone warrant was broad, but that’s a recognition that files could have false names to hide them. It was not unreasonable. United States v. Daniels, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 11323 (3d Cir. Apr. 21, 2026):
C.D.Cal.: Overbroad and indefinite subpoenas can have 4A implications
The Supreme Court has recognized that overbroad or indefinite subpoenas can have Fourth Amendment implications. United States v. Baass, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73143, at *16 n.9 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 4, 2026) (§ 49.04 n.6):
S.D.Cal.: Notebook of passwords was within the scope of a CSAM warrant
During a child pornography warranted search, officers found a notebook of passwords, and it was within the scope of the warrant. United States v. Lira-Prado, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 982 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 5, 2026). One child pornography warrant led … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Defense can’t use SCA to get emails, even if they’re exculpatory
Only a governmental entity gets to use the Stored Communications Act to get emails. The defense can’t do it seeking even alleged exculpatory emails. Perry v. Silverthon, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 828 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 5, 2026). “Single-incident liability ‘is … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Electronic evidence seized in one investigation of Comey cannot be searched years later for evidence in another; return ordered under Rule 41(g)
When the government retained electronic evidence obtained from a lawyer under a warrant, concluded the investigation, and then, years later, searched the information again in a different investigation, the remedy here was order of immediate return to the lawyer and … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Unauthorized practice of medicine search warrant justified 6 years of records
A claim of unauthorized practice of medicine authorized a warrant for six years worth of medical files. The good faith exception also applies. United States v. Luzod, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256878 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 30, 2025). As to a … Continue reading
D.Mass.: “All records” relating to wire fraud was particular enough
“The warrant here, and, specifically, the attachment describing the items to be seized, satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement. Kerrissey argues, first, that the attachment was overbroad because it authorized the seizure of ‘“all records, in whatever form” for multiple … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: No REP in a contraband cell phone in prison
There is no standing in a contraband cell phone in prison. United States v. Pouncy, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 202490 (E.D. Mich. Oct. 14, 2025). The trial court properly limited the time frame of this warrant when an overbreadth challenge … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: If cell phone warrant is overbroad, remedy is to suppress the overbroad part, not all
“Assuming, without deciding, that the Cellphone Warrant was overbroad due to lack of a timeframe limitation, this finding would not mean that all evidence seized under the cellphone warrant is subject to suppression. The proper remedy is to suppress only … Continue reading
CT: “All data” warrant was unreasonable, but harmless on all the facts
The warrant for “all data” on defendant’s cell phone violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement, even though it was limited to two weeks before the murder. Yet, the state’s case was so strong, the cell phone data was harmless beyond … Continue reading
OR: CP warrant was overbroad
The warrant for defendant’s computer was overbroad in seeking alleged child pornography of others than the known alleged victims, essentially based on assumptions about child pornographers. State v. Schult, 343 Or. App. 376 (Sep. 10, 2025). This is a rarity:
OR: Cell phone SW was fatally overbroad for scope of search
This cell phone warrant was based on probable cause, and it was particular as to drug related information with a specific time period. However, it was overbroad because it, as the state argued, essentially let the state seize anything else … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: SW can issue to find evidence of a conspiracy
Defendant challenges this search warrant which refers to seeking potential evidence of a conspiracy where the officer only has evidence of overt acts. On the totality, the court finds probable cause and nexus and that the warrant is not overbroad. … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Overbreadth of SW determined by what officers did, not what they thought
In this child pornography case, the warrant was narrowed by the attached affidavit. In addition, the generality of the warrant is determined by what the officers did, not what they thought. United States v. Anderson, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89056 … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Marion County Record retaliatory newspaper search case
In the Marion County Record case, the now infamous case of a search warrant for a newspaper’s servers and all electronic devices based on a First Amendment retaliation claim, the main Fourth Amendment claim survives the motions to dismiss. The … Continue reading
CA9: “[E]vidence of dominion and control provision” sought in this CP SW made it overbroad–withdrawn
The “evidence of dominion and control provision” sought in this child pornography search warrant made it overbroad. United States v. Holcomb, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 7135 (9th Cir. Mar. 27, 2025) (opinion withdrawn, new opinion to follow, United States v. … Continue reading