Archives
-
Recent Posts
- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
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)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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."
—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: Body searches
UT: Discovery order for DNA taking based on showing of PC was valid way to get it
Defendant was accused of burglary and aggravated assault, but he could not be identified by his victims. The state applied for a DNA collection order via the discovery rules, and defendant said he would not comply. Then an order was … Continue reading
techdirt: ACLU Suggests Jury Instructions Might Be A Fix For ‘Missing’ Police Body Camera Recordings
techdirt: ACLU Suggests Jury Instructions Might Be A Fix For ‘Missing’ Police Body Camera Recordings by Tim Cushing: We’ve written plenty of posts about police body cameras — how useful they can be and how useless they often are. What … Continue reading
CO: Officers had clear indication def had drugs in mouth for body search on exigency
There was a clear indication that defendant had hidden drugs in his mouth, and that was exigency for a search of his mouth. When the state as appellee argues there is probable cause for defendant’s arrest and the opening brief … Continue reading
What Would New York Police Body Cameras Record?
NYTimes: What Would New York Police Body Cameras Record? by Joseph Goldstein: As cities around the country outfit their officers with body cameras, officials are facing questions about what will be recorded and what will not.
New American: South Dakota Forcibly Catheterizes Suspects Refusing to Submit to Urine Test
New American: South Dakota Forcibly Catheterizes Suspects Refusing to Submit to Urine Test by Joe Wolverton, II: South Dakota Forcibly Catheterizes Suspects Refusing to Submit to Urine Test The state of South Dakota is forcibly catheterizing people who refuse to … Continue reading
Argus Leader: Police use catheters, force to collect urine samples
Argus Leader: Police use catheters, force to collect urine samples by Mark Walker, Patrick Anderson and John Hult: Practice brought to light in recent case out of Pierre; AG says it’s not illegal Police in South Dakota are collecting urine … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s “The Watch” Blog: Video shows white cops performing roadside cavity search of black man [quoting author]
Radley Balko’s “The Watch” Blog: Video shows white cops performing roadside cavity search of black man:
SD: Hospital blood draw was for medical purposes, not as agent of police; “small town” folks working together argument fails
Just because this DUI happened in a small town and the hospital drew blood from defendant on admission, as it usually does, that doesn’t mean that the hospital was acting as an agent of the police when doing the blood … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s “The Watch” Blog: A new report shows the limits of police body cameras
WaPo: Radley Balko’s “The Watch” Blog: A new report shows the limits of police body cameras Cameras can be a step toward transparency, but it depends on how they’re used.
Grits for Breakfast: Blood draw vote casts light on CCA Fourth Amendment divisions
Grits for Breakfast: Blood draw vote casts light on CCA Fourth Amendment divisions:
NY4: Pulling def’s underwear out on the street was without reasonable suspicion
Forty-three months after his drug conviction, the officer’s search on the street of defendant’s genitals by pulling out his underwear and looking in was not based on reasonable suspicion he was armed. Search suppressed and case dismissed. People v. Smith, … Continue reading
DC: Warrantless anal cavity search in courthouse cellblock not shown to be reasonable
The government failed to carry its burden that the anal cavity search of defendant in a courthouse cellblock was reasonable without the use of medical personnel. They may not always be required, but they may be, and what case law … Continue reading
WSJ: U.S. Urges Bodycams for Local Police, but Nixes Them on Federal Teams
WSJ: U.S. Urges Bodycams for Local Police, but Nixes Them on Federal Teams by Devlin Barrett: The discrepancy is a headache for U.S. Marshals, who now aren’t allowed to have officers wearing body cameras on their task forces.
OR: Anal cavity search could not be justified by search incident doctrine
Anal cavity search for drugs at the stationhouse, rather than on the street, could not be justified as a search incident. It was so intrusive that a warrant was required under the state constitution. State v. Scruggs, 274 Ore. App. … Continue reading
CA9: Warrantless jail rectal search that was painful and bloody should have been suppressed
On petition for rehearing from United States v. Fowlkes, 770 F.3d 748 (9th Cir. August 25, 2014) (prior post here), the panel concludes (2-1) that drug evidence obtained from a forced jail rectal search without a warrant that was painful … Continue reading
Dallas News: [Texas] Invasive body cavity searches will now require a warrant
Dallas News: Invasive body cavity searches will now require a warrant by Brandi Grissom:
Houston Chronicle: Woman files official complaint over roadside vaginal probe
Houston Chronicle: Woman files official complaint over roadside vaginal probe by Dylan Baddour: A Houston-area woman who alleged Harris County sheriff’s deputies held her down for a cavity search in a Texaco parking lot filed a complaint with the sheriff’s … Continue reading
CT Law Tribune: Lawsuit Accuses Police of Touching Private Parts During Pat Downs
CT Law Tribune: Lawsuit Accuses Police of Touching Private Parts During Pat Downs by Amaris Elliott-Engel: When two black brothers were pulled over by a cop in the city of New London, the officer frisked them both, allegedly touching their … Continue reading
Brietbart: Texas bill: Search warrant required before body cavity search at traffic stop
Brietbart: Texas bill: Search warrant required before body cavity search at traffic stop by Lana Shadwick: A bill is set to go before the Texas State House of Representatives Monday that would protect individuals from body cavity searches by peace … Continue reading