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- IN: Overdose call led to EMS telling police what they saw and that led to SW
- NY1: A mental health defense waives REP in the medical records about it
- MA: When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, def gets to reopen the suppression issue
- RI: Challenge to one sentence of 8-page cell phone records SW fails; totality has to be considered
- WaPo: Subpoena bill would curtail secretive tool used to target government critics
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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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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)
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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: Third Party Doctrine
CA10: CSLI is third-party information
Noting pendency of Carpenter, the Tenth Circuit finds CSLI third-party records and they are bound to apply the third-party doctrine. United States v. Thompson, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 14551 (10th Cir. Aug. 8, 2017). Defendant had a warrantless search condition … Continue reading
The Hill: Congress must act to protect data privacy before courts make surveillance even easier
The Hill: Congress must act to protect data privacy before courts make surveillance even easier by Ashley Baker:
ACLU: A Federal Court Says Your Prescription Records Aren’t Really Private. The Supreme Court Might Have Something to Say About That.
ACLU: A Federal Court Says Your Prescription Records Aren’t Really Private. The Supreme Court Might Have Something to Say About That. by Brett Max Kaufman, Staff Attorney, ACLU Center for Democracy:
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Carpenter and the eyewitness rule
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Carpenter and the eyewitness rule by Orin Kerr:
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Justices poised to consider, or reconsider, Fourth Amendment doctrines as they assess the scope of privacy in a digital age
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Justices poised to consider, or reconsider, Fourth Amendment doctrines as they assess the scope of privacy in a digital age by John Castellano, Asst. District Attorney of Queens County, New York
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Will the Fourth Amendment protect 21st-century data? The court confronts the third-party doctrine
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Will the Fourth Amendment protect 21st-century data? The court confronts the third-party doctrine by Jennifer Lynch, EFF
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: A defense of the doctrine [Re Carpenter]
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: A defense of the doctrine by David LaBahn, president and CEO of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (with links to other articles in the same vein):
Investor’s Business Daily: Betsy McCaughey: How Privacy Purists Are Helping Criminals [No they’re not and she doesn’t get how it all works.]
Investor’s Business Daily: Betsy McCaughey: How Privacy Purists Are Helping Criminals:
Motherboard: The Supreme Court Phone Location Case Will Decide the Future of Privacy
Motherboard: The Supreme Court Phone Location Case Will Decide the Future of Privacy by Stephen Vladeck: Later this year, the Supreme Court will decide if police can track a person’s cell phone location without a warrant. It’s the most important … Continue reading
WaPo: Third party rights and the Carpenter cell-site case
WaPo: Third party rights and the Carpenter cell-site case by Orin Kerr:
SCOTUS: cert granted in CSLI case; third-party doctrine to be revisited, but how will it turn out?
Carpenter v. United States, 16-402 (granted June 5, 2017) Issue: Whether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cell-phone records revealing the location and movements of a cell-phone user over the course of 127 days is permitted by the Fourth … Continue reading
CA2: Computer SW was sufficiently particular; broad doesn’t mean necessarily unreasonable
In the Silk Road “drug kingpin” conviction, whether the third party doctrine succumbs to technology is going to have to come from SCOTUS since the doctrine came from it. The search warrant for defendant’s computer was sufficiently particular. Broad for … Continue reading
OH5: Def without DL and not on rental agreement as authorized driver had no standing
Defendant never had a DL, and he was driving a rental car and wasn’t on the paperwork as an authorized driver, so the renter had no authority to let him drive. Therefore, he lacked standing. State v. Nicholson, 2017-Ohio-2825, 2017 … Continue reading
IN: CSLI is third-party information for which SW not required [noting pending cert. petitions]
The third party doctrine is still alive and well, and the collection of CSLI does not implicate Fourth Amendment concerns. Zanders v. State, 2017 Ind. LEXIS 339 (May 4, 2017):
LA5: No REP in cell phone provider’s records
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in cell phone call details kept by the service provider under the third-party doctrine. State v. Savage, 2017 La. App. LEXIS 609 (La.App. 5 Cir. April 12, 2017) (decided under Fourth Amendment and … Continue reading
TX: Texas Const. grants no special protection to third party information; here CSLI and numbers dialed
Third party cell phone information is not protected by the Texas Constitution. It grants no greater rights than the Fourth Amendment. If the drafters wanted it broader, they could have said so. The information was available to law enforcement under … Continue reading
CEI: Six Reasons FCC Rules Aren’t Needed to Protect Privacy
CEI: Six Reasons FCC Rules Aren’t Needed to Protect Privacy by Ryan Radia:
WaPo: Congress’s vote to eviscerate Internet privacy could give the FBI massive power
WaPo: Congress’s vote to eviscerate Internet privacy could give the FBI massive power by Paul Ohm: Many are outraged about congressional efforts to eviscerate Internet privacy regulations set by the Federal Communications Commission under President Barack Obama. But a frightening … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Sporadic user of cell phone had no standing; gathering provider information not a “search”
Defendant moved to suppress the cell phone data from a phone he sporadically used during a conspiracy, but he has no standing. The date was 334 days worth, and his use was occasional. This is no different that a sporadic … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: 26 U.S.C. § 7609 and the Code of Professional Conduct for CPAs creates no REP; Couch remains good law
“[D]efendant Galloway moves to suppress from admission into evidence the tax records received from CPA Livsey by IRS agents, arguing that 26 U.S.C. § 7609 and the Code of Professional Conduct for CPA’s conferred upon him a reasonable expectation of … Continue reading