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Recent Posts
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
- D.Idaho: Not unreasonable for PO to hand over def’s cell phone to LEO for extraction after RS developed from Snapchat app
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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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"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: Administrative search
D.Mass.: A failed attempt at an admin warrant and Franks violation
A contractor doing remodeling to a Bearded Dragon online business told the City about health code violations on the premises after he walked off the job. A health department officer walked through with permission and noted no violations. Later, an … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: The city’s notice under a work order of a preservation program wasn’t a 4A seizure
“In 2018, the City of St. Louis passed Ordinance 70794, which created the Preserve and Rehabilitate Program.” “Broadly speaking, the Complaint highlights—at a minimum—gross mismanagement under the Preserve and Rehabilitate Program. But when focusing specifically on the purported conduct of … Continue reading
NY3: Housing law that requires landlords to submit to premises and records searches is unconstitutional
Section 8 housing law that requires landlords to submit to premises and records searches is unconstitutional. Matter of People of the State of N.Y. v. Commons W., LLC, 2026 NY Slip Op 01253 (3d Dept. Mar. 5, 2026). Leave to … Continue reading
CA6: Administrative search that is a ruse for a criminal search was clearly established as 4A violation
An administrative search that is a ruse for a criminal search was clearly established at the time this one happened. Qualified immunity denied. Generis Ent., LLC v. Donley, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 5197 (6th Cir. Feb. 19, 2026). Not the … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Reporting requirements for real estate transactions under Bank Secrecy Act do not violate 4A
The financial reporting requirements for real estate transactions under the Bank Secrecy Act satisfy the statutory requirements which are more onerous than the Fourth Amendment requires under Shultz. Therefore, there’s no Fourth Amendment violation. An inquiry can be made, as … Continue reading
OH4: Inventory found pretextual
The inventory here was found pretextual by the way the officer conducted it; e.g., not using gloves until something was found [which says nothing to me]. State v. Clark, 2026-Ohio-447, 2026 Ohio App. LEXIS 510 (4th Dist. Feb. 5, 2026). … Continue reading
D.Colo.: Prospective relief against judge-authorized administrative warrants denied
Plaintiff was the subject of an administrative warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate. The request for prospective relief is denied, and the complaint is dismissed. Waldrop v. Colo. Dep’t of Agric., 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27532 (D. Colo. … Continue reading
D.Md.: AG’s admin. investigative demand for improper purpose and quashed; constitutional right of privacy in medical records
The AG issued a subpoena to a hospital for records of adolescent gender affirming care. The subpoena is quashed. The subject has Art. III standing. There is no allegation of a health care offense to support the subpoena. In addition, … Continue reading
D.Idaho: Ping information not stale
The ping information warrant here was not stale. United States v. Torres, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4593 (D. Idaho Jan. 9, 2026). [It also seems like it would never get stale. It is information not subject to change; if anything, … Continue reading
NMI: “An arrest warrant is exhausted once used.”
“An arrest warrant is exhausted once used. Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. 524, 546 (1952); ….” After that, another must issue. The trial court didn’t err in requiring one. Commonwealth v. Superior Court, 2025 MP 14 (N.M.I. Dec. 23, 2025). … Continue reading
S.D.Ill.: Search of car after stop for obstructed windshield valid under 4A despite state law saying officers couldn’t search
Illinois law holds that a car cannot be searched for violation of the windshield obstruction statute. Defendant’s car ultimately was, and the court finds that the search comported with the Fourth Amendment and state law didn’t grant greater rights here. … Continue reading
CA1: Lobstering is a closely-regulated industry
Lobstering is a closely regulated industry, and GPS tracking of lobster boats by the State of Maine is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Thompson v. Wilson, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 30135 (1st Cir. Nov. 18, 2025) (appellant first conceded that … Continue reading
KS: KHP power for administrative searches of truck can’t be delegated to sheriffs
Under Kansas statute, only KHP officers can randomly stop regulated trucks for inspection, and it can’t be delegated to county sheriffs by an MOU. “There is no dispute here that regulation of commercial motor carriers triggers a substantial government interest.” … Continue reading
E.D.La.: AirBnb permittees have no REP in information already voluntarily provided to city
AirBnb and its permittees don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information that was already essentially turned over to the city in getting permits in the first place. Bodin v. City of New Orleans, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174172 … Continue reading
TX2: No REP in public area of business
The state violated no reasonable expectation of privacy by entering the public area of a business. Tucker v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 6617 (Tex. App. – Ft. Worth Aug. 26, 2025). Exigency not required for automobile exception search on … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Rental inspection ordinance not unconstitutional because it requires a SW if inspection refused
D.C. Code provision on rental unit inspections requires an administrative warrant if the owner refuses inspection, so it’s not facially unconstitutional. Lyle v. District of Columbia, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18954 (D.C. Cir. July 29, 2025). Two BAC results here: … Continue reading
CA1 oral argument on lobstering as heavily regulated
CNS: First Circuit unbothered by Maine’s lobster boat snooping by Thomas F. Harrison (“Because lobstering is heavily regulated, the judges seemed to think it’s OK to track the boats’ every move even when they’re used for other purposes.”)
CA8: A state police officer, a part of a federal task force, could lie to cause an arrest to protect a federal witness
“We have decided this question before: ‘whether a St. Paul police officer acted under color of state law when she allegedly lied to protect a federal witness while serving on a federal task force.’ Yassin v. Weyker, 39 F.4th 1086, … Continue reading