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Recent Posts
- CA8: Admission of anonymous tip that led to stop violated Confrontation Clause
- 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
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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)
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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: Administrative search
CA2: Briefly seeing occupants of a house searched nude was not unreasonable
Under Los Angeles County v. Rettele, plaintiffs’ nude exposure to searching officers during a raid on a home wasn’t unreasonable. Jury verdict for defendants affirmed. Also, this was not a strip search. Miller v. City of N.Y., 2024 U.S. App. … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: State admin. health and safety SW against private ICE jail not enjoined
The State of Washington got an administrative search warrant for a workplace inspection of a private jail operating for immigration. The jail sought federal removal and an injunction which is denied. Washington state law requires these workplace inspections, and GEO’s … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Rent control is not an unreasonable 4A search
“This action concerns New York’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act (‘ETPA’)–specifically N.Y. Unconsol. Law § 8623(d)-(f).” The preliminary injunction is denied because plaintiff is unlikely to prevail. Plaintiff claimed rent control was an unreasonable seizure. It’s not because this is a … Continue reading
CA10: Kansas Pet Animal Act did not satisfy the closely regulated industries exception
The Kansas Pet Animal Act did not satisfy the closely-regulated-industries standards of Burger and Patel. Johnson v. Smith, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 14019 (10th Cir. June 10, 2024):
NE: LEO’s statutory jurisdictional authority is not an unreasonable search and seizure question
A law enforcement officer’s statutory power and authority to enforce laws outside of the officer’s primary jurisdiction does not implicate the Fourth Amendment or article I, § 7, of the Nebraska Constitution. State v. Hoehn, 316 Neb. 634 (May 17, … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: Landlord and tenant refused rental property inspection and SW was validly issued and protected privacy interests
The renter of property has a Fourth Amendment right in the property under the city rental inspection code but not if a warrant is issued. Here, the owner and tenant refused inspection and entry, and the city obtained an administrative … Continue reading
OR: Police listening to attorney-client jail calls because attorney calls not properly segregated leads to dismissal of some counts and setting aside guilty plea
The jail computer controlled phone system did not properly block attorney-client telephone calls, and the police listened to defense counsel’s conversations with defendant in jail. The police then used that information to supersede the indictment. Prejudice is presumed. State v. … Continue reading
OSHA final rule permits representatives of company on walk through inspections
AGENCY: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Labor.ACTION: Final rule. [Effective 60 days after publication in Federal Register]SUMMARY: In this final rule, OSHA is amending its Representatives of Employers and Employees [i.e., union reps] regulation to clarify that the representative(s) … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Controlled buy at def’s door + sound from inside = protective sweep
Officers did a controlled buy [used to be called “buy-bust”] of drugs and then used the alleged noise from inside to justify a protective sweep. The protective sweep was valid. Defendant was in the doorway and Santana (1976) justified the … Continue reading
NYLJ: New York’s Red Flag Law Raises a Red Flag for the Fourth Amendment
NYLJ: New York’s Red Flag Law Raises a Red Flag for the Fourth Amendment (“New York’s Legislature should revise the Red Flag Law to expressly comport with the form and content requirements of search warrant applications pursuant to CPL 690. … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Strip clubs aren’t “closely regulated businesses” for administrative searches
“In 2007, the Texas Legislature instituted the Sexually Oriented Business Fee Act (‘the SOBF’)” which requires admission fees into strip clubs and records inspections. A sexually oriented business is not one of those that can be “closely regulated” for administrative … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Admin. inspections of intrastate goldmines are legal under Mine Safety and Health Act
The Mine Safety and Health Administration sought an inspection of the respondent goldmine based on safety complaints it had received. The Fourth Amendment does not require an administrative warrant for an inspection. “Regulatory inspections pursuant to the Mine Act are … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Police entry into a fire damaged home after fire was out and it was “all clear” violated 4A
There was a kitchen fire in defendant’s home, and firefighters told the police that there were unsecured handguns in the house. A police aide entered the house without a warrant and took them. The government argues the house was abandoned … Continue reading
D.Idaho: Parole search condition justified extending the stop
There was reasonable suspicion for continuing the stop, then probable cause. “Even absent probable cause, the search of Mr. Watson’s car was permissible as a search pursuant to a parole condition.” That alone justified extending the stop. United States v. … Continue reading
CA11: Pretext for a criminal search can be an issue in administrative searches
Pretext for a criminal search can be an issue in administrative searches. “Accordingly, the district court erred in failing to recognize the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the February 2015 administrative search was focused … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: Administrative SDT to Starbucks is reasonable in scope
An administrative subpoena duces tecum to Starbucks is enforced. It is reasonable in scope. Su v. Starbucks Corp., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 179355 (W.D. Wash. Oct. 4, 2023):