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- The Intercept: FBI Raid on WaPo Reporter’s Home Was Based on Sham Pretext
- N.D.Ga.: Slight delay in searching a cell phone of a person in custody who couldn’t possess it was reasonable
- D.Kan.: Search incident of a car after DUI arrest was reasonable under Gant
- Cal.2d: NDO in SW to Microsoft doesn’t violate state statute or 1A
- MA: Missing juvenile in BOLO was subject to community caretaking function
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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)
--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) -
“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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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: Foreign searches
N.-M.Ct.Crim.App.: Joint investigation by Belgium and Navy in NATO forces of murder of service member’s spouse by the service member was not improper
Defendant was in the Navy with NATO forces and questioned by Belgian authorities under their law for murder of his wife. This was not an improper joint investigation because both Belgium and the United States had jurisdiction over his crime. … Continue reading
NBC: Top military lawyer raised legal concerns about boat strikes
NBC: Top military lawyer raised legal concerns about boat strikes by Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube and Dan De Luce (“The lawyer at U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the operations against alleged drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela, disagreed that the strikes are … Continue reading
NY: The smell of a decomposing body in a Brooklyn apartment was plain smell for finding source
Defendant had no standing to contest the opening of an apartment refrigerator finding a decapitated body. This was plain smell. The officers could smell the decomposing body, and that was enough to open the refrigerator door. People v. McGee, 2025 … Continue reading
FL4: Welfare check entry valid despite mixed motives
A welfare check that is objectively reasonable isn’t unreasonable because of a mixed motive to arrest if necessary. State v. Leiby, 2025 Fla. App. LEXIS 8339 (Fla. 4th DCA Nov. 5, 2025). The police had (plenty) of probable cause to … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Some assistance to foreign police under MLAT doesn’t require suppression
Defendants are accused to a cocaine conspiracy of trafficking from South America to Europe through the US. The government obtained information from European counties via MLAT, and whatever assistance they gave to help gather information didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Use of translation app to communicate with def slowed the stop, but didn’t make it unreasonable
The officer’s use of a translation app on his cell phone to communicate with defendant didn’t unreasonably extend the stop. If limited questions can be asked, then logically an app can translate. Here, cell coverage was limited so that slowed … Continue reading
NE: Cell phone search in Belize was valid there, admissible here; no joint venture shown
Defendant was charged with murder and ultimately arrested in Belize and deported. His Belize cell phone was valid under their law, and he doesn’t show a joint venture in the phone search. State v. Scott, 319 Neb. 153 (June 13, … Continue reading
AF: Military search authorization orally supplemented was subject to GFE
There were multiple military search authorizations, and the request here was orally supplemented before issuance expanding the particularity. Also, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Johnson, 2025 CCA LEXIS 193 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. May 2, 2025). A … Continue reading
CA3: Plain feel of apparent drugs supported seizure from def’s pocket
Defendant doesn’t challenge the stop or the frisk, just the seizure of the baggie of drugs that the officer felt in his “watch pocket.” The officer could tell what it was by its feel. Affirmed. United States v. Williams, 2025 … Continue reading
CA9: Failure to tell def of precise reason for arrest when no warrant in hand did not warrant suppression
Suppression of defendant’s statements is not warranted for FBI agents’ violation of Fed. R. Crim. P. 4(c)(3)(A), which provides that an arresting officer who does not possess a copy of the arrest warrant “must inform the defendant of the warrant’s … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Overseas seizure of Russian oligarch’s megayacht not governed by 4A
This megayacht was seized overseas for Russia sanctions. (Eduard Yurievich Khudainatov is the owner, and he’s a Russian oligarch who is a Putin proxy (per Forbes)) The claim that the initial seizure may have violated the Fourth Amendment fails because … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Drug dog sticking his nose in the open window of car was a search, and here without PC
The drug dog’s sticking his nose in the open window of defendant’s car was a search, and here without probable cause. United States v. Handley, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64531 (N.D. Iowa Apr. 9, 2024). This search warrant is particular … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Seizure of def’s cell phone in South Africa by their police does not “shock the conscience” or show virtual agency
“The court must first begin with a discussion of the initial seizure of Chang’s cellphone by South African authorities on December 29, 2018. Under the ‘international silver platter doctrine,’ the U.S. can generally receive evidence obtained by foreign authorities with … Continue reading
MO: Collective knowledge for RS doesn’t require that every witness be called at the suppression hearing
Collective knowledge for reasonable suspicion doesn’t require that every witness be called at the suppression hearing. “While Appellant seemingly takes issue with the fact that the officer who took Victim’s report did not also testify, the Hensley test only requires … Continue reading
NJ: State could get SW for bullet removed during surgery even four years after shooting
Defendant had elective surgery four years after a shooting to remove the bullet. The police were entitled to a search warrant for the bullet from the hospital because it was evidence of a crime. Trial court’s denial of the warrant … Continue reading
OH7: Taking backpack of arrestee to handcuff doesn’t make it not subject to search incident
“Appellant had the bag on her back at the time the officer arrested her for obstructing official business. The officer’s removal of the bag from the arrestee in order to handcuff her did not eliminate his ability to search the … Continue reading