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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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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
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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)
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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
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] -
“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, Little Rock 
Monthly Archives: March 2015
Columbia Journalism Review: With more police wearing cameras, the fight over footage has begun in Florida
Columbia Journalism Review: With more police wearing cameras, the fight over footage has begun in Florida By Susannah Nesmith: As more police departments equip their officers with body-worn cameras, the question of who gets access to that footage-and at what … Continue reading
The Hill: Revealed: CIA spent a decade trying to hack iPhones, iPads
The Hill: Revealed: CIA spent a decade trying to hack iPhones, iPads by Elise Viebeck: Researchers working with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have spent nearly a decade trying to crack the security of iPhones and iPads, according to newly … Continue reading
LA1: Court order for prescription records issued without probable cause violates right of privacy, federal and state
Court order for prescription records issued without probable cause violates right of privacy, as recognized by federal courts. Also, state’s constitution grants more protection. State v. Pounds, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 485 (La.App. 1 Cir. March 9, 2015):
The Monitor Daily: Wikimedia Files Lawsuit Against NSA Surveillance
The Monitor Daily: Wikimedia Files Lawsuit Against NSA Surveillance by Matthew Riley: Wikimedia Foundation will sue the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice, in a legal confrontation against the government’s mass surveillance program. CNET: Wikipedia parent sues … Continue reading
EFF: Violating an Employer’s Computer Use Restriction Is Not a Federal Crime
EFF: Violating an Employer’s Computer Use Restriction Is Not a Federal Crime by Hanni Fakhoury and Jamie Williams
KS: Social guest has standing in curtilage, not following N.D.Okla
Curtilage is defined by either or both the Dunn factors and Jardines. Here, the residential property was fairly large, and the backyard was found to be curtilage in the trial court but the court of appeals disagreed in an unpublished … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Gov’t showed need for hair, blood, saliva, and prints in murder case
Defendants were indicted for a federal murder in Puerto Rico. The government seeks “hair, blood, fingerprint, palm prints, and saliva samples for analysis and comparison.” The probable cause standard is met by the indictment, and the government has shown a … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: “Logical inferences cannot constitute false or misleading statements” for Franks purposes
Based on a jail call that confederates were “‘moving their stuff’ to the ‘new place’” it was a logical inference it was the place named in the search warrant. Defendant’s Franks challenge that the inference isn’t supportable fails. “Logical inferences … Continue reading
IL: Stop in vicinity of home invasion 3½ hrs after it happened was with reasonable suspicion
Defendant’s stop 3½ hours after and in the vicinity of a home invasion robbery that occurred at 12:30 am was with reasonable suspicion under Terry. Officers had a missing suspect in the robbery and canvassed the area. They “loosened up” … Continue reading
WaPo: Another day, another drug raid fatality
WaPo: Another day, another drug raid fatality by Radley Balko: Meet Derek Cruice, your latest collateral damage in the drug war: A deputy shot and killed an unarmed man while attempting to serve a narcotics search warrant in Deltona, according … Continue reading
Politico: A Letter From Black America; Yes, we fear the police. Here’s why.
Politico: A Letter From Black America; Yes, we fear the police. Here’s why. by Nikole Hannah-Hones:
IA: Even though defendant acquitted of drug crime, the state gets to forfeit his cash seized at the time
Defendant filed a motion to suppress a search and lost, but he was acquitted of the drug charge. The seizure of his cash in a separate action, however, was still subject to forfeiture. The stop was pretextual by a drug … Continue reading
NYTimes: Holder Weighs Dismantling the Ferguson Police Dept.
NYTimes: Holder Weighs Dismantling the Ferguson Police Dept. by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Richard Perez-Peña: WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. vowed a firm response on Friday to what he called “appalling” racial misconduct by law enforcement officials … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Just arrested snitch was corroborated enough to be believable for PC purposes
The CI was recently arrested in this investigation, and, while he had no track record, his tale was sufficiently corroborated by other information that had been developed to make him believable enough for probable cause. United States v. Arballo, 2015 … Continue reading
WA: Search incident of a locked box in a backpack unreasonable
Defendant was arrested on outstanding warrants. He had a backpack on him that was searched incident to arrest that had knives attached outside which were “weapons” under the city code because of blade length. A combination locked box was inside … Continue reading
WI: Pre-Jardines dog sniff of house saved by GFE and “unsettled law”; is the Fourth Amendment always subservient to good faith?
A pre-Jardines dog sniff of defendant’s door that led to a search warrant would not be suppressed because of “unsettled law” at the time of this search. [There were only a couple of reported cases.] The warrant application was vetted … Continue reading
WA: Leaving cell phone fleeing from a stolen car was abandonment; no SW required for abandoned property
Defendant was seen in a stolen car and the police gave chase. He bailed from the car and ran, leaving his cell phone behind. The cell phone was abandoned property, and it could be searched without a warrant. Here, the … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Second SW for everything in six email accounts is overbroad; prior SW was limited and motion to compel should be filed
Google declined to respond to a search warrant for content of six email accounts for a six month range because of overbreadth. There was probable cause. Instead of seeking to enforce the search warrant against Google, the government issues a … Continue reading
LA4: No procedure to reopen a motion to suppress after the verdict
No motion to suppress had been filed, so the appellate court doesn’t consider it. There’s also no procedure to reopen a motion to suppress after the verdict. State v. Marx, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 435 (La.App. 4 Cir. March 4, … Continue reading
LA3: “There simply is no ‘check-em-out’ exception to” the Fourth Amendment
Plaintiff, in a church uniform with two other women, was stopped by a city police officer at before 6 am going to work at a church, simply because she turned down the road toward the church and the officer was … Continue reading