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Recent Posts
- CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”
- D.Idaho: Trial references to SW not barred, but govt limited in what it can say
- D.D.C.: PO’s alleged violation of probation regulations doesn’t warrant suppression if a reasonable mistake
- E.D.N.C.: SW not required to look in def’s jail property bag and retrieve car keys
- D.N.M.: Consent attenuated unreasonable search
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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)
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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. 
Monthly Archives: March 2024
D.Idaho: Cellphone warrant was not sufficiently particular and is suppressed; Gmail account not suppressed
The Google email search warrant was sufficiently particular to narrow the search to documents pertaining to a particular land transaction. The search warrant for defendant’s Apple phone and accounts, however, was insufficiently particular and is suppressed. The affidavit attempted to … Continue reading
GA: Officer didn’t have to distinguish between smell of MJ, hemp, and CBD to have PC to search car
Under existing precedent, the smell of suspected marijuana couldn’t be distinguished between hemp and CBD, and that was still probable cause for search of the car. Coverstone v. State, 2024 Ga. App. LEXIS 90 (Mar. 4, 2024). “First, Officer Murphy … Continue reading
AP: A woman wins $3.8 million verdict after SWAT team searches wrong home based on Find My iPhone app
AP: A woman wins $3.8 million verdict after SWAT team searches wrong home based on Find My iPhone app by Colleen Slevin:
CA9: Two controlled buys by others afterward going to def’s house was nexus
Nexus to defendant’s house was shown by two controlled buys with others who traveled back to his house afterward. United States v. Espinoza, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 5147 (9th Cir. Mar. 4, 2024). “The warrant for appellant’s medical records was … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Being the target of a search doesn’t automatically establish standing
Being the target of a search doesn’t automatically establish standing. There were four packages here sent under assumed names to assumed names. The anticipatory warrant was based on probable cause. United States v. Taylor, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36749 (N.D. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Assuming without deciding standing to challenge a college email account, there was PC for the email warrant
Defendant sent threatening emails through his Georgia Tech account. He also sent private emails with tax and property information. He raised a Franks challenge, too. Assuming without deciding he has standing to challenge the email search, there was probable cause … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Ordering driver out of car doesn’t extend it for Rodriguez purposes
Ordering the driver out of the car is incidental to the mission of the stop and doesn’t extend it for Rodriguez purpses. United States v. Brabham, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36681 (M.D. Pa. Mar. 1, 2024). While the smell of … Continue reading
D.Conn.: That accomplices communicated by text messaging justified SW for cell phone
This cell phone was with probable cause and was particular. “Here, the warrant affidavits clearly established probable cause to conclude that Sinisterra was involved in all three shootings described therein. He was implicated by two individuals who corroborated each other … Continue reading
D.Utah: Automobile exception permits search under the hood
The automobile exception permits a search under the hood, even if it is not the most likely spot to find drugs and a weapon. Here, a clip was found in the car, and the gun it belonged to under the … Continue reading
Reason: Yes, Warrants Allow a Search Through the Whole Phone
Reason: Yes, Warrants Allow a Search Through the Whole Phone by Orin S. Kerr (“A comment on a mistaken way to limit computer searches— focusing on People v. Carson from the Michigan Court of Appeals.”):
D.Kan.: Cross-designated state-federal officer was “federal officer” for assault charge during execution of SW
Assaulting a state officer cross-designated as a federal officer qualified for assaulting a federal officer during execution of a search warrant. United States v. Butler, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36172 (D. Kan. Mar. 1, 2024). The state courts did not … Continue reading
UT: Emergency aid exception permitted entry for apparent homicide victim who was missing
The emergency aid exception permitted entry into this murder scene. The victim was the grandmother of a child who punctually picked the child up every day at school. When she didn’t show for hours, the school notified police. They went … Continue reading