Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CA10: SW for gun three weeks after road rage incident wasn’t stale
- OH10: Parole search of cell phone can occur even when it’s taken from the property room at jail
- TX14: No REP in location information on bondsman’s GPS monitor
- W.D.N.Y.: No IAC for not challenging search without standing
- CAAF: Victim’s 4A rights were at issue, too
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
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
-
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)
-
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] -
“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 2025
The Marshall Project: Mississippi’s No-Knock Raids Have Led to Death and Injury. Dozens of Warrants Lacked Clear Justification.
The Marshall Project: Mississippi’s No-Knock Raids Have Led to Death and Injury. Dozens of Warrants Lacked Clear Justification. (“During a 2015 no-knock drug raid in Mississippi’s rural northeast corner, sheriff’s deputies shot and killed 57-year-old Ricky Keeton after he came … Continue reading
Reason: Warrantless Home Searches Under the Alien Enemies Act?
Reason: The Volokh Conspiracy: Warrantless Home Searches Under the Alien Enemies Act? by Orin S. Kerr:
OR: Following def in an unmarked police car is not a seizure, and he voluntarily stopped
Following defendant in an unmarked car was not a seizure. Defendant ultimately voluntarily stopped and talked to the officer. State v. Serini, 2025 Ore. App. LEXIS 446 (Mar. 19, 2025).* When defendant was placed in the patrol car, the officer … Continue reading
GA: Dog sniff of car while citation being filled out did not extend stop; suppression reversed
While the stopping officer was filling out the citation, a second officer arrived. The dog sniff occurred while the citation was still being filled out, so it didn’t extend the stop. Grant of motion to suppress reversed. State v. Dean, … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Officers’ reliance on differing versions of weapons law was objectively reasonable
The Spanish and English versions of a section of the Puerto Rico Weapons Law differ with “and” and “or” and reliance on whichever is objectively reasonable under Heien. United States v. Rosa-Ufred, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49334 (D.P.R. Mar. 14, … Continue reading
CA10: Siccing police dog on sleeping man wasn’t subject to QI
Siccing a police dog on a sleeping man not subject to qualified immunity. Luethje v. Kyle, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 6385 (10th Cir. Mar. 19, 2025). The CI’s information on a video showed his basis of knowledge and provided probable … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: There was PC for stop, and pretext claim was speculative and didn’t merit hearing
Defendant’s claim that the officer was acting pretextually in stopping him is speculative at best. “Mr. Ellis also argues that the traffic stop was pretextual. However, an officer’s ‘actual motivations’ and ‘[s]ubjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth … Continue reading
N.D.Miss.: Summers didn’t support transporting person to jail whose house was being searched
Plaintiff’s house was searched on a warrant. There was no probable cause as to him at the time. It was unreasonable under Summers to transport him in handcuffs to the jail to be questioned for five hours and then released. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Ptf’s jail strip search on camera after contact visit was reasonable
Plaintiff’s jail strip search after a contact visit was reasonable, and the fact it was on camera doesn’t make it unreasonable. Parker v. Robert J. White Mich. Dep’t of Corr., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 48519 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 27, 2025):
CA9: No QI for nearly destroying a house in a search for a person to arrest
Summary judgment and qualified immunity were properly denied where officers searching for someone other than the plaintiff in plaintiff’s house [apparently] gratuitously nearly destroyed it, breaking all windows, toilets, leaving water running in the house, appliances, furniture, and a car … Continue reading
ARS Technica: Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28
ARS Technica: Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28 by Scharon Harding:
D.Minn.: SW’s failure to include motel name, address, and room number failed particularity
The search warrant was ostensibly for a particular Motel 6 and room number, but the warrant completely omitted reference to the place to be searched. United States v. Brown, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47675 (D. Minn. Mar. 13, 2025). When … Continue reading
PA: For crime of obstructing a search, def didn’t have to see SW to know there was one when he was told
Defendant’s conviction for obstructing a search is affirmed. He was not entitled to a jury instruction that he had to have seen or read the warrant first where it was not disputed that he knew there was a warrant. Commonwealth … Continue reading
CA7: No QI for 2015 detention of 16 year old without justification
Officers are denied qualified immunity winning at trial for his false detention four days before Christmas nearly a decade ago. The law was clearly established plaintiff couldn’t be detained like this for no apparent reason. Taylor v. Schwarzhuber, 2025 U.S. … 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
The Intercept: DEA Insiders Warned About Legality of Phone Tracking Program. Their Concerns Were Kept Secret.
The Intercept: DEA Insiders Warned About Legality of Phone Tracking Program. Their Concerns Were Kept Secret. (“The DEA ignored the internal alarm about its Hemisphere mass phone data collection program, according to newly revealed details in a government report.”) It … Continue reading
Reason: Taking $200 Out of an ATM Should Not Trigger Federal Financial Surveillance: No, not even if you do it in a county that borders Mexico.
Reason: Taking $200 Out of an ATM Should Not Trigger Federal Financial Surveillance: No, not even if you do it in a county that borders Mexico. by Joe Lancaster (“One of President Donald Trump’s Day 1 executive orders designated ‘certain … Continue reading
D.D.C.: BLM 1A speech restriction claim can proceed as a class action
A class claim for the June 2020 Lafayette Square BLM protest is certified for the First Amendment speech restriction claims but not the retaliation claims because they do not satisfy commonality under Rule 23(a). Damages claims can be pursued separately. … Continue reading
Sophie Z. Lee, The Reconciliation Roots of Fourth Amendment Privacy
Sophie Z. Lee, The Reconciliation Roots of Fourth Amendment Privacy, 91 U. Chi. L. Rev. 2139 (2024):