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- NY Columbia Co.: Alleged excessive nervousness when multiple police cars arrive at a traffic stop doesn’t add to RS
- CA4: Backpack dumped in flight in grandmother’s yard was abandoned
- GA: Virtually all-inclusive list of items to be seized wasn’t overbroad
- CA4: Dist.Ct. erred in applying search incident to arrest to suppress bag when inventory was inevitable
- OR: Even if original served warrant wasn’t the one returned, it doesn’t warrant suppression
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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)
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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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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: December 2025
Law.com: Courts seek route in GPS cases
Law.com: Courts seek route in GPS cases (“Two influential courts are set to decide for the first time whether law enforcement authorities who attach a global positioning system (GPS) device to a suspect’s car without a warrant violate constitutional protections … Continue reading
Cybersecurity Law Report: Gen AI Chats Becoming Evidence: Law Enforcement Warrants and Subpoenas
Cybersecurity Law Report: Gen AI Chats Becoming Evidence: Law Enforcement Warrants and Subpoenas (“Users should exercise caution before prompting ChatGPT or Claude. As three 2025 cases demonstrate, generative AI (Gen AI) chats are being used as evidence in criminal prosecutions, … Continue reading
S.D.Ill.: Search of car after stop for obstructed windshield valid under 4A despite state law saying officers couldn’t search
Illinois law holds that a car cannot be searched for violation of the windshield obstruction statute. Defendant’s car ultimately was, and the court finds that the search comported with the Fourth Amendment and state law didn’t grant greater rights here. … Continue reading
SCOTUSBlog: Relist rodeo: … searches incident to arrest …
SCOTUSBlog: Relist rodeo: firearm restrictions, searches incident to arrest, DNA evidence, and “clearly established” law by John Elwood:
MO: State can waive requirement of written motion to suppress
While statute requires a written motion to suppress, the state can agree to it being oral, which happened here. Defendant loses on the merits, however, for exigent circumstances. State v. Yates, 2025 Mo. App. LEXIS 839 (Dec. 9, 2025). The … Continue reading
TX7: SW sworn to before wrong official still in good faith
While the search warrant affidavit was not sworn to before the correct official as required by statute, the good faith exception is enough to sustain this search. There was probable cause, and it was particular. All constitutional requirements were met. … Continue reading
AR: Defendant claiming they were searching her place was sufficient for probation search waiver
The premises was subject to defendant’s search waiver on file. At court she disputed the state proved it was her place, but, at the time of the search, she and a friend said that it was her place. Inside, her … Continue reading
The Sixth Edition is shown as available for preorder, ships about 12/31/25
https://store.lexisnexis.com/en-us/products/search-and-seizure-grpussku7003.html
D.D.C.: 1/6 pardonee doesn’t state claim under FTCA for having to go to trial
Plaintiff has a 1/6 pardon. She sued over things the government did to obtain her conviction. She fails to state a claim under the FTCA for alleged disclosure of private information during the trial. “Although the FTCA waives the United … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Warrantless computer search ordered stopped
An attorney whose computer was seized and copied gets a TRO against further searches on a prima facie showing of its warrantless search. Richman v. United States, Civil Misc. Action No. 25-0170 (CKK) (D.D.C. Dec. 6, 2025):
LA2: Posse Comitatus Act has nothing to do with a vehicle accident
The Posse Comitatus Act has nothing to do with a vehicle accident with the Arkansas National Guard returning to Arkansas after helping with cleanup after Hurricane Ida. Bowman v. Williams, 2025 La. App. LEXIS 2333 (La App. 2 Cir. Dec. … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Neither RS nor PC required for electronics search at border
Neither reasonable suspicion or probable cause is required for a border search of electronic equipment. Here, it was at Newark airport. United States v. Bill, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 234680 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 2, 2025). Defendant who had 19 prior … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Flight here was PC
Defendant wasn’t seized because he fled. Even if the officer was reasonably mistaken, there was probable cause. United States v. Allen, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 250882 (S.D. Ga. Nov. 3, 2025)*:
Reason: DHS Continues Airport Cash Seizures, a Year After the Justice Department Ended Them Due to Constitutional Concerns
Reason: DHS Continues Airport Cash Seizures, a Year After the Justice Department Ended Them Due to Constitutional Concerns by C.J. Ciaramella (“A year after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) stopped seizing suspected drug money from airline passengers because of significant … Continue reading
MT: Losing 4A claim on post-conviction is collateral estoppel in legal malpractice action
Losing a Fourth Amendment claim on post-conviction is collateral estoppel in a legal malpractice action. Benton v. Babcock, 2025 MT 277, 2025 Mont. LEXIS 1461 (Dec. 2, 2025). “The search warrant application contained sufficient information to support a reasonable belief … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Def had standing in sister’s car he bought for her she let him drive
Defendant bought his sister her vehicle and she permitted him to drive it. He had standing to contest the stop. The stop was justified and reasonable in scope. United States v. Tillery, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 235323 (E.D. Tenn. Oct. … Continue reading
CNS: Judge orders Trump administration to halt warrantless immigration arrests in District of Columbia; Kavanaugh’s concurrence in Perdomo isn’t the law
CNS: Judge orders Trump administration to halt warrantless immigration arrests in District of Columbia by Ryan Knappenberger (“A federal judge Tuesday night ordered the Trump administration to cease its campaign of arresting immigrants in Washington, D.C. without a warrant or … Continue reading