The district magistrate signed the search warrant form but failed to fill in the space listing the items to be seized. Consequently, the search warrant listed no items which were to be seized. Such a warrant constitutes a general search warrant. Ultimately, this case was submitted to the district court upon stipulated facts. After the defense was unsuccessful in attempting to suppress the paraphernalia evidence, the court found defendant guilty.
Defendant raises three issues on appeal.
We need only to consider the sufficiency of the search warrant issue. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 15 of the Bill of Rights of the Kansas Constitution provide that no warrant shall issue but on probable cause, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the things to be seized . The obvious purpose for this requirement is to prevent general searches and to prevent the seizure of an item at the discretion of a police officer. There, the United States Supreme Court noted the magistrate issued a warrant that did not include a description of items to be seized other than two allegedly pornographic films presented to the magistrate by the officers applying for the search warrant. Based on the conclusory statement of the police investigator that other similarly obscene materials would be found at the store, the warrant left it entirely to the discretion of the officials conducting the search to decide what items were likely obscene and to accomplish their seizure.