Title: In Re: Search Warrant
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 338, 2001
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: November 9, 2001

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
IN RE SEARCH WARRANT
FOR LAW OFFICE
COMPUTER/AG/DSP Joint
Investigation, DSP Complaint
No. 03-01-002900
§  No. 338, 2001
§
§  Court Below—Superior Court
§  of the State of Delaware,
§  in and for New Castle County
§  C.A. No. 01X-02-001SW
Submitted: October 31, 2001
  Decided:
November 9, 2001
Before VEASEY, Chief Justice, WALSH and HOLLAND, Justices.
O R D E R
This 9th day of November 2001, it appears to the Court that:
(1)
The Office of the Public Defender (“the Public Defender”) filed
this appeal from a decision of the Superior Court dated June 22, 2001.  The
Superior Court’s decision dismissed the Public Defender’s petition for return
of seized property on the ground that the petition was moot. The State
represented to the Superior Court that the seized property, a computer hard
drive used by an employee of the Public Defender, had not been examined
or searched and that it wished to return the hard drive to the Public
Defender.  Among other things, the Superior Court’s decision ordered the
Public Defender to retrieve the hard drive.
(2)
The Clerk of this Court issued a Rule to Show Cause directing
the Public Defender to show cause why the appeal should not be dismissed
as moot.  Based upon the Public Defender’s response and the State’s reply
thereto, we remanded this matter to the Superior Court to: (a) clarify the
effect of its dismissal of the Public Defender’s petition on the continuing
validity of the search warrant; and (b) clarify the manner in which it
intended the seized property to be returned to the Public Defender and to
address the Public Defender’s assertion that the Superior Court’s dismissal
of its petition does not return the Public Defender to its pre-seizure position.
(3)
The Superior Court has issued its decision following remand.
The Superior Court has concluded as a matter of fact and law that the search
warrant at issue is no longer executable in light of its dismissal of the Public
Defender’s petition based on the State’s explicit representations that the
computer hard drive has not and will not be searched by the Department of
Justice or the police.  The Superior Court further held that it only ordered the
Public Defender to retrieve the hard drive because of the representations of
an Assistant Public Defender who stated that the Public Defender planned to
retrieve the hard drive if the trial court declined to decide its petition on the
ground of mootness.  The Superior Court found that representation to be
binding of the Public Defender.  The Superior Court further held, however,
that in the event the Public Defender does not retrieve the hard drive, the
State, based on its own representations, is legally bound to physically deliver
the hard drive to the Public Defender, if necessary.  The trial court thus
concluded that its dismissal of the Public Defender’s petition has in effect
restored the Public Defender to its pre-seizure position.
(4)
The parties filed supplemental memoranda in this Court in
response to the Superior Court’s decision on remand.  Having considered the
parties’ respective decisions, we find it manifest that the Superior Court’s
dismissal of the Public Defender’s petition was entirely correct.  Once the
State represented to the trial court that it would return the computer hard
drive and that the computer hard drive had not and would not be searched,
and the Superior Court concluded that the underlying search warrant was not
executable, the Public Defender’s petition seeking return of the computer
hard drive became moot.  Because there is no longer an actual controversy
that is capable of judicial resolution, this appeal also must be dismissed as
moot.*
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that this matter is
DISMISSED as moot.
BY THE COURT:
Randy J. Holland
Justice
                                                
* Stearn v. Koch, Del. Supr., 628 A.2d 46, 47 (1993).