Opinion ID: 463221
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Validity of Search Under Warrant

Text: 16 Miller appeals the denial of his motion to exclude documentary evidence seized from the seat of his car parked in his garage. He argues that, because he arrived home with his car after the warrant for his residence was issued, the warrant did not include the car. Although the timing of his arrival is of no significance to the validity of the search of the garage or of the seizure of evidence from the car, the question whether a warrant for a residence authorizes a search of an attached garage merits attention. 17 We review the district court's denial of the motion to suppress de novo, since the question of the scope of the warrant primarily involves issues of law. United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1201 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 101, 83 L.Ed.2d 46 (1984). 4 18 The warrant states that probable cause exists to believe that financial records and Miller's personal papers are concealed at the [r]esidence at 1144 Camino Mirasol. 5 The warrant describes the garage door and designates it as part of the residence. On the basis of that description, it seems clear that the issuing magistrate intended to authorize a search of the attached garage. Even were the garage not so described in the warrant, however, we would find that the warrant authorized its search. No reason exists to distinguish an attached garage from the rest of a residence for Fourth Amendment purposes. 6 We have upheld searches of all the property at a listed street address under warrants that recite probable cause as to only a portion of the premises where a multi-unit building or a collection of separate buildings is used as a single entity, where the defendant is in control of the whole premises, or where an entire premises is suspect. United States v. Alexander, 761 F.2d 1294, 1301 (9th Cir.1985); United States v. Whitten, 706 F.2d 1000, 1008 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1100, 104 S.Ct. 1593, 80 L.Ed.2d 125 (1984). An attached garage easily meets our test because it is part of the residence. We would impose needless  '[t]echnical requirements of elaborate specificity,'  United States v. Napoli, 530 F.2d 1198, 1200 (5th Cir.) (quoting United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 108, 85 S.Ct. 741, 745-46, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965)), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 920, 97 S.Ct. 316, 50 L.Ed.2d 287 (1976), were we to require a magistrate to make a separate determination that probable cause exists to search an attached garage, once the magistrate has already found probable cause for the rest of the residence. We conclude that the search of the attached garage was authorized under the warrant. 19 We need not decide, however, whether a warrant authorizing a search of a garage is sufficient to validate a search of a car found in that garage. Here we conclude that while the seizure of the notebook from the car seat was warranted, no search of the car occurred. The warrant stated that probable cause existed for ... investment records, loan documents ... bank records, account books, receipt books ... and ... items identifying the occupants of the premises. The notebook therefore constituted precisely the type of property whose seizure was authorized by the warrant. We hold that, whatever the appropriate rule may be where an officer observes evidence in plain view in a car located in a public place, 7 where an officer searching a garage pursuant to a lawful search warrant observes material described in that warrant in plain view on the seat of a vehicle, the officer may enter the vehicle and seize that material without obtaining a second warrant. The district court properly denied Miller's motion to suppress.