Opinion ID: 795784
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fourth Amendment and the Severance Doctrine

Text: 18 The Fourth Amendment commands that no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. U.S. Const. amend. IV. The search warrant probable cause and particularity requirements serve two constitutional protections: 19 First, the magistrate's scrutiny is intended to eliminate altogether searches not based on probable cause. The premise here is that any intrusion in the way of search or seizure is an evil, so that no intrusion at all is justified without a careful prior determination of necessity. The second, distinct objective is that those searches deemed necessary should be as limited as possible. Here, the specific evil is the general warrant abhorred by the colonists, and the problem is not that of intrusion per se, but of a general, exploratory rummaging in a person's belongings. The warrant accomplishes this second objective by requiring a particular description of the things to be seized. 20 Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 467, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971) (citations omitted); see also 2 W. La Fave, Search and Seizure, § 4.6(a) (4th ed.2004). 21 Probable cause requires a magistrate judge to find that, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the `veracity' and `basis of knowledge' of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a `substantial basis for concluding' that probable cause existed. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238-39, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (citation, alterations omitted). The particularity requirement is satisfied when the description of an item to be searched for and seized pursuant to the warrant 22 enables the searcher to reasonably ascertain and identify the things authorized to be seized. Even a warrant that describes the items to be seized in broad or generic terms may be valid when the description is as specific as the circumstances and the nature of the activity under investigation permit. However, the fourth amendment requires that the government describe the items to be seized with as much specificity as the government's knowledge and circumstances allow, and warrants are conclusively invalidated by their substantial failure to specify as nearly as possible the distinguishing characteristics of the goods to be seized. 23 United States v. Leary, 846 F.2d 592, 600 (10th Cir.1988) (quotations, citations, footnote omitted). 24 The ordinary remedy for a search conducted or items seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements is suppression. See United States v. Olivares-Rangel, 458 F.3d 1104, 1108 (10th Cir.2006) (The ordinary remedy in a criminal case for violation of the Fourth Amendment is suppression of any evidence obtained during the illegal police conduct.). The Supreme Court has recently reiterated, however, that [s]uppression of evidence should be a last resort, not [a] first impulse. Hudson v. Michigan, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 126 S.Ct. 2159, 2163, 165 L.Ed.2d 56 (2006). This is because 25 [t]he exclusionary rule generates substantial social costs, which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large. We have therefore been cautious against expanding it and have repeatedly emphasized that the rule's costly toll upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives presents a high obstacle for those urging its application. We have rejected indiscriminate application of the rule and have held it to be applicable only where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served — that is, where its deterrence benefits outweigh its substantial social costs. 26 Id. (quotations, citations, alterations omitted). 27 In accordance with the purposes underlying the warrant requirement 2 and the exclusionary rule, 3 every federal court to consider the issue has adopted the doctrine of severance, whereby valid portions of a warrant are severed from the invalid portions and only materials seized under the authority of the valid portions, or lawfully seized while executing the valid portions, are admissible. The fact that severance may be appropriate in some cases, however, does not mean it is appropriate in every case. See George, 975 F.2d at 79. Under Naugle, we stated that the doctrine is only applicable if the valid portions of the warrant [are] sufficiently particularized, distinguishable from the invalid portions, and make up the greater part of the warrant. 997 F.2d at 822. Although we concluded in Naugle that the facts of that case satisfied these requirements, we did so without providing any analysis for that conclusion. We therefore use this appeal to provide the district courts with some guidance in determining whether and how the severance doctrine applies.