Opinion ID: 167725
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Execution of Search W arrants

Text: M s. Blunt also contends that during the execution of the second and third search warrants “officers seized numerous items . . . for which there was no probable cause or source in the warrants for seizure. This converted the searches into general searches and requires blanket suppression.” Blunt A plt. Br. at 11. The district court rejected the argument, stating that other than the animals and some stolen property “the items listed on the return were property falling under one of the listed categories of the search warrant.” R. Vol. I Doc. 29 at 11. It did state, however, that items that “w ere seized during the execution of these warrants based on non-specific information from the Haskell County Sheriff and his deputies that they had ‘heard or remembered’ general reports of stolen property” should be suppressed Id. “If evidence is illegally seized, the general rule is that only the improperly seized evidence, not all of the evidence, must be suppressed . . . .” United States v. Hargus, 128 F.3d 1358, 1363 (10th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). But “even evidence which is properly seized pursuant to a warrant must be suppressed if the officers executing the warrant exhibit flagrant disregard for its terms.” United States v. Foster, 100 F.3d 846, 849 (10th Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[W]hen law enforcement officers grossly exceed the scope of a search warrant in seizing property, the particularity requirement is undermined and a valid warrant is transformed into a general warrant thereby -8- requiring suppression of all evidence seized under that warrant.” Id. at 849-50 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). Only “[i]n very rare cases” have we “applied the unusual remedy of blanket suppression.” United States v. Le, 173 F.3d 1258, 1269 (10th Cir. 1999). In Foster we held that blanket suppression was appropriate because “there was a wholesale seizure of Foster’s property amounting to a fishing expedition.” 100 F.3d at 850. One officer testified that they “‘took anything of value’” and the district court found that “‘no attempt was made to substantiate a connection between the seizure of the majority of the seized items and the terms of the warrant.’” Id. A similar “fishing expedition” was conducted in United States v. M edlin, 842 F.2d 1194, 1199 (10th Cir. 1988). The warrant authorized seizure of only firearms and the records of sales and purchases of firearms, id. at 1195, but the officers “seized some 667 items of property none of which were identified in the warrant authorizing the search,” id. at 1196. In contrast, in Hargus, 128 F.3d at 1363, “[a]lthough we [were] given pause by the wholesale seizure of file cabinets and miscellaneous papers and property not specified in the search warrant, the officers’ conduct . . . was motivated by the impracticability of on-site sorting and the time constraints of executing a daytime search warrant.” M oreover, “[t]he officers were authorized to seize ten broad categories of records, and those records were present in every drawer of both file cabinets.” Id. -9- In this case the district found that, with the exception of the seized animals and some stolen goods, all the seized items were within categories described by the warrants. As for the items seized on suspicion that they were stolen, Agent Fioretti testified that they were seized generally because of reports of similar items that were stolen. The officers seized some baseball, football, and basketball cards, for example, because the sheriff assisting the search “had [received] several reports of numerous baseball cards and basketball cards that were stolen in and around Haskell County.” R. Vol. XVIII at 30. Several boxes of arrowheads were also seized because “[t]here had been several burglaries where a large amount of arrowhead collections had been stolen in Haskell County and [the sheriff] believed these could be a part of that burglary.” Id. at 68. A brown leather saddle with “Bar 99 on the back was seized for the same reason. Id. at 30. Agent Fioretti testified that on-scene confirmation would have been too timeconsuming. But when it could be verified that items were in fact stolen, the officers apparently attempted to do so. Several class rings were seized, for example, which had names on them that w ere recognized by officers on the scene. Some of those people were called and confirmed that the rings had been stolen. And many items w ere left behind because they did not appear to be stolen. All the officers on the scene were provided a copy of the warrant, and Agent Fioretti himself made the final decision whether an item should be seized. -10- The district court specifically suppressed items that were seized under only a general belief that they were stolen. But even if some items w ere improperly seized, the above account of police procedures shows that the warrants were not executed with “flagrant disregard” for their terms, or that the officers “grossly exceeded” the warrants’ authorization. Foster, 100 F.3d at 849. The seized animals are a different story. At the suppression hearing Agent Fioretti explained the decision to seize the animals: The sheriff and I talked about it and we called the assistant district attorney and he advised that if we didn’t have anybody that could take care of them, that we knew would take care of them, that we needed to take them basically into protective custody. That way we knew they were taken care of. R. Vol. XVIII at 33. Agent Fioretti testified that he did not know of any other way to care for the animals. He further testified that he had no purpose in seizing the animals other than to care for them. Even if their seizure was improper, the circumstances do not exhibit a flagrant disregard for the warrant. The animals w ere not seized as evidence and were not admitted into evidence, a factor we found important in Hargus, 128 F.3d at 1363 (“[A] search is not invalidated merely because some things are seized that are not stated in the warrant. This is particularly true when the non-specified items are not admitted into evidence against the defendant.”). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress. -11-