Opinion ID: 12469
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sufficient Particularity

Text: 27 Shugart argues that the challenged search warrants failed to authorize the seizure of evidence of drug manufacturing. Instead, the search warrants contained boilerplate provisions obviously intended for use in cases involving possession with the intent to distribute narcotics. Nonetheless, the agents searched for and seized evidence related to methcathinone production. Thus, Shugart argues that the warrants did not describe with sufficient particularity the things to be seized and that evidence of drug manufacturing obtained during the searches should have been excluded from trial. Shugart contends that the district court's failure to exclude such evidence constituted reversible error. 28 The Fourth Amendment requires a search warrant to describe with sufficient particularity the items to be seized. See U.S. C ONST. amend. IV (stating that a warrant must particularly describ[e] the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized). The applicable test requires this court to ask whether the description in the warrant would permit an executing officer to reasonably know what items are to be seized. United States v. Beaumont, 972 F.2d 553, 560 (5th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 926, 113 S.Ct. 2384, 124 L.Ed.2d 288 (1993). In addition, this court has held that the particularity requirement may be satisfied by reliance on an affidavit when the affidavit is incorporated by reference into the warrant. Id. at 561; but cf. United States v. Haydel, 649 F.2d 1152, 1157 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1022, 102 S.Ct. 1721, 72 L.Ed.2d 140 (1982) (An insufficient warrant cannot be cured by the most detailed affidavit). 29 Although Agent Keene's affidavit made clear that the DEA was seeking a warrant to search for evidence of methcathinone production, the search warrants did not mention drug manufacturing or incorporate Agent Keene's affidavit. Instead, the warrants authorized the government to seize the property described on the attached Exhibit 'B.'  6 The only terms in that exhibit, however, that could arguably have encompassed evidence of drug manufacturing were also so broad as to constitute the type of general warrant that has long been abhorred in the jurisprudence of both England and the United States. Beaumont, 972 F.2d at 560. Thus, the warrants in the instant case were insufficient to satisfy the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Unless the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies, the district court erred by denying Shugart's motion to suppress. 30 On the same day that the Supreme Court decided Leon, it also issued its opinion in Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 104 S.Ct. 3424, 82 L.Ed.2d 737 (1984). In Sheppard, the defendant argued that a warrant authorizing a search for controlled substances violated the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement. Id. at 987, 104 S.Ct at 3427. The challenged warrant was accompanied by a detailed affidavit, which indicated that the search was for items related to a homicide investigation. Id. at 985, 104 S.Ct at 3426. It was undisputed that the issuing magistrate and the executing officers knew the contents of the affidavit and the focus of the search. Relying on Leon, the Court noted that the only issue before it was whether the officers reasonably believed that the search they conducted was authorized by a valid warrant. Id. at 988, 104 S.Ct. at 3427. Because the officers' subjective belief in the validity of the warrant was uncontested, the Court explained that the only remaining issue was whether there was an objectively reasonable basis for the officers' mistaken belief. Id. The Court concluded that the officers' good-faith reliance on the warrant was objectively reasonable because the affidavit had been approved by the U.S. Attorney, the issuing magistrate had made a probable-cause determination, and the warrant would have been valid on its face with only minor corrections. 7 Id. at 989, 104 S.Ct. at 3428. 31 In United States v. Beaumont, 972 F.2d at 562, this court applied the good-faith exception to uphold the admissibility of evidence seized during a search, despite the fact that the warrant authorizing the search failed the particularity requirement. The court relied on Sheppard and concluded that the officers' good-faith reliance on the warrant was objectively reasonable because there was a probable cause determination made by [a] judge, the affidavit provided specific information of the objects of the search, the executing officer was the affiant, the additional officers making the search knew what was to be searched for, and, finally, the warrant could easily have been made valid by the insertion of the phrase 'see attached affidavit.'  Id. Because the instant case is indistinguishable from Beaumont, the good-faith exception applies, and the district court did not err in denying Shugart's motion to suppress.