Opinion ID: 1521174
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Scope of the Warrant

Text: The Fourth Amendment provides 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.' Stanford v. Texas, 379 U.S. 476, 481, 85 S.Ct. 506, 509, 13 L.Ed.2d 431 (1965) (emphasis in original). [This] requirement... makes general searches ... impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another. As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant. Id. at 485, 85 S.Ct. at 512 (quoting Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 196, 48 S.Ct. 74, 76, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927)). The historic purpose of this prohibition was to assure that the people of this new Nation should forever `be secure in their persons, house, papers, and effects' from intrusion and seizure by officers acting under the unbridled authority of a general warrant. Id. 379 U.S. at 481, 85 S.Ct. at 509-10. To achieve this purpose, the authority to issue warrants and determine their scope is strictly confined to judicial officers: Any assumption that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate's disinterested determination to issue a warrant will justify the officers in making a search without a warrant would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people's homes secure only in the discretion of police officers.... When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent. [ Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra [403 U.S.] at 449 [91 S.Ct. at 2029] (quoting Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14 [68 S.Ct. 367, 369, 92 L.Ed. 436] (1948)).] In Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 479, 96 S.Ct. 2737, 2748, 49 L.Ed.2d 627 (1976), the Supreme Court, confronted with the question of the validity of a warrant containing a general phrase, concluded that the challenged phrasetogether with other fruits, instrumentalities and evidence of crime at this [time] unknown (adaptation in original)must be read in context. So read, the Court found that the warrant authorized the search and seizure of only a narrow, well-defined category of evidence: that relating to the crime of false pretenses with respect to Lot 13T i. e., the crime specifically described in the warrant. Id. at 480-81, 96 S.Ct. at 2748-49. More recently, the Court has stated: When an official search is properly authorized... the scope of the search is limited by the terms of its authorization. Consent to search a garage would not implicitly authorize a search of an adjoining house; a warrant to search for a stolen refrigerator would not authorize the opening of desk drawers. Because indiscriminate searches and seizures conducted under the authority of `general warrants' were the immediate evils that motivated the framing and adoption of the Fourth Amendment, Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 583 [100 S.Ct. 1371, 1378, 63 L.Ed.2d 639] (1980), that Amendment requires that the scope of every authorized search be particularly described. [ Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. 649, 656-57 [100 S.Ct. 2395, 2401-02, 65 L.Ed.2d 410] (1980) (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).] Lower courts, construing the scope of general phrases, have closely confined their reach to evidence of crimes described with particularity in the warrant or its accompanying affidavit; where the warrant and affidavit have not supported such a construction, courts have held that such phrases rendered warrants impermissibly general under the Fourth Amendment. Thus in In re Search Warrant Dated July 4, 1977, For Premises at 2125 S Street, Northwest Washington, D.C., 187 U.S.App.D.C. 297, 572 F.2d 321 (1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 925, 98 S.Ct. 1491, 55 L.Ed.2d 519 (1978), the circuit court for the District of Columbia held that a warrant authorizing agents to seize  any evidence of conspiracies to steal government property and obstruct justice, id. at 300, 572 F.2d at 324 (emphasis in original) authorized only the search for and seizure of evidence of conspiracies that were specifically described in an accompanying thirty-three page affidavit. Cf. United States v. Roche, 614 F.2d 6 (1st Cir. 1980) (a warrant authorizing the seizure of a broad category of documents, which were evidence, fruits and instrumentalities of the violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (1976), was held invalid because the government's failure to limit the objects of the search and seizure to documents more specifically pertaining to the alleged violation impermissibly broadened the scope of the search beyond the foundation of probable cause. Id. at 7 (footnote omitted).) The Fourth Amendment thus requires that the general phrase contained in the warrant authorizing a search of appellees' residence be construed narrowly, to authorize seizure only of evidence of the narcotics possession and transactions described in the search warrant and its accompanying affidavit. These documents, though, contained only descriptions of two instances in which the informant had purchased narcotics from appellee Whitehead with Police Department money. They made no reference to the tip Officers Smith and Granville later testified they had received from their informant that Whitehead accepted personal property as well as money in exchange for drugs. The terms of the warrant and affidavit thus limited the scope of the search to evidence of narcotics possession and money sales. Evidence of exchanges of personal property for narcotics fell outside the scope of the warrant. [3]