Opinion ID: 516104
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Seizure of Evidence

Text: 13 The AJ sustained the agency's charge that the tapes and transcript were not specified in the search warrant, and that petitioner therefore violated ATF Order 3240.1, Chapter B, Sec. 17 (June 12, 1981), by seizing them. That section provides that only certain items including, as is relevant here, items described in the search warrant as objects of the search, and evidence of crimes, including items which are circumstantial evidence that a crime has been committed or that a particular person has committed it, may be seized pursuant to a search warrant. 14 We agree with petitioner that this charge is unsupported by substantial evidence, and therefore, we set it aside. The search warrant authorized the seizure of all evidence of the receipt and possession of unregistered firearms. It is clear to us that the possible relevance of the two tapes which had been found together, one of which was labeled with the name of a felon who had been involved in gun dealing and one of which was labeled with the code name of an F.B.I. investigation, was evident from their labels. The fact that petitioner's supervisor did not object to the seizure of the tapes and the attached transcript, even though he knew that they were being seized, confirms that he too believed that it was proper to seize them. In these circumstances, we find that petitioner did not violate agency policy in seizing the two reel-to-reel tapes and the attached transcript. See United States v. Santarelli, 778 F.2d 609, 615-16 (11th Cir.1985).