Opinion ID: 698699
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Suppression of Evidence Discovered in Shulze's Home Pursuant to a Warrant

Text: 22 Shulze moved to suppress evidence seized from his home on September 16, 1993; the district court overruled the motion. On September 16, 1993, Special Agent Michael W. Cameron of the Internal Revenue Service applied for and obtained from a United States Magistrate Judge what is described as a financial warrant to search Shulze's residence seeking, inter alia, financial and travel records, address and telephone records, employment documents, receipts, together with drug paraphernalia and firearms. The warrant's asserted purpose was to acquire information concerning the source of Shulze's income as well as the nature of his expenditures. Shulze contends that the warrant obtained was overbroad because it failed to particularly describe the items to be seized and was so facially deficient in that regard that the executing officers could not reasonably presume it to be valid. 2 23 The Fourth Amendment requires that a search warrant describe with particularity the items to be seized and prohibits general, exploratory searches. Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 480, 96 S.Ct. 2737, 2748, 49 L.Ed.2d 627 (1976). Inclusion of a statutory reference can sufficiently limit the scope of a search and thus provide the necessary particularity. Rickert v. Sweeney, 813 F.2d 907, 909 (8th Cir.1987). In this case, Attachment II of the warrant described a page and a half of particular items to be seized. Specifically, the warrant sought [f]irearms and ammunition, along with [a]ny and all other instrumentalities, substances or documents which are evidence of violation of ... Title 18 U.S.C. Sec. .... 922.... (Shulze's Addend. at 17.) This explicit reference to firearms and ammunition, along with the statutory reference relating to possession of firearms or ammunition by a felon, sufficiently limited the scope of the search to make it constitutionally permissible and not a general exploratory search. 24 We find that the cases Shulze relies upon, In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 716 F.2d 493 (8th Cir.1983), and Rickert, 813 F.2d at 907, are readily distinguishable from the facts at hand. For instance, in Rickert, the disputed warrant authorized IRS agents to search and seize evidence associated with violations of the general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371, and general tax evasion statutes, 26 U.S.C. Secs. 7201 and 7206(2). 813 F.2d at 909. Relying on similar rulings from other courts, we held that the mere recitation of those general statutes did not provide any substantive limitations on the search. Id. Likewise, in In re Grand Jury Proceedings, the warrant authorized the seizure of all records pertaining to the defendant's bail bond business for a period of seven years with no other limitation. 716 F.2d at 497-98. We held that [i]n the absence of any clearly demonstrated necessity, the warrant was excessive and unreasonable because it did not confine the search to specific types of documents for particular crimes but authorized the seizure of all documents in Young's bail bond operations without any enumeration or specificity. Id. at 497-98. 25 To the contrary, the attachment to the warrant in this case outlined several specific statutes, among them 18 U.S.C. Sec. 922, in addition to the general tax evasion and conspiracy statutes, which sufficiently narrowed the scope of the search. Moreover, the particular items described in the warrant were narrowly tailored to the particular types of crimes Shulze was suspected of committing. Therefore, we affirm the district court's denial of Shulze's motion to suppress evidence seized from his home on September 16, 1993. 26