Opinion ID: 2972071
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Particularity of the Items to Be Seized

Text: The facts in this case are not materially distinguishable from the facts in Groh v. Ramirez, supra. There, Jeff Groh, an ATF agent, applied for a warrant to search Joseph Ramirez’s ranch for a large stock of unregistered automatic rifles, grenades, a grenade launcher, and a rocket launcher. Groh supported his application for a warrant with a detailed affidavit that set forth the basis for his belief that the items were on the ranch. A magistrate judge signed the warrant form after reviewing the application and the affidavit. The warrant, however, was not specific regarding the place to be searched or the contraband to be seized. 540 U.S. at 554. The description of the property to be seized indicated only a description of the location where the property could be found, and the warrant did not incorporate by reference the itemized list contained in the application. Id. at 554-55. When the ATF agents searched Ramirez’s home, they left him a copy of the search warrant, but not a copy of the application, which had been sealed. Id. at 555. The Court held that the warrant “was plainly invalid.” Id. at 557. The warrant was deficient as to the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement because it provided no description of the type of evidence sought. Id. It did not describe the items to be seized at all, but only provided a description of the residence where the items allegedly could be found. Id. The Court further held that “[t]he fact that the application adequately described the ‘things to be seized’ [did] not save the warrant from its facial invalidity.” Id. (emphasis in original). “The Fourth Amendment by its terms requires particularity in the warrant, not in the supporting documents.” Id. (citations omitted). The Court condoned the practice of construing a warrant in conjunction with a supporting application or affidavit, but only if (1) “the warrant uses appropriate words of incorporation” and (2) “the supporting document accompanies the warrant.” Id. at 557-58 (citations omitted). The Court, however, refused to consider Groh’s argument that the warrant incorporated the particulars in the application and affidavit because “the warrant did not incorporate other documents by reference, nor did either the affidavit or the application (which had been placed under seal) accompany the warrant.” Id. at 558. Because Groh “did not have in his possession a warrant particularly describing the things he intended to seize, proceeding with the search was clearly ‘unreasonable’ under the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 563. The Court further held that Groh was not entitled to qualified immunity for conducting a search based on the defective warrant. Id. at 563-64. “Given that the particularity requirement is set forth in the text of the Constitution, no reasonable officer could believe that a warrant that plainly did not comply with that requirement was valid.” Id. (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818-19 (1982)). “[E]ven a cursory reading of the warrant … – perhaps just a simple glance – would have revealed a glaring deficiency that any reasonable police officer would have known was constitutionally fatal.” Id. at 564. And, because Groh prepared the invalid warrant, he could not argue that he reasonably relied on the magistrate judge’s assurance that the warrant was sufficiently particular and, therefore, valid. Id. The Groh decision makes it clear that the warrant that Agent Johnson procured for the search of Pars’s warehouse was plainly invalid. As in Groh, the warrant was deficient as to the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement because it provided no description of the type of evidence sought. It did not describe the items to be seized at all, referring only to the building where the items Nos. 03-5582/5614 Baranski, et al. v. Unknown ATF Agents, et al. Page 8 allegedly could be found. Indeed, in Baranski’s criminal prosecution, the government conceded that the warrant lacked particularity as to the items to be seized. The fact that Agent Johnson’s application and affidavit adequately described the things to be seized (i.e., 425 machine guns) does not change the result because “[t]he Fourth Amendment by its terms requires particularity in the warrant, not in the supporting documents.” Id. at 557 (citations omitted). Although the warrant used appropriate words of incorporation, the supporting documents that the warrant purported to incorporate did not accompany the warrant. Because Agent Johnson “did not have in his possession a warrant particularly describing the things he intended to seize, proceeding with the search was clearly ‘unreasonable’ under the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 563. Defendants counter that Groh does not provide any guidance on the circumstances under which an affidavit describing the items to be seized can be considered to have “accompanied” the warrant. We disagree. The Supreme Court explicitly held that a supporting affidavit must accompany the warrant and that the affidavit served on Ramirez did not accompany the warrant because the court had placed it under seal. It was not sufficient for Agent Groh to be subjectively aware of the particulars contained in the affidavit; those particulars had to be communicated through the warrant to Ramirez. See Groh, 540 U.S. at 561 (noting that one purpose of the particularity requirement is to “assure[] the individual whose property is searched or seized of the lawful authority of the executing officer, his need to search, and the limits of his power to search”); cf. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996) (“Subjective intentions [of the law enforcement officer] play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis.”). It follows, a fortiori, that it was not sufficient for Agent Johnson to be aware of the limits on his lawful authority under the warrant. Those particulars had to be communicated to the manager of Pars through the warrant or an attachment to the warrant. It is undisputed that they were not because, as in Groh, the affidavit that contained the particulars did not accompany the warrant at the time of the search and seizure. In light of the recent Groh decision, we do not find Defendants’ reliance on the Sixth Circuit’s decisions in United States v. Gahagan, supra, and Frisby v. United States, 79 F.3d 29 (6th Cir. 1996) to be dispositive of Plaintiffs’ underlying Fourth Amendment claim. Gahagan, like Groh, recognized that “[a] warrant that fails to describe the area to be searched with sufficient particularity can be cured by an accompanying affidavit if the affidavit is attached to the warrant and the warrant incorporates the affidavit by reference.” Gahagan, 865 F.2d at 1497 (citations omitted). In this case, it is undisputed that Agent Johnson’s supporting affidavit was not attached to the warrant. And, although the Court in Gahagan found that the particularity requirement was satisfied based on an unattached affidavit, in that case the affidavit was in one of the officer’s vehicles and therefore was readily accessible. Id. In this case, there is no dispute that the affidavit, which was under seal, was not at the scene of the search and seizure and, therefore, it was not, and could not have been, readily accessible. Gahagan also is distinguishable because, there, the Court found that the warrant’s description of the location to be searched was “less than complete,” having stated the incorrect address Id. at 1498. However, it was undisputed that the targeted property (a cabin) had no address marking and was located on the same property listed in the warrant. Id. at 1493-94. Thus, the affidavit supporting the warrant, which did identify the targeted property, showed that “there was no risk … that a mistaken search of another premises was possible.” Id. at 1498. In this case, the warrant to seize property at Pars was not “less than complete”; it was totally incomplete. It did not simply reflect an inaccurate description of the items to be seized; it contained no description whatsoever. The facts of this case are unlike Gahagan, where an unattached affidavit could be used to explain a description in the warrant, because the warrant for Baranski’s property provided no description at all. Nos. 03-5582/5614 Baranski, et al. v. Unknown ATF Agents, et al. Page 9 Finally, to the extent that Gahagan announced a rule that facts known by the executing officer and the approving magistrate judge, but not specifically stated in the affidavit or warrant, automatically cures a facially defective warrant,1 we hold that Groh rejected such a rule. Groh categorically held that “[t]he Fourth Amendment by its terms requires particularity in the warrant, not in the supporting documents.” Groh, 540 U.S. at 557 (citations omitted). See also id. at 564 (holding that because the ATF Agent had prepared the invalid warrant, he could not argue that he reasonably relied on the magistrate judge’s assurance that the warrant was sufficiently particular and, therefore, valid). Frisby also is inapplicable to this case. In Frisby, the warrant incorporated by reference an “Attachment A,” which listed the items to be seized with particularity. 79 F.3d at 31. At the time of the search, the officers “inadvertently” failed to provide a copy of Attachment A. Id.; see also id. at 32 (noting that there was “no allegation that the failure to serve plaintiff with a copy of Attachment A was either intentional or deliberate”). Consequently, the Court found no Fourth Amendment violation. Id. at 32. In the instant case, by contrast, Agent Johnson intentionally refused to provide a copy of his supporting affidavit, which described the particular items to be seized, because the affidavit was under seal. More fundamentally, Frisby did not challenge the validity of the warrant either as to the probable cause underlying the warrant “or the specificity with which the places to be searched or the things to be seized [were] enumerated.” Id. at 31. Thus, we fail to see how Frisby has any bearing in this case, where the very issue is the validity of the warrant with regard to the specificity of the place to be searched and the things to be seized. For these reasons, we hold that the warrant upon which Defendants relied to search Pars’s warehouse and seize Baranski’s firearms and related accessories was constitutionally defective.