Opinion ID: 539182
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Search Without Seizure

Text: The Fourth Amendment provides that 35 [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and 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. 36 Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides, in pertinent part, as follows: 37 (b) Property ... Which May Be Seized With a Warrant. A warrant may be issued under this rule to search for and seize any (1) property that constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offense; or (2) contraband, the fruits of crime, or things otherwise criminally possessed; or (3) property designed or intended for use or which is or has been used as the means of committing a criminal offense.... 38 .... 39 (d) Execution and Return with Inventory. The officer taking property under the warrant shall give to the person from whom or from whose premises the property was taken a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken or shall leave the copy and receipt at the place from which the property was taken. The return shall be made promptly and shall be accompanied by a written inventory of any property taken.... 40 .... 41 (h) Scope and Definition.... The term property is used in this rule to include documents, books, papers and any other tangible objects. 42 Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(b), (d), (h). 43 In challenging the May 12 warrant on the ground that it authorized a search without a seizure of tangible evidence, Villegas argues that this type of warrant is unauthorized by Rule 41 and is unconstitutional because it does not comply with the particularity requirements of the Fourth Amendment, contending that [i]f 'information' regarding the status of a criminal enterprise is an intangible item which can be listed as the subject of a search on a warrant, then the particularity requirement is nullified. (Villegas brief on appeal at 11, 12.) This contention is contrary to established doctrine. 44 First, we note that Rule 41 does not define the extent of the court's power to issue a search warrant. Obviously the Fourth Amendment long antedated the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which were first adopted in 1944. Given the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements, and assuming no statutory prohibition, the courts must be deemed to have inherent power to issue a warrant when the requirements of that Amendment are met. See, e.g., United States v. Torres, 751 F.2d 875, 877-79 (7th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1087, 105 S.Ct. 1853, 85 L.Ed.2d 150 (1985); Application of the United States of America In the Matter of an Order Authorizing the Use of a Pen Register, 538 F.2d 956, 959 (2d Cir.1976), rev'd on other grounds sub nom. United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U.S. 159, 164, 168, 98 S.Ct. 364, 368, 370, 54 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977) (The Court of Appeals ... concluded that district courts have the power, either inherently or as a logical derivative of Fed.Crim.Proc. 41, to authorize pen register surveillance upon an adequate showing of probable cause. We ... agree with the Court of Appeals that the District Court had power to authorize the installation of the pen registers.); United States v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 546 F.2d 243, 245-46 (8th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1008, 98 S.Ct. 716, 54 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978); cf. United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 554, 94 S.Ct. 1820, 1845, 40 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (permissibility of search device not regulated by statute depends entirely on compliance with the constitutional requirements of the Fourth Amendment). 45 Second, though Rule 41 expressly mentions only documents, books, papers and any other tangible objects, it is clear that both the Rule and the Fourth Amendment extend to searches for and seizures of intangibles as well. See United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U.S. 159, 98 S.Ct. 364, 54 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977). In New York Telephone, the Court considered a warrant authorizing the use of pen registers that would disclose numbers called from a given telephone line. The Court rejected the contention that a warrant could not lawfully authorize a search for such intangibles, stating that Rule 41 is not limited to tangible items but is sufficiently flexible to include within its scope electronic intrusions authorized upon a finding of probable cause. Id. at 169, 98 S.Ct. at 370. It noted that what is seized in such an endeavor is information, finding that the above-quoted language of Rule 41(b) was 46 broad enough to encompass a search designed to ascertain the use which is being made of a telephone suspected of being employed as a means of facilitating a criminal venture and the seizure of evidence which the search of the telephone produces. Although Rule 41(h) defines property to include documents, books, papers and any other tangible objects, it does not restrict or purport to exhaustively enumerate all the items which may be seized pursuant to Rule 41. 47 Id. (footnote omitted). 48 The seizure of intangible evidence has been explored principally in the context of the interception of conversations. See, e.g., Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 682, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961) (conversations overheard by means of microphone touching heating duct); Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 353, 88 S.Ct. 507, 512, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (telephone conversations overheard by means of listening device attached to outside of public telephone booth); Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 54-60, 87 S.Ct. 1873, 1881-84, 18 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1967) (conversations intercepted by wiretap). The principle that neither Rule 41 nor the Fourth Amendment prohibits seizure of intangible property has been applied by the Supreme Court to uphold the interception of nonverbal auditory information, such as that gained through the use of pen registers, see United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U.S. at 169-70, 98 S.Ct. at 370-71, and that gained through the placement of location-monitoring beepers in movable property, see United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 285, 103 S.Ct. 1081, 1087, 75 L.Ed.2d 55 (1983); see also United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 715, 104 S.Ct. 3296, 3303, 82 L.Ed.2d 530 (1984) (beeper). 49 This principle has also been applied by this Court to uphold a warrant authorizing the gathering of visual information through the use of a video camera. See United States v. Biasucci, 786 F.2d 504, 509 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 827, 107 S.Ct. 104, 93 L.Ed.2d 54 (1986); accord United States v. Torres, 751 F.2d at 883 (upholding warrant authorizing television surveillance of safe house); see also United States v. Taborda, 635 F.2d 131, 139 (2d Cir.1980) (warrant required for viewing of private area through telescope). 50 Given these authorities, we reject Villegas's contention that the district court had no power to issue a search warrant pursuant to which only intangible evidence would be seized. Accord United States v. Freitas, 800 F.2d 1451, 1455 (9th Cir.1986) (ruling that search-without-physical-seizure warrant was authorized, though not validly issued because it (1) failed to make any provision for notice, and (2) lacked particularity as to the intangible property to be seized); see also United States v. Freitas, 856 F.2d 1425, 1433 (9th Cir.1988). 51 Finally, we note that Villegas's contention that any authorization for seizure of only intangible property breaches the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is wide of the mark. The particularity requirement means that the warrant must, while indicating the crime under investigation, specify  'the place to be searched,'  and  'the persons or things to be seized.'  Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. at 56, 87 S.Ct. at 1882 (quoting Fourth Amendment). This requirement was plainly met in the present case. The May 12 warrant authorized a search of 52 a farmhouse, a barn, two outbuildings and surrounding land on Johnycake [sic ] Road, near Little Falls, Herkimer County, New York, owned by B & V Village Farms, Inc., c/o Silk & Slonim, 275 Madison Avenue, New York, New York. 53 The warrant authorized search for the following specific items: cocaine, cocaine base, ether, acetone, filter paper, drying racks, sceens [sic --screens], [and] records of telephone numbers. Since the warrant went on to forbid a seizure of tangible property, it obviously authorized the seizure only of visual images of the items for which the search was authorized. 54 We conclude that the listing of the above items sufficiently indicated that the crime to which the sought evidence was to relate was manufacture of cocaine, and that the warrant was sufficiently particular in its description of the place to be searched and the visual images to be seized. 55