Court Opinion

ID: 9486550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:52:02.833262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:47.284020
License: Public Domain

POLITZ, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
The majority concludes that the seizure of the cheek stubs was valid either as falling within the scope of the search warrant or under the plain view doctrine. I cannot agree that either premise is factually and legally appropriate herein and therefore must respectfully dissent.
The majority recognizes, as it must, that the May 1992 search warrant authorized the seizure of multiple records for the period January 1986 through May 1992, including “Bank Statements, Deposit Slips, Canceled Checks, Withdrawal Slips, Debit Memos, Credit Memos, Cash Receipt Journal(s), Cash Receipt Book(s), and Cash Disbursement Journal(s).” The warrant did not list “check stubs.” This non-inclusion was not inadvertent. Check stubs were not intended to be included. During the hearing on the motion to suppress the district court focused directly on that issue and asked Agent Gonzalez, the responsible agent, why check stubs were not included in the warrant. That exchange between the court and the agent is most informative:
THE WITNESS: ... I didn’t have any specific information that there were check stubs or carbon copies or anything like that.
THE COURT: I searched all over when I was looking at this for some place that you said “cheeks” or “checkbooks” so that I could make the leap, but I didn’t find that.
THE WITNESS: ... I didn’t — again, I was not informed at the time of what type of checkbook they would have.
THE COURT: Yeah, you know they had, for instance, registers with blue covers. Your source couldn’t have told you what type checkbooks they had?
THE WITNESS: Probably it was just an item that I never inquired about....
THE COURT: Mr. Gonzalez, did you really think about check stubs when you were doing this?
THE WITNESS: Not specifically check stubs.
The agent did not seek authority to search for and seize .check stubs but between 2000 and 3000. check stubs were nonetheless seized. On the inventory report on the. execution of the warrant the officers list, inter alia, both “check stubs” and “cash disbursement journals.”. I take this to reflect that the officers executing the. search warrant understood that check stubs- and cash disbursement journals were two separate and distinct items. They obviously continued to think, so because in a follow-up search warrant authorized and executed in November 1992 the records sought included both “Cash Disbursement Journal(s), and ... check stubs.”
My colleagues in the majority have made a different factual finding than that made by the trial judge and have reached a different legal conclusion. They accept the premise that check stubs are the functional equivalent of a cash disbursement journal and, as such, are within the reach of the search warrant. In their view check stubs are the functional equivalent of a cash: disbursement journal because both contain the same information, i.e., the date, purpose, and amount of the transaction. One might suggest that the canceled checks would contain that same information. Are canceled checks to be *992deemed the functional equivalent of a cash disbursement journal and, as such, subject to seizure under a warrant authorizing the search and seizure of cash disbursement journals? I surely would hope not.
I am diametrically opposed to the expansion of the scope and reach of a search warrant by any form of legal semantics. “The requirement that warrants shall particularly describe the things to be seized makes general searches under them impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another.”1 I consider the fourth amendment protections to be much too precious to countenance any type or form of end run. Let the government representative seeking authority to search advise the neutral magistrate of the object(s) sought and the basis for the belief that probable cause of a criminal offense exists. Let the magistrate decide whether to grant this extraordinary power to search and seize and the specific scope of that grant. Then let that search proceed as sought and authorized. That scenario did not occur here. The agent candidly acknowledged that he did not seek authority in the May 1992 warrant to search for and seize cheek stubs. Notwithstanding, the officers did so. The district court found and concluded that the officers violated the fourth amendment. I agree.
As an alternative ground the majority concludes that the check stubs were subject to seizure under the plain view doctrine. I do not agree. Agent Gonzalez again candidly admitted that he could not tell from what he could see of the bundled check stubs whether they were relevant to the suspected currency offense. That relevance was not determined until the contents of the other stubs were examined later by IRS agents. This admission flies in the face of the teachings of Arizona v. Hicks2 which requires that a seizure must be supported by probable cause to believe that the item in plain view is either contraband or evidence of a crime. I do not find this requirement satisfied. I would affirm the district court’s suppression order and therefore respectfully dissent.

. Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 196, 48 S.Ct. 74, 76, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927). See also Gurleski v. United States, 405 F.2d 253, 257 (5th Cir.1968), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 981, 89 S.Ct. 2140, 23 L.Ed.2d 769 (1969).

. 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987).