Court Opinion

ID: 9477671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:28:28.044085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:59.220736
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The federal officers who conducted the search in question violated Nelson’s First and Fourth Amendment rights when they seized from defendant’s home eight nonpic-torial paperback books of fiction containing narrative descriptions, but no photographs, of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Not only were these books not “particularly described” in the search warrant with “scrupulous exactitude,” as required by law; they were not described at all.
The central thrust of defendant’s argument is that during the search, officers seized evidence not described in the warrant which Nelson had a right to possess. Appellant’s Br.16; App.9; Trial Transcript, 106. The District Judge denied defendant’s Motion in Limine on this issue at trial. Tr. 105-116. As a result of the ruling, the government elicited testimony describing these eight books from two witnesses during its case in chief. The government extensively cross-examined Nelson concerning specific passages from the books, and during closing argument told the jury that it should read the books during deliberations. Tr. 330.
In this case, the search warrant described the items the officers were authorized to seize. The warrant categorizes eleven types of seizable materials, all of which must involve films or “photographic depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, as defined in Title 18, Section 2255, United States Code.” In executing this warrant, the officers searched through “the basement, the downstairs, kitchen, dining room, dining area, living room closet, both bedrooms, bathroom, the whole townhouse apartment.” Tr. 197. The officers found the nonpictorial paperback books in the bottom drawer of a chest.
It is undisputed that the books seized did not contain any photographs of children engaged in sexual activity, as specified by the warrant. Tr. 106-116, 195, 278-282; Appellee’s Br. at 16-17; Appellant’s Br. 16. No language in the warrant authorized the seizure of nonpictorial materials. The officers’ seizure of the books was wholly outside the scope of the warrant. Thus it is obvious that seizure of these books violated defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights.
The majority explained that these books were properly admitted into evidence because “they are relevant as to whether or not Nelson was predisposed to send for pedophilic materials.” Maj. Opin. at 288. But just because the books are similar in content to the illegal videotape does not justify their seizure. The warrant did not state with specified particularity—in fact, did not state at all—that the officers were authorized to seize these presumptively protected materials. Therefore, seizure and later admission into evidence of these books violated Nelson’s First and Fourth Amendment rights.
These books are protected by the First Amendment because the defendant has a right to possess them in the privacy of his home even if they are obscene. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 568, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 1249, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969) (“We hold that the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit making mere private possession of obscene material a crime.”). The mere private possession of these books is not illegal, a point conceded by the government at trial. Tr. 113. They cannot be made illegal under Stanley. The Child Protection Act, under which Nelson was indicted, proscribes “any visual depiction” involving the use of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a) (2)(1984) (emphasis supplied). The legislative history indicates that the primary purpose for the Act was to minimize the exploi*290tation of children who pose in sexually explicit photographs and films. See H.Rep. 536, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 1, reprinted in 1984 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 492. The eight books found in Nelson’s home however did not involve the use of children in their production. They are fictional representations of ideas and thoughts, not dissimilar in that respect from Nabokov’s Lolita and Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.
The Supreme Court has “long recognized that the seizure of films or books on the basis of their content implicates First Amendment concerns not raised by other kinds of seizures.” New York v. P.J. Video, Inc., 475 U.S. 868, 873, 106 S.Ct. 1610, 1614, 89 L.Ed.2d 871 (1986). In A Quantity of Books v. Kansas, 378 U.S. 205, 211-12, 84 S.Ct. 1723, 1726, 12 L.Ed.2d 809 (1964), the Court explained that the “standards governing searches and seizures of allegedly obscene books ... differ from those applied with respect to narcotics, gambling paraphernalia and other contraband.” See also Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U.S. 319, 326 n. 5, 99 S.Ct. 2319, 2324 n. 5, 60 L.Ed.2d 920 (1979). The Court has concluded that when officers want to seize materials presumptively protected by the Constitution, the search warrant must state with a high degree of particularity exactly what items are to be seized.1 See Stanford v. Texas, 379 U.S. 476, 485, 85 S.Ct. 506, 511, 13 L.Ed.2d 431 (1965). See also Maryland v. Macon, 472 U.S. 463, 468, 105 S.Ct. 2778, 2781-82, 86 L.Ed.2d 370 (1985); Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547, 565, 98 S.Ct. 1970, 1981, 56 L.Ed.2d 525 (1978); Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 530-31, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 2834, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1976) (Burger, J., dissenting). See generally R. Rotunda, J. Nowak & J. Young, Treatise on Constitutional Law 2d Ed. 1060 n. 10 (1988). Cf. Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U.S. 496, 93 S.Ct. 2796, 37 L.Ed.2d 757, (1973); Heller v. New York, 413 U.S. 483, 93 S.Ct. 2789, 37 L.Ed.2d 745 (1973); Lee Art Theatre, Inc. v. Virginia, 392 U.S. 636, 88 S.Ct. 2103, 20 L.Ed.2d 1313 (1968); A Quantity of Books v. Kansas, 378 U.S. 205, 84 S.Ct. 1723, 12 L.Ed.2d 809 (1964); Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1708, 6 L.Ed.2d 1127 (1961).
In Stanford, the Court held that a warrant authorizing seizure of materials related to the Communist Party of Texas was an illegal general search when officers seized from Stanford’s house over 2,000 books and materials written by such authors as Karl Marx, Jean Paul Sartre, and Justice Hugo L. Black. 379 U.S. at 479, 85 S.Ct. at 508. None of the materials related to records, lists or payments involving the Communist Party. Id. at 480, 85 S.Ct. at 509. The Court explained:
The constitutional requirement that warrants must particularly describe the things to be seized is to be accorded the most scrupulous exactitude when the “things” are books, and the basis for their seizure is the ideas which they contain.
Id. at 485, 85 S.Ct. at 511-12 (footnote and citations omitted, emphasis supplied).
Several Supreme Court cases involving search warrants for possibly protected material have invoked Stanford’s requirement that judges must apply scrupulous exactitude when they describe what items are seizable. See, e.g., Zurcher, 436 U.S. at 565, 98 S.Ct. at 1981. Recently, in Maryland v. Macon, 472 U.S. 463, 105 S.Ct. 2778, 86 L.Ed.2d 370 (1985), involving the sale of allegedly obscene magazines, the Court stated:
The First Amendment imposes special constraints on searches for and seizures of presumptively protected material ... and requires that the Fourth Amendment be applied with a “scrupulous exactitude” in such circumstances.
Id. at 468, 105 S.Ct. at 2781.
Our Court recognized in Sovereign News Co. v. United States, 690 F.2d 569 (6th *291Cir.1982), that in searches for obscene material, “the items to be seized must be described with ‘scrupulous exactitude.’ ” Id. at 576 (citing Stanford, 379 U.S. at 485, 85 S.Ct. at 511). Numerous other circuits have similarly viewed the high degree of particularity required in search warrants for presumptively protected materials. See United States v. Coppage, 635 F.2d 683, 687 n. 2 (8th Cir.1980) (“where a search may touch areas involving first amendment concerns, greater particularity should be required.”); United States v. Cook, 657 F.2d 730, 733 n. 2 (5th Cir.1981) (“additional degree of scrutiny afforded the particularity requirement of a warrant to search for and seize books, films and other communications media”); United States v. Torch, 609 F.2d 1088, 1089 (4th Cir.1979) (“particularity requirement is even more stringent where the things to be seized have the presumptive protection of the First Amendment”); United States v. Scharfman, 448 F.2d 1352, 1354 (2d Cir.1971) (“particularity requirement to be accorded most scrupulous exactitude when the things are books ... [b]ut when first amendment rights are not involved, the specificity requirement is more flexible.”).
In this case, the warrant does not indicate in any way that the officers could seize nonpictorial books. No description at all hardly comports with Stanford’s requirement that seizable items be particularly described with “scrupulous exactitude.” The warrant thus does not comply with the high degree of particularity required for seizure of presumptively protected materials. Thus these books were impermissibly seized and the District Court should not have allowed them into evidence. The Court has simply amended the Fourth Amendment by striking the particularity clause out of it.2

. Although in P.J. Video, 475 U.S. 868, 106 S.Ct. 1610, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not require a higher standard of probable cause for warrants authorizing the search for constitutionally protected materials, it left intact Stanford’s requirement of a heightened degree of particularity in search warrants.

. The Fourth Amendment provides:
The 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.
U.S. Const. Amend. IV (emphasis supplied).