Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Amendment

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

E.D.Pa.: Officers with SW "cannot (and are not expected to) know with precision the exact records or kinds of apparatus or instruments of crime that may be found"

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

A search warrant is not general just because it does not describe with complete specificity what the officers might find because they are not expected to know all that they might find or where they will have to look. United States v. Rodriguez-Jimenez, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37044 (E.D. Pa. April 30, 2009): Rather than authorizing unbridled "general exploratory rummaging in [Mr. Rodriguez-Jimenez's] belongings," ... the warrants here did not vest the agents with unrestricted discretion to search for and seize whatever they wished. Instead, the attachments to the search warrants describe in detail the places to be searched and the types of documents and other items to be seized. To be sure, the law enforcement agents cannot (and are not expected to) know with precision the exact records or kinds of apparatus or instruments of crime that may be found -- or the exact nook, cranny, drawer or shelf where the sought after evidence will be...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on May 06, 2009 (boomark / email).