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N.D.Ill.: Failure to have time limit on seizure of records made it overbroad

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Search warrant was overbroad as to financial records for a lack of a time frame to be seized, but not as to other things. United States v. Tomkins, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51059 (N.D. Ill. March 6, 2009): The Court finds that the search warrants for defendant's home and storage units were overbroad in one limited respect: they failed to impose a time limitation for the financial records, postal receipts, and telecommunications records to be seized. Although the government argues that time limitations as to the telecommunications records are implied by the supporting affidavits to be the time period relevant to the complaint, there is no evidence that the affidavits were incorporated into, or attached to, the warrants. The Court also finds unpersuasive the government's argument that the time period was limited as a practical matter because people typically do not retain telephone records for extended periods of time...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on June 22, 2009 (boomark / email).