(another) Anticipatory Warrant Case: Circuit Court Rules LE Failed to Abide by Triggering Event Requirement

http://fourthamendment.com/?p=28214

The specific triggering event for this anticipatory warrant was handing the package to defendant. That did not happen here but police entered anyway and seized. While citing previous rulings where minor factual differences existed between what happened and the triggering event...the Sixth Circuit recognized that determining whether the triggering event occurred has to be considered in a common sense fashion. In this case the "factual differences" were so significant that even the good faith exception did not apply.

"In this case, the wording of the triggering event is extremely specific. If the Court were to read the affidavit in the manner the government proposes, the requirement that the package be hand delivered to Defendant would be read out of existence, and the triggering event contemplated by the neutral magistrate would lose all importance. It would also undermine the "purpose of defining a triggering event" which is "to ensure that officers serve an almost ministerial role in deciding when to execute the warrant."


Comments


[6 Points] RUshittnme:

When Officer Brewer delivered the parcel, no attempt was made to ascertain whether Defendant was present at the residence, or if he even lived there at that time. Brewer testified at the hearing that when he delivered the parcel, he asked Sons, “Are you expecting a package?” He testified that she replied, “Yes, we are.” Brewer further testified that based on her response, he “assume[d] that there was somebody else in the house,” but he did not testify that he believed Defendant was present.

At its most basic level, the government’s argument seeks to undermine the importance of triggering events being “explicit, clear, and narrowly drawn,” and thereafter diligently executed by law enforcement. The issue here is not decided by an ambiguous turn of phrase or linguistic technicality. Instead, the reasoning advanced by the government approaches a post hoc justification of a search, in which the substance and execution of a warrant are reduced to trifling details. Such a path is fraught with danger, leading to an increased likelihood of unpredictable, unreasonable searches and awarding the sort of unfettered authority to law enforcement that the exclusionary rule and Fourth Amendment were intended to prevent. Accordingly, the Court finds that police officers violated Defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights in executing the search of Defendant’s residence when they failed to abide by the triggering event.


[2 Points] ajax_jives:

..


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] sharpshooter789:

Has the judge made a decision in this case yet or is it still under review?


[1 Points] SukkDissDick:

What drug and what amount?