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• Wednesday, January 7, 2009 10:24 PM

  Arne

  I think we are watching two different movies because, at this point, I am just confused.

  Businesses are under different rules. Period. For instance, business records are open to subpoena, while your personal papers are not.

  Are you saying that the police can't seize your personal papers even with a warrant?

  Even traditional searches are a bit weird (at least according to customary 4thAm law). In the warrant is for a stolen refrigerator, they may still search your drawers. I don't agree but that's the law.

  Do you not see a difference between a warrant to search a specific house for a stolen refrigerator and a warrant to search any house for a stolen refrigerator?

  I also think you have the elephant in a drawer backwards. I am still trying to find a direct Supreme Court cite but this is from the 7th Circuit--

  http://www.projectposner.org/case/1999/179F3d574

  Even if there were no constitutional requirement of particular description, or if "seizure" were so narrowly defined as to be irrelevant to most searches, a valid warrant would have to specify the object of the search, and that specification would operate to particularize the scope of the search. For the object determines the reasonable scope of the search, and all searches, to pass muster under the Fourth Amendment, must be reasonable. If you are looking for an adult elephant, searching for it in a chest of drawers is not reasonable. The principle that this example illustrates is that a search for a given body of evidence or contraband implies a limitation of the parts of the premises that may be searched. United States v. Evans, 92 F.3d 540, 543 (7th Cir. 1996); United States v. Eschweiler, 745 F.2d 435, 439 (7th Cir. 1984); United States v. Jackson, 825 F.2d 853, 865 (5th Cir. 1987) (en banc).

  This is from the SC oral argument in Horton v. California

  http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1989/1989_88_7164/argument/

  QUESTION: The basic reason, I think, is to -- is to describe the scope of the search. If -- you know, if -- if -- if you're looking for an elephant, you can't look in drawers. So where's there an elephant on the search warrant, searching through drawers is beyond the proper scope of the search. Isn't that a good enough reason?

  —thelastnamechosen Read thelastnamechosen's other letters
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