Defense challenges to search warrants frequently focus on the issue of “particularity” of the place to be searched, and the things to be seized. Requiring particularity in a search warrant ensures that the search will be carefully tailored to its purposes and will not take on the character of a wide-ranging general exploratory search or “rummaging” that the Fourth Amendment prohibits.1 When a search warrant is drafted for computer based digital evidence, a reviewing court scrutinizes the parameters of the authorized search to determine the validity of the subsequent seizure of digital evidence. This article will tackle frequent questions involved in challenges todigital raids.
Particularity
Fundamental to the issuance of search warrants under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, New York’s analog, Article I §12 of the New York Constitution, and Article 690 of the New York Criminal Procedure Law,2 is that the police are limited to particular places and particularly identifiable evidence described in the warrant, and cannot extend the scope of the warrant to additional or different places or other evidence without seeking additional authority from the court.3 Particularity requires specificity, which not only protects the right of privacy but leaves no discretion to the executing officers.4 Particularity limits searches to the places and things5 that have been judicially approved,6 so as to prohibit the execution of an imprecise or general warrant.7
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
