3.5.2 The Particular Description in the Warrant

• Library: Criminal Procedure in Practice (ABA) (2018 Ed.)

3.5.2 The Particular Description in the Warrant

The text of the Fourth Amendment requires that the warrant "particularly describ[e] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." That description must be precise enough so that the officer with a search warrant can "with reasonable effort ascertain and identify" the place to be searched and the items to be taken.⁹²

The warrant must be narrow enough so that relatively little is left to the officer's discretion. Such precision is determined, however, on a fact-specific, case-by-case basis.⁹³ In one important case, a warrant in a complicated real estate transactions fraud case was issued for the search of "other fruits, instrumentalities and evidence of the crime at this (time) unknown."⁹⁴ The warrant was held to be sufficiently narrow given the complex nature of the crime and the difficulty of predicting exactly what form the evidence would take.⁹⁵

An imprecise warrant does not...