Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 2006

United States v. Grubbs

547 U.S. 90 | 126 S. Ct. 1494 | 164 L. Ed. 2d 195 | 2006 U.S. LEXIS 2496

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Takeaway

In short, this case confirms that anticipatory warrants are valid when probable cause supports both the expected trigger and the expected presence of evidence, but the Fourth Amendment does not require the trigger to appear on the warrant’s face.

Background

Jeffrey Grubbs bought a videotape containing child pornography from a website operated by an undercover postal inspector. Postal inspectors arranged a controlled delivery to Grubbs’s home and sought an anticipatory search warrant. The supporting affidavit stated that officers would not execute the warrant until someone received the package and physically took it inside the residence. The warrant incorporated attachments describing the home and the items to be seized, but it did not incorporate the affidavit or state the delivery condition on its face.

An undercover inspector delivered the package, which Grubbs’s wife accepted and took inside. Officers detained Grubbs shortly afterward and searched the house. About 30 minutes into the search, they gave Grubbs a copy of the warrant and its attachments, but not the affidavit. He admitted ordering the tape, and officers seized it and other evidence.

After Grubbs was indicted for receiving child pornography, the District Court denied his suppression motion. Grubbs entered a conditional guilty plea. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that an anticipatory warrant must state its triggering condition in the warrant itself, or in an incorporated affidavit presented to the person whose property is searched. Because the inspectors did not present the affidavit, the Ninth Circuit held the warrant inoperative and the search unlawful.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether anticipatory search warrants are categorically unconstitutional because the contraband is not yet at the place to be searched when the warrant issues.

Holding

No. Anticipatory warrants are constitutional when probable cause establishes that the triggering condition will occur and that evidence will be found at the specified place when the warrant is executed.

Reasoning

The Fourth Amendment requires probable cause to believe that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. That inquiry is forward-looking: even an ordinary warrant rests on a prediction that evidence presently believed to be at a location will still be there when officers execute the warrant. Anticipatory warrants therefore differ from ordinary warrants only in how openly they rely on a future event.

For an anticipatory warrant subject to a triggering condition, probable cause has two components. The magistrate must have reason to believe both that the triggering condition will occur and that, once it occurs, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence will be at the designated premises. Otherwise, officers could obtain warrants for any location merely on the possibility that contraband might someday be delivered there.

The affidavit satisfied both requirements here. Grubbs had ordered the videotape, making successful delivery to his residence likely, and delivery of the tape into the residence would establish probable cause to search for it and related evidence there. The magistrate thus had a substantial basis to find probable cause.

Issue #2

Whether the Fourth Amendment requires an anticipatory warrant to state its triggering condition on the face of the warrant.

Holding

No. The Fourth Amendment requires particular description only of the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized; it does not require the warrant itself to recite a triggering condition for execution.

Reasoning

The Fourth Amendment’s text identifies exactly what must be particularly described: the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. It does not impose a general requirement that every limit or precondition governing the execution of a warrant be written into the warrant. Under Dalia v. United States, courts may not add such unenumerated particulars to the Amendment’s express terms.

A triggering condition is not constitutionally equivalent to the warrant’s description of the place or items. Nor does the Fourth Amendment require a warrant to state the magistrate’s basis for finding probable cause, even though probable cause is itself essential to a lawful search. The Constitution therefore does not require the warrant to specify the condition that makes execution permissible.

The Court also rejected the view that the condition had to be disclosed so the homeowner could monitor officers’ compliance. Neither the Fourth Amendment nor Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 requires officers to present the warrant before beginning a search. Constitutional protection instead comes from the magistrate’s prior, neutral assessment of probable cause and from later remedies, including suppression and damages, for unlawful searches.

Concurrences

Justice Souter

Reasoning

Justice Souter agreed that anticipatory warrants are constitutional and joined the judgment, but he cautioned against treating the majority’s textual holding as practical approval of warrants that omit their triggering conditions. In his view, the word “warrant” ordinarily signifies a statement of the authority granted, including the time or contingency at which that authority begins.

An anticipatory warrant that fails to state its condition may mislead officers, especially officers other than the affiant who do not know the unstated limit. If officers execute such a warrant before the condition occurs, the search is unreasonable, and the government should not readily rely on the warrant’s unconditional appearance to excuse the error.

Justice Souter also stressed the property owner’s interest in an accurate statement of governmental authority. Although the Court had not decided whether an owner has a right to inspect a warrant before a search, a warrant accurately stating its triggering condition would help the owner identify an officer’s mistaken belief that the condition had occurred and would better define the lawful limits of the search.