On Point: 6. Scope of warrant

State v. Michael Anthony King, 2008 WI App 129
For King: Mark S. Rosen

Issue/Holding: A search warrant that conditions its execution on verification of the target’s address violates the 4th amendment’s particularity requirement:

¶25      … The Fourth Amendment clearly sets forth the particularity requirement that must be satisfied prior to issuance of a warrant. … The particularity requirement is necessary “to direct the officer to the exact place to be searched and to guard against abuses that prevailed under the old writs of assistance which left the place to be searched to the discretion of the searching officer.” Rainey v.

State v. Adrian J. Jackson, 2008 WI App 109
For Jackson: Craig S. Powell; Brian Kinstler

Issue/Holding: A warrant describing the building to be searched only as “a two-story duplex residence” did not satisfy the particularity requirement:

¶9    If the location to be searched is not described with sufficient particularity to inform officers which unit in a multi-unit building they are to search, the particularity required by the Fourth Amendment has not been satisfied. 

State v. Louis H. LaCount, 2008 WI 59, affirming 2007 WI App 116
For LaCount: T. Christopher Kelly

Issue: Whether execution of a search warrant for business records exceeded the warrant’s scope in that the warrant: authorized only the search for and seizure of records that related to a specific business with specifically named clients; and also authorized only a search of that business’s office space and not the defendant’s personal office within that space.

State v. John Lee Schaefer, 2003 WI App 164, PFR filed 8/21/03
For Schaefer: Jefren E. Olsen, SPD, Madison Appellate

Issue/Holding: The search warrant satisfied the particularity requirement by authorizing seizure of the following: “[p]hotographs, movies, slides, videotape, negatives, and/or undeveloped film which would tend to identify … any other juvenile”; and “[m]agazines, books, movies, and photographs depicting nudity and/or sexual activities of juveniles or adults,

State v. Keith Schroeder, 2000 WI App 128, 237 Wis.2d 575, 613 N.W.2d 911
For Schroeder: Kevin D. Musolf

Issue/Holding: Inspection of child pornography on a computer, found during a warrant-authorized search of a computer for unrelated material, was in plain view so as to be subject to seizure without a separate warrant:

13            In order for the plain view doctrine to apply:  “(1) the evidence must be in plain view;

State v. James H. Oswald, 2000 WI App 3, 232 Wis.2d 103, 606 N.W.2d 238
For Oswald: James L. Fullin, Jr., SPD, Madison Appellate

Issue: Whether a search of documents exceeded the scope of a warrant authorizing a search for currency, among other things.

Holding: Because the warrant authorized a search for currency, the officers were allowed to look through documents where bills could have been hidden,

State v. Delano J. O’Brien, 223 Wis.2d 303, 588 N.W.2d 8 (1999), reconsideration denied, 225 Wis.2d 247, 591 N.W.2d 846 (1999), affirming State v. O’Brien, 214 Wis.2d 327, 572 N.W.2d 870 (Ct. App. 1997)
For O’Brien: Martin E. Kohler, John C. Thomure, Jr.

Holding: A search warrant was obtained for O’Brien’s residence (a farmstead including a duplex),