Residential Search Warrants

• Search Warrants and the Definition of Probable Cause
• The Issue of Overbreadth in Search Warrants

Including in an affidavit for a search warrant authorization to search for “any firearm,” where it is known only that one specific firearm is in a felon’s residence, is not overbroad.

A person unrelated to this appeal got into a violent domestic dispute with his live-in girlfriend (referred to herein only as “the girlfriend”), threatening her with a firearm and then pistol-whipping her with it across the face.  Although he got busted as a result, the girlfriend apparently forgave all because she later talked to him while he was in jail in a conversation that was overhead by police.  In this conversation, he told her to take the gun he’d hit her with from their residence and give it to defendant.  When the police confronted her about this, she admitted to having dutifully done as she had been instructed, describing the particular firearm in some detail (i.e., a “large silver & gold revolver” of an unknown caliber).  It was quickly ....