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RESEARCH
The magistrate authorized officers to search the defendant’s premises as “a place where books, records, pamphlets, cards, receipts, lists, memoranda, pictures, recordings and other written instruments concerning the Communist Party of Texas, and the operations of the Communist Party in Texas are unlawfully possessed . . . and to take possession of same.” Several law enforcement officers went to the defendant’s home for the purpose of serving this warrant. By the time they finished five hours later, they had seized all books including biographies of Pope John XXIII and Justice Black.
Whether the search and seizure amounted to an unconstitutional general search?
Yes. The warrant did not meet the particularity requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits general warrants that give the government permission to search wherever it wants and to seize whatever it pleases. The indiscriminate sweep of a search warrant’s language renders it invalid under the Fourth Amendment where the warrant authorizes the seizure of “books, records, pamphlets, cards, receipts, lists, memoranda, pictures, recordings and other written instruments concerning the Communist Party of Texas, and the operation of the Communist Party in Texas.” The warrant lacked particularity.
379 U.S. 476, 85 S. Ct. 506 (1965)
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