4th Amendment Violation

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Edward Bishop

Case No.: 18-2019

Officials: EASTERBROOK, SYKES, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: 4^th Amendment Violation

A drug deal went wrong. After receiving a dose of pepper spray from his customer, Edward Bishop shot her in the arm. A jury convicted him of discharging a firearm during a drug transaction, 18 U.S.C. §924(c), and the judge sentenced him to 120 months’ imprisonment. He presents one contention on appeal: that the warrant authorizing a search of his cell phone—a search that turned up incriminating evidence—violated the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that every warrant “particularly describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Andresen and its successors show that specificity is a relative maher. A warrant may be thought “too general” only if some more-specific alternative would have done better at protecting privacy while still permitting legitimate investigation. See United States v. Vitek Supply Corp., 144 F.3d 476, 482 (7th Cir. 1998); United States v. Bentley, 825 F.2d 1104, 1110 (7th Cir. 1987). So if the police had known that Andresen kept all of his files about the real-estate deal in a particular cabinet, failure to identify that cabinet in the warrant would have violated the constitutional particularity requirement. But a warrant need not be more specific than knowledge allows. In Andresen the police did not know how the target organized his files, so the best they could do was the broad language the warrant used. Likewise here: the police did not know where on his phone Bishop kept his drug ledgers and gun videos—and, if he had told them, they would have been fools to believe him, for criminals often try to throw investigators off the trail. This warrant was as specific as circumstances allowed. The Constitution does not require more.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.