Are warrants surplusage under the Fourth Amendment?
Mike at Crime and Federalism notes last year’s Groh v. Ramirez case in light of the Court’s agreeing to review the constitutionality of “anticipatory warrants.” Last Term, in Groh v. Ramirez, seven Justices (Rehnquist, Stevens, O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer) expressed the view that a search warrant that did not comply with the Fourth Amendment’s textual requirements was invalid under the Fourth Amendment. In Groh, a federal agent forgot to attach the appendix to a search warrant: the appendix contained the persons and things to be searched and seized. Thus, the warrant did not “particularly describ[e] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Since anticipatory warrants don’t comply with the amendment’s text, Mike argues, Grubbs has five or six votes. [UPDATE: It didn’t occur to me till after I posted that Mike counts five or six votes for Grubbs not including Scalia and Thomas, whom he thinks are no sure things, whereas Prof. Kerr thinks thos
