E.D.N.Y.: GFE applied in language similar to civil qualified immunity standard

The defendant ran a clinic, and he’s accused of distributing oxycodone. Two search warrants were executed. They were particular but had a catchall phrase, but this did not render the warrant defective. The lack of a time limitation in the warrant also did not make the warrant so constitutionally overbroad that the good faith exception couldn’t apply. In a discussion that sounds like it tracks the civil qualified immunity standard, there was no controlling precedent to show that the officers’ conduct was unreasonable. United States v. Jacobson, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33705 (E.D. N.Y. March 13, 2014):

Moreover, under the circumstances of this case, the Court does not find the lack of any temporal limitation in the 2011 and 2012 Warrants to be dispositive. Although a warrant’s failure to include a temporal limitation on the things to be seized may, in certain circumstances, render a warrant insufficiently particular, there is no consensus in this Circuit “as to when one is required.” Cohan, 628 F. Supp. 2d at 366; see, e.g., United States v. Triumph Capital Grp., Inc., 211 F.R.D. 31, 58 (D. Conn. 2002) (“A temporal limitation in a warrant is not an absolute necessity, but is only one indicia of particularity.”). As the Hernandez decision noted, “[t]he complexity and duration of the alleged criminal activities render a time frame less significant than in a case that required a search for a small set of discrete items related to one or only a few dates.” 2010 WL 26544, at *11. Here, as in Hernandez, the crimes under investigation were complex and concerned a long period of time, not simply one or two dates of criminal activity. Thus, in this case, the absence of a time frame did not render the otherwise particularized warrants unconstitutionally general. See id.

Finally, the 2011 and 2012 Warrants satisfied the particularity requirement even though they did not identify specific patient files to be seized. Although there is no controlling Second Circuit law on this issue, courts outside this Circuit have upheld the constitutionality of warrants that authorized the search of a medical office for all patient files, so long as the warrants were otherwise particular. See, e.g., United States v. Hayes, 794 F.2d 1348, 1355 (9th Cir. 1986) (holding that a warrant authorizing the search of a medical office for all patient files was sufficiently particular because “the officers were limited in their seizure to documents dealing with the distribution of controlled substances”); United States v. Lievertz, 247 F. Supp. 2d 1052, 1062 (S.D. Ind. 2002). But see United States v. Wright, No. 3:10-CR-161, 2012 WL 3778986, at *9 (E.D. Tenn. June 19, 2012) (“In order to satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement with regard to the seizure of medical records, the government must identify by patient name, which records are sought.” (citing United States v. Lazar, 604 F.3d 230, 238 (6th Cir. 2009))), report & recommendation adopted, 2012 WL 3778982 (E.D. Tenn. Aug. 30, 2012). Here, the Court agrees with Hayes and concludes that the warrants at issue here were sufficiently particular even in the absence of any reference to specific patient files. Specifically, the warrants were otherwise particular by including, as in Hayes, a limitation related to enumerated offenses. Moreover, even if the lack of a specific limitation on the patient files to be seized did violate the particularity requirement, the Court concludes infra that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies in this circumstance.

[Note: I saw this coming through the years. You can track this type of analysis in other cases.]