S.D.Iowa: Looking for gun serial number exceeded scope of protective sweep and is suppressed

DHS officers executed a search warrant on an empty house looking for a 2×4″ object (an I-551 stamp). They didn’t find it. In the course of the search, they opened an Xbox box in a closet and found a handgun. The officer cleared the gun and examined it, discovering that the gun’s serial number was ground off. Examining the gun like that was an illegal search and not necessary to the search of an empty house. United States v. Prather, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140147 (S.D.Iowa Oct. 14, 2015). (Remember Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987): “It matters not that the search uncovered nothing of any great personal value to respondent–serial numbers rather than (what might conceivably have been hidden behind or under the equipment) letters or photographs. A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.”)).