DE: SW for house didn’t also show nexus to include outbuilding

Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in a shed behind another man’s property. He’d been sleeping there for a while, and the police even listed that address on the arrest report as where he stayed. While the state Supreme Court has construed the state constitution more broadly than the Fourth Amendment, nexus isn’t one of those area. Instead, the court considers state case law and case law from other states and concludes that, when the warrant says “the building at XX street” nexus still has to be shown to the outbuilding too, and here there was none. The motion to suppress is granted. [The opinion is a thorough and thoughtful analysis of nexus to outbuildings not specified in warrants; and caution that it won’t apply in many other jurisdictions.] State v. Friend, 2016 Del. Super. LEXIS 626 (Dec. 13, 2016):

Based on the Bradley decisions and the Wheeler decision, this Court must reject the argument that clear probable cause to search the residence alone was sufficient to justify a search of the curtilage separately, including the shed. The supporting affidavit was devoid of facts linking the shed to any illegal activity and did not contain any facts alleging that it was likely that evidence would be found in that outbuilding. As such, this was an unconstitutional search and the evidence found must be suppressed from use at trial.