E.D. Cal.: Target has a pre-indictment right of access to search warrant materials under Fourth Amendment

“Because of the foregoing, the bank teller’s out of court identification must be suppressed. To be clear, the bank teller did nothing improper, but the lack of any intervening event to sever the causal connection between the illegal search and the photo lineup means that suppression must be ordered.” It was not attenuated enough. United States v. Carter, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9607 (N.D. Ill. February 6, 2009).*

Defendant was stopped on a bicycle for an equipment violation, and his strange responses led officers to believe that it was stolen. The patdown and drawing of weapons was justified. United States v. Banks, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 2491 (8th Cir. February 2, 2009).*

Targets of a search have a Fourth Amendment right of access to search warrant materials before indictment. In re Searches & Seizures, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107087 (E.D. Cal. December 19, 2008):

In addressing the question left unanswered by the decision in Times Mirror, several courts have recognized that those individuals whose property is the subject of a search pursuant to warrant have a pre-indictment right of access to search warrant materials, including the supporting affidavit, grounded in the Fourth Amendment. In re Search Warrants Issued on April 26, 2004, 353 F. Supp. 2d at 591 (affirming the magistrate’s order and recognizing “a search subject’s pre-indictment Fourth Amendment right to inspect the probable cause affidavit.”); In re Search Warrant for 2934 Anderson Morris Road, 48 F. Supp. 2d 1082, 1083 (N.D. Ohio 1999) (“Generally, a person whose property has been seized pursuant to a search warrant has a right under the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment to inspect and copy the affidavit upon which the warrant was issued.”); Up North Plastics, Inc., 940 F. Supp. at 232 (denying government’s pre-indictment motion to keep in place a previously entered order sealing the affidavit in support of a search warrant); In re Search Warrants Issued August 29, 1994, 889 F. Supp. at 299 (granting a home and business owner’s pre-indictment motion to unseal search warrant materials, stating “the Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures includes the right to examine the affidavit that supports a warrant after the search has been conducted and a return has been filed”); see also United States v. Oliver, 208 F.3d 211, 2000 WL 263954, *2 (4th Cir. 2000) (unpublished) (recognizing a Fourth Amendment right to examine the search warrant affidavit); In the Matter of Searches of Semtex Industrial Corporation, 876 F. Supp. 426, 429 (E.D.N.Y. 1995) (observing in response to a motion to unseal a warrant affidavit brought by a business that had been subject to search that such materials may not be sealed indefinitely pending the government’s decision to seek an indictment); Matter of Wag-Aero, Inc., 796 F. Supp. 394, 395 (E.D. Wisc. 1992) (vacating sealing order upon finding that the search target’s due process rights would be violated by continued sealing of the supporting affidavit).