CA6: Cut-and-paste typos in SW can be ignored if intention can be determined

Typographical errors in a search warrant from using another warrant off a computer can be ignored if the intention of the search warrant can be determined. United States v. Abdalla, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 27375 (6th Cir. Aug. 27, 2020):

Challenges to warrants based on typographical errors or factual inaccuracies typically fall under this Circuit’s clerical error exception. We have consistently found that inadvertent drafting mistakes, for instance transposing a number in a street address or listing an incorrect nearby address, do not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. That is because those errors create little risk of a mistaken search or a general warrant granting police an unconstitutionally broad authority to conduct searches.

But Defendant Samer Abdalla contends that this case does not involve a regular clerical error. The Tennessee judge who signed the warrant permitting officers to search Abdalla’s residence on New Hope Road only had jurisdiction in DeKalb County. But the warrant, in one place, listed an address on Carey Road in Trousdale County, Tennessee. This error resulted from the drafting officer’s using a previous warrant as a template and failing to erase all vestiges of that document. As a result, the warrant permitting officers to search Abdalla’s residence listed the wrong address, including the wrong county, in the authorization paragraph despite accurately describing Abdalla’s home.

Abdalla makes much of this mistake. He argues that a warrant cannot be valid if it contains a mismatch between the residence in the authorization section and the residence that the police searched. Along with this theory of invalid formation, Abdalla also asserts that a judge’s failure to notice an address outside his jurisdiction in a warrant’s authorization section demands the inference that the judge impermissibly rubberstamped the warrant. Yet the affidavit supporting the warrant listed the correct address and county at the top of the first page. And the warrant itself directed officers to the correct address by providing step-by-step directions along with a detailed description of Abdalla’s residence. So the warrant’s singular incorrect address posed almost no chance of a mistaken search. Despite the government’s irregular mistake, this clerical error case demands the usual result for technical mistakes that threaten no constitutional harm. We AFFIRM.

techdirt: Appeals Court Says Address Mistakes On Warrants Are Mostly Harmless, Not Worth Getting Excited About by Tim Cushing

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