CA3: Defense curtilage argument seemed to undermine REP in place to be searched

Five USMJs in Pennsylvania could issue search warrants for email accounts in other states. A search warrant for a specific email address was not a general warrant. The notice requirement on an email account goes to the email provider, not the person with that address. As to a search of property clearly named in a search warrant, defendant’s argument about curtilage actually undermined the reasonable expectation of privacy in the property. But all that was irrelevant: The property was clearly described and there was probable cause. The search of defendant’s car was valid as an inventory since he’d been indicted and was on the lam hoping to elude the police and skip the country at 1 am. United States v. Bansal, 06-1370 (3d Cir. December 14, 2011).

Fourth, Bansal contends that evidence obtained from his email accounts should have been suppressed on ground that the agents executing the warrants failed to adhere to the “notice requirements” imposed by Rule 41 because the executing agents did not provide him with a copy of the warrants. Rule 41 requires that searching officers put searched persons on notice of any property seized: … The plain text of Rule 41 thus requires notice only “to the person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken.” Id. (emphasis added). Because Bansal does not deny that the warrant was provided to the internet service providers upon whom the search warrants were executed, we conclude that notice was properly made in this case. We will therefore affirm the District Court.

. . .

Bansal reargues on appeal that the garage was not within the curtilage and that the agents’ reliance upon an interested prosecutor’s telephone advice is not sufficient to establish a good faith defense. We will not reach the good faith inquiry because we conclude that the warrant authorized the search of the garage. First, the warrant was not limited only to a search of the home at 23 Garden Avenue. It authorized a search of the entire “premises,” which included the garage. Second, we are puzzled as to how Bansal’s case is advanced by his assertion that the garage was outside the curtilage of the home at 23 Garden Avenue. It is axiomatic that “[a] person’s curtilage is the area immediately adjacent to his home in which he has a legitimate expectation of privacy.” Estate of Smith v. Marasco, 430 F.3d 140, 156 n.14 (3d Cir. 2005) (citing United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 300 (1987)). We are puzzled because Bansal’s contention that the garage was outside the curtilage actually decreases his legitimate expectation of privacy in the building, and presumably places it merely on the “premises” at 23 Garden Avenue, squarely within the terms of the search warrant. In sum, we conclude that if the garage was within the curtilage, as the District Court found, then for Fourth Amendment purposes it was part of the premises at 23 Garden Avenue (the search of which no party disputes was authorized); if it was instead beyond the curtilage, Bansal’s expectation of privacy was diminished to the point that no violation could have occurred.

And the court could not help but note the complexity of the briefs, and the government responding in kind:

We note at the outset that Bansal’s and Mullinix’s briefs raise approximately 75 issues for our consideration. Although the government responds by calling to our attention no fewer than 339 cases drawn from the span of more than 120 years (as well as 49 separate statutes and one book, for good measure), we reject any implication that we should pick up their torch and embark upon a similar adventure ourselves. We address only those issues we deem worthy of discussion, and only to the extent we deem necessary to explain our reasoning.