Officers came to defendant’s house to serve his mother with a notice for trespass and harassment, and they saw what they thought were long guns in house, and she was a convicted felon. They got a search warrant for firearms and went back, discovering that the expected long guns were actually BB guns. They continued to a lockbox and wanted to search it for a possible handgun, and the occupants at first refused, and the officers said they would open it by force if they didn’t open it. They admitted there was cocaine in the lockbox, and another warrant was obtained for the lockbox. Garrison applies, and when the officers discovered that the long guns weren’t firearms, they were required to discontinue the search. State v. Schulz, 55 A.3d 933 (N.H. 2012):

Suppression is therefore the appropriate remedy under the circumstances. Had the magistrate known that Officer Alling observed BB guns, rather than firearms, and given that the affidavit did not provide any information as to how the BB guns were "used, intended to be used, or threatened to be used" so as to constitute a deadly weapon, RSA 625:11, V (2007), no warrant would have been authorized because there would have been no probable cause to believe the defendant's mother was committing, or had committed, the crime of being a felon in possession of a firearm or other deadly weapon, see RSA 159:3 (2002).

It bears emphasizing that both the standard we have employed and the conclusion that we reach are compelled under the well-established constitutional precedents recited above. Even more so than in Garrison, where the police were required to discontinue searching after they "were put on notice of the risk that they might be" in the wrong apartment, Garrison, 480 U.S. at 87 (emphasis added), here the police were required to discontinue searching when they learned that the three guns that formed the sole factual basis for the warrant were not, in fact, firearms. In so concluding, we are not imposing a new constitutional burden on the police; as was recognized in Garrison, police officers have a duty to reassess probable cause based upon information acquired after the warrant issues but before or during a search. The police must, of course, have some latitude to conduct searches pursuant to warrants. What the police cannot do, however, is treat the search warrant as an authorization for a full-scale search irrespective of developments subsequent to the warrant's issuance. While it may be the rare case in which facts discovered during the search clearly and unambiguously dispel probable cause, this is such a case. Accordingly, the execution of the warrant violated Part I, Article 19 of the State Constitution.

Protective sweep of locked bedroom after consent entry was invalid. Hernandez v. State, 98 So. 3d 702 (Fla. 5th DCA 2012):

Courts that have recognized the validity of protective sweeps not incident to an arrest have generally required the State, at a minimum, to prove the following elements:

1. The police must not have entered (or remained in) the home illegally and their presence within it must have been for a legitimate law enforcement purpose;

2. The protective sweep must have been supported by a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the area to be swept harbored an individual posing a danger to those on the scene;

3. The protective sweep must not have been "a full search" but rather a cursory inspection of those spaces where a person may be found;

4. The protective sweep must have lasted no longer than was necessary to dispel the reasonable suspicion of danger and no longer than the police were justified in remaining on the premises.

Gould, 364 F.3d at 587-88, see also Miller, 430 F.3d at 98-100; State v. Davila, 999 A.2d 1116, 1118-19 (N.J. 2010).

In the instant case, the aforementioned elements were met. However, when the police entry into a house is based on consent, and the consent is limited in scope, additional Fourth Amendment concerns arise that are not present in cases where the initial entry is pursuant to a warrant.

For example, concerns might arise respecting a consent to entry requested for a stated common purpose but actually intended not for that purpose but rather for the purpose of gaining access in order to then make a protective sweep of the entire home for unrelated reasons and thus circumvent the warrant requirement. Concerns of a similar character might also arguably arise where the consent to entry is given expressly or implicitly only as to a limited area but the protective sweep extends clearly beyond that area without anything having developed since entry suggestive of greater or more imminent danger than that initially apparent just prior to entry.

Gould, 364 F.3d at 589.

The search warrant for defendant’s car was at least relied on in good faith, so the court does not have to decide the question of whether probable cause even exists (n.2). United States v. Gutierrez, 498 Fed. Appx. 786 (10th Cir. 2012).* [So much for development of the law. You already know how I feel about leaving PC undecided--it makes all the following similar searches valid without PC too.]

Defendant said he was the sergeant-at-arms of a motorcycle club, and that gave officers reasonable suspicion for a pat down for weapons, which were found. United States v. Durham, 491 Fed. Appx. 169 (11th Cir. 2012).

A gun abandoned in a drainage ditch in flight is not illegally seized because abandonment shows no standing. Fisher v. State, 317 Ga. App. 761, 732 S.E.2d 821 (2012).*