W.D.Tenn.: Facebook SW for evidence of gang activity was particular enough, considering context

This Facebook warrant for information about gang activity was based on probable cause and was particular enough, considering the context of what the government was looking for. In any event, it wasn’t so bad that the good faith exception didn’t apply. United States v. Merriweather, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90304 (W.D. Tenn. Apr. 15, 2026):

Defendant does not argue that the Government exceeded the bounds of the search authorized by the warrant. Rather, he claims that the warrant defined the permissible search too broadly.

This challenge fails. The Sixth Circuit has explained that the particularity standard is context-dependent: “A search warrant must particularly describe the things to be seized, but the description, whose specificity will vary with the circumstances of the case, will be valid if it is as specific as the circumstances and the nature of the activity under investigation permit.” Guest v. Leis, 255 F.3d 325, 336 (6th Cir. 2001) (quotation marks and citation omitted). And, in the context of evidence contained on computers and similar devices, a search can be “as extensive as reasonably required to locate the items described,” if officers avoid “searching files of types not identified in the warrant.” United States v. Richards, 659 F.3d 527, 538 (6th Cir. 2011); see also United States v. Bass, 785 F.3d 1043, 1049 (6th Cir. 2015) (citing Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 393 (2014) (applying this rule in the context of a search of a cell phone, albeit in a plain error posture)). Thus, courts have generally recognized in this context, “an expansive search . . . may be required.” Bass, 785 F.3d at 1049 (quotation marks and citation omitted). While the Sixth Circuit has not yet extended this standard to online social media accounts, United States v. Mills, No. 2:24-CR-20428, 2025 WL 1528101, at *10 (E.D. Mich. May 29, 2025), the Court concludes that the same general standard should apply in this context because those accounts present the same sorts of issues as computers and cell phones—they “may contain a litany of information,” Bass, 785 F.3d at 1049, and officers generally have “no way to know where pertinent evidence would be located [within the account] or in what format it would be,” Mills, 2025 WL 1528101 at *10.

Applying that standard here, the search passes muster even if it is a close call. The warrant lists seventeen discrete and readily identifiable categories of information sought, and limits the categories to a finite time frame. Doc. 100-2 at 7-9. And, while unnecessary to the Court’s conclusion, the affidavit specifies the relevant crimes, which further defines and thus narrows the information sought: The Government was seeking Facebook data and activity showing Defendant’s acquisition or possession of firearms and his gang activity. Doc. 100-2 at 23. At the time of the search, “officers could not have known” where this information would be located in the account “or in what format,” and so for that reason the warrant’s definition of the items to be seized was “reasonable under the circumstances at that time.” Bass, 785 F.3d at 1049-50. And to the extent Defendant makes an independent challenge to the scope of the search allowed, the search was “extensive” but “reasonably required to locate the items described”—it was limited to a single Facebook account, under one username, and over the same identified period of time as was used to define the items sought. Richards, at 659 F.3d at 538. The warrant was thus reasonable in the particular circumstances presented. See United States v. Evers, 669 F.3d 645, 653 (6th Cir. 2012).