In the Fulton County ballot seizure case, the court refuses to vacate its order for a Rule 41(g) hearing on return of the records. Pitts v. United States, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74137 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 20, 2026):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\nIt is well settled that, under Rule 41(g), the claimant “must show that he [or she] had a possessory interest in the property seized.” United States v. Howell, 425 F.3d 971, 974 (11th Cir. 2005). In other words, “the claimant need not own the property, but rather may have some lesser property interest, such as a possessory interest.” United States v. Cooper, 485 F. App’x 411, 414 (11th Cir. 2012). In this case, it is undisputed that the Clerk had lawful possession of the records when they were seized. As such, the Court is satisfied that at least one of the petitioners has the requisite possessory interest to bring the Rule 41(g) motion. Thus, to the extent that Respondent argues that the Court should vacate the evidentiary hearing because Petitioners lack a possessory interest over the subject property, the motion is DENIED.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Respondent also asserts that an evidentiary hearing is not necessary because Petitioners cannot use Rule 41(g) to argue that the search warrant affidavit failed to establish probable cause. Essentially, Respondent contends that the Court cannot review the probable cause determination made by the Magistrate Judge. Respondent also seems to claim that there can be no callous disregard of constitutional rights where there is a warrant. The Court disagrees that the hearing should be vacated because the Magistrate Judge signed the warrant. In the Court’s view, the existence of a warrant is not dispositive of the callous disregard inquiry under Rule 41(g). Indeed, courts have expressly rejected the notion that a warrant automatically insulates the government from relief. See Harbor Healthcare Sys., L.P. v. United States, 5 F.4th 593, 599 (5th Cir. 2021) (“The district court incorrectly concluded that the government did not show a ‘callous disregard’ for [the plaintiff’s] rights simply because it obtained search warrants prior to seizing [the plaintiff’s] privileged materials.”). Thus, to the extent that Respondent argues that the hearing should be vacated because there was a warrant, the motion is DENIED.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the Fulton County ballot seizure case, the court refuses to vacate its order for a Rule 41(g) hearing on return of the records. Pitts v. United States, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74137 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 20, 2026):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rule-41g-return-of-property"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63792"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63796,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63792\/revisions\/63796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}