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S.D.Ga.: "[U]tterly defective" warrant led to search of 50 people

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

"[U]tterly defective" search warrant for a pool hall that described neither the place to be searched nor the things to be seized that led to 50 people being searched led to suppression. United States v. Glenn, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71959 (S.D. Ga. July 29, 2009). The introduction: Alphonzo Glenn, along with some forty to fifty other people, was a patron of the What Game Room in Reidsville, Georgia when police officers arrived to execute a search warrant that they believed authorized them to search the premises for distilled spirits being sold by the proprietor without a license. The search warrant was utterly defective, however, for it described neither the place to be searched nor the items to be seized. On the strength of this facially invalid warrant, a squad of officers and SWAT team members burst into the crowded and dimly lit premises, ordered everyone to the floor, and proceeded to patdown each of the patrons for weapons and contraband, a procedure that took over an hour to complete...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on August 20, 2009 (boomark / email).