If I may add a tangent, I believe that private mail (UPS, etc.) can be searched without probable cause but USPS (government) mail must have a search warrant or probable cause. So it’s safer for crooks to send contraband via USPS than private mail.
As I recall, private carriers like UPS and FedEx can open your stuff and then report to law enforcement if they wish. Law Enforcement itself cannot conducted a warrantless search of your package, even if privately shipped.
Not quite true:
https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/can-police-read-or-search-through-your-mail/
In fact, the U.S. Postal Service has been silently logging and tracking mail for more than a decade, legally, but it only catalogs the outsides of envelopes. The FBI has the ability to legally track suspects using the information on the outside – but not the contents – of any letter sent by USPS.
Keep in mind that postal workers or private mail carriers may open suspicious packages if they suspect illegality. Police can legally search a package that FedEx or UPS sorters have opened without a warrant, especially if it contains contraband.
Of course, sending anything illegal or that contributes to an illegal activity via misrepresentation may fall under the category of “mail fraud” which falls under the purview of federal authorities, so sending any contraband via the United States Postal Service risks turning your offense into a literal ‘federal case’.
Stranger
But I think @Chronos’ point is that a search warrant that includes “cash” can be used as a convenient loophole by unscrupulous cops. Given how many bad cops there are, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least bit if some cops list “cash” as a matter-of-course, and hope the judge signs off on it. (Since presumably you’re not a bad cop, this wouldn’t apply to you, of course.)
I find it interesting that the “reasonable person” standard protects them (technically their case) from 4th Amendment violations yet the same does not apply with regards to qualified immunity claims thus protecting them when they flagrantly violate the law.
“We believe” is not any kind of legal standard. There has to be specifics and other evidence that shows the judge why those beliefs are legally valid. That’s the point.
It’s inevitable that these threads degenerate into how cops are the bad guys and can do whatever they want because they are evil. Yes I’m exaggerating (slightly). But when the answer becomes “it doesn’t matter what the law is because police do what they want” it becomes impossible to discuss the FQ of what the law is. Then I bow out and let others discuss how bad police are.
Qualified immunity is, in a word, qualified. It does not apply to civil rights violations and only covers civil liability. It is not blanket immunity for all conduct.
Again, you can find endless disection on the news items posted on Techdirt, but the upshot is that the SCOTUS has interpreted qualified immunity in such a way that unless the defense can cite a specific instance of court decision that matches the circumstances of a case quite closely, then the police can claim they acted in good faith, even if it’s obvious they did not.
Yes, IMHO there are good and bad cops and departments. The obligation of a union - police or other - is to defend their members and ensure treatment is fair - and even if the person has been less than exemplary, to ensure minimal repercussions - so police unions often get tarred with the “bad” brush. The important thing to remember is when people say “it was just one bad apple” the rest of the saying is forgotten '…spoils the whole bunch."
Often, police behaviour has to do with the type of people they face on a daily basis - rarely the nice upstanding honest and respectful 40-hour-a-week types. Plus, I do have to point out the difference where Canadian police do not have to approach every encounter with the fear there is a good chance that this irrational person may have a firearm. The majority of police are just trying to do a job.
A lot of the problems, too, depend on the reliability of the rest of the participants. A judge is there to ensure the police have jsutified a warrant, not to issue blank cheques. The court system should be processing people, not just releasing the dangerous ones to carry on, with a promise to appear in a year or two.
Qualified immunity has to do with if a government official can personally be sued in civil court. What it has to do with the question poised in the OP I have no idea.
OK, how about “Based on my experience as a special agent and executing search warrants”, then? That’s the phrasing used in the first result I found for “example of warrant to search for cash”.
Attachment B: “Description of Property to be Seized” doesn’t list cash or currency as property or evidence being searched for and subject to seizure under authority of the warrant.
Stranger
Yeah, I’m not sure why Google delivered that hit. It does still list “receipts”, which are similarly small and potentially-anywhere, with the justification I quoted.
There are 44 pages of probable cause in that warrant. It in no way boils down to that sentence fragment.
If they are looking for a stolen horse I can understand your objection to adding something unrelated like cash. But what’s your objection to looking for paperwork in an investigation into financial crime?
Receipts are quite specific to the alleged crimes committed by the individual under investigation, specifically “…there is probable cause to believe that evidence of the kickback scheme, related mail fraud, money laundering and tax evasion by Powell…” as detailed in Paragraphs 9 and f10:
9. Specifically, Johnston provided a detailed description of the manner in which the kickback scheme operated. Johnston met Powell in 1995 or 1996 through a mutual acquaintance. After completing some small graphic design jobs for 24-Hour Fitness through Susan Powell, Powell approached Johnston and told him that “we can make more money on this.”. Johnston stated that he submitted an estimate to Powell for a job she presented to him and Powell responded to the estimate by saying that her budget for the job was a lot more and that if he wanted to increase the price of the job they could split the increased portion. I displayed copies of the numerous checks I had subpoenaed from Johnston’s business and personal account that were written to Susan Powell. Johnston admitted that the majority of those checks were Powell’s portion of the increased billing portion that he submitted through her to 24-Hour Fitness
*10. Johnston Stated that throughout their overbilling scheme, Powell would typically tell him to increase a typical bill by $20,000 to $60,000. According to Johnston, she then stated something like “I want $20,000.”. Johnston stated that Powell told him that whatever amount they were increasing the bill by should be placed into the printing expense portion of the invoice. Johnston stated that he followed Powell’s instructions and always factored the increased billing amount into the printing expense on his invoices to 24-Hour Fitness.
As @Loach has noted, there has to be specific identification and justification of the evidence which is expected to be uncovered by a search, and unless the crime involves the exchange of cash or currency in larger amounts than a normal person might keep on hand, or is otherwise identified by serial number, marking, et cetera, just inserting “cash” into the list of property to be search and seized doesn’t pass a smell test. In the case of this particular warrant, the agent goes into extensive detail for the basis for search (Para. 20–26), devices to be searched (Para 28–30), and justification of probable cause (Para. 31). There isn’t any kind of wildcard justification for an overly broad search. Which is not to say that this does not happen, specifically with coerced or fabricated c.i. claims, falsely associating a location with a known offender, et cetera, but not in the case of this particular application for a search warrant.
Stranger
A government agent that deliberately violates your civil rights can be sued - i.e. if they falsify information on a warrant to violate your 4th amendment rights, or beat the crap out of you during an arrest fo no good reason. You can’t sue a policeman, for example, if he swears out a warrant and the information is essentially correct, even if it turns out to be wrong. (“The informant told us you had drugs in the house” but we found none.) You can’t sue the prosecutor for prosecuting you, or the judge for denying your motions to drop the charges. The courts have recently gven enormous leeway is allowing government actors to be protected by QI.
The point was - if the warrant says something large, like say “firearms” then the police cannot poke into smaller locations where obviously no guns fit. They can look into a file cabinet drawer, for example, but not open the folders and read the material, since there can’t be a gun in a normal file folder full of papers. If the warrant says “receipts” or “cash” then the police could legitimately examine each and every page in a file cabinet.
However, as others mention, the warrant is to search for specifically listed items that relate to a crime, that the police have good information to believe the person will have in the location to be searched. So there has to be valid reasons why, for example, the police would expect to find evidence in the folders in a file cabinet or desk drawer or a file folder lying on a desk - otherwise they cannot look in them. And if they find large quatities of cash, that in itself is not a crime so they would have to have a better reason to seize it.
The IRS “search” back a few decades, as I recall, was photgraphing the fronts of envelopes. What’s visible on the outside of an envelope is public knowledge, everyone can see. The IRS wanted to know who was hiding money in Swiss banks, which obviously discreetly did not use printed company logo envelopes. So they sent anonymous client solicitations to assorted Swiss banks, pretending to want to open accounts. They found the range of return addresses and postage meter numbers to look for, and scanned all mail from Switzerland to see who was corresponding with Swiss banks.
There’s a lot of private data we give to private companies or the public with modern tech. Sometimes the govenrment takes advantage of this claiming "third party doctrine’ means you’ve shared this with someone else, so if someone else freely chooses to share with the government, they don’t need a warrant. The most notorious of these is cellphone location data. Who needs to plant a GPS tracker when we willingly carry one with us all our waking hours?
Moderator Note
Please try to avoid politically charged swipes like this in FQ.
I know that I’m likely beating a dead horse but I find myself with time on my hands. As Loach noted " I believe" without supporting information isn’t worth the paper the affidavit is written on. This wasn’t always true. In my younger days of drug enforcement we would commonly write something like, “Based on my training and experience, I know that those involved in the illegal trafficking of drugs commonly arm themselves in order to protect against potential rivals and law enforcement. Therefore, I ask that the search warrant authorize investigators search for and seize firearms” Or something like that. This would also be the basis for a “No knock” request (officer safety). We were always granted the authorization. Same thing for destruction of evidence.
Sometime in the 90s or early 2000s, that all went away. I don’t recall if it was a court case or something the courts came up with on their own. In any case, we had to say why we thought this particular target was probably armed or would destroy evidence. Prior history or informant information might be basis but “drug dealers commonly…” alone was not good enough.
Regarding the scope of the search - it is fairly easy (or should be) to associate small items with almost any crime without having to stretch the truth. Especially, an ongoing criminal enterprise. Stolen cars? VIN plates/titles. Drug dealing? Drugs themselves, paraphernalia, cash. (BTW, we always recorded serial numbers before buys. It wasn’t often but sometimes that later proved to be a good idea.) White collar crimes? Documents.
In my experience, it had gotten to the point where DAs want something closer to proof beyond a reasonable doubt than probable cause when signing off on a warrant application. Perhaps, in part, due to that cautious approach, I never had a search warrant denied or evidence seized pursuant to one, suppressed.