Summary
**Key Legal Topics:** Fourth Amendment – Search Warrant Particularity; Qualified Immunity; Oral Amendment of Warrant; Clearly Established Law. **Holding:** The Ninth Circuit held that police officers violated the Fourth Amendment by searching a home with a warrant that facially described only a motel room, even though a judge had orally authorized the expansion. However, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clearly established at the time that failing to physically amend the warrant before executing the search was unconstitutional. The dissent argued that the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement was plain and clearly established.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the officers violated the Fourth Amendment by searching Manriquez's home with a warrant that listed only the motel room, despite oral judicial authorization to expand the scope.
- Whether the officers are entitled to qualified immunity because the right was not clearly established at the time of the search.
Holdings
- The officers violated the Fourth Amendment because the warrant was facially defective; the Fourth Amendment requires the warrant to specify the place to be searched, and a facially deficient warrant cannot be salvaged by oral authorization.
- The officers are entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clearly established that searching a home with a warrant that was orally amended but not physically amended violated the Fourth Amendment.
Key quotations
“We thus hold that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment by relying on a facially deficient warrant in searching Manriquez's home.” (at 13)
“We thus conclude that it was not clearly established then that the search of Manriquez's home violated the Fourth Amendment.” (at 16)
“The text of the Fourth Amendment requires the government to specify the place to be searched.” (at 12-13)
Factual background
In August 2016, officers obtained a warrant to search a motel room suspected of drug trafficking. After searching the motel room and finding only small quantities of drugs, Officer Ensley called the issuing judge and asked to amend the warrant to include the suspect's home. The judge orally approved, but the officers did not physically amend the warrant. They then searched the home of Richard Manriquez, the suspect's uncle, where a scuffle occurred and drug paraphernalia was found. Manriquez was charged with misdemeanors but the drug charge was dismissed; he was convicted of obstructing government operations. He later filed a § 1983 suit alleging Fourth Amendment violations.
Procedural history
The district court denied qualified immunity to Officers Lawrence and Ensley on Count II (illegal search claim). The officers appealed.
Remand instructions
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion