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TN: Keeping SWs in a briefcase is "keeping [in the] official records"

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

A magistrate keeping his copies of issued search warrants in a brief case and not a file cabinet satisfies state rule 41 requiring search warrant papers separate. The purpose of the rule is to prevent alteration, and that suffices. State v. Waters, 2009 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 732 (August 21, 2009): The issue on appeal is whether storing copies of search warrants in a briefcase amounts to "keep[ing] one copy as part of his ... official records." The Rules of Criminal Procedure do not require a magistrate to keep copies of search warrants in any specific manner. Rather, as this Court has discussed in the past, the purpose of this Rule is to "protect[] against any post-issuance alteration of the original warrant" and to "give[] the judge control to insure that the warrant is executed and returned to the magistrate in a timely manner...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on September 05, 2009 (boomark / email).