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M.D.Fla.: Grand jury subpoena used as a search warrant; records returned

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

The target of a subpoena gets all its records back because the government used a grand jury subpoena as a search warrant. The court also cited 1906's Hale v. Henkel. In re Grand Jury No. 09-1, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63667 (M.D. Fla. June 10, 2010): More importantly, the grand jury's subpoena is improper on procedural grounds. Throughout its papers, the U.S. Attorneys' Office ignores a rather fundamental (but perhaps increasingly ignored) proposition of law: a subpoena is not a search warrant. With the exception of exemplars and other limited classes of physical evidence, see 1 Sara Sun Beale et al., GRAND JURY LAW AND PRACTICE § 6:5 (2d. ed. 2008), a grand jury subpoena duces tecum -- without more -- cannot be used to simply seize a witness's property...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on June 30, 2010 (boomark / email).