spafon said:Minnesota....
While in the hospital, the Winona police broke down my door and trashed my house looking for someone that did not live there. The had obtained a search warrent for a person who had used my address to register a car.
Do I have a case to sue them?
They had a lawful warrant. Your chances to sue are slim to none. However, you CAN seek costs to make repairs to any damages from the agency involved.spafon said:Minnesota....
While in the hospital, the Winona police broke down my door and trashed my house looking for someone that did not live there. The had obtained a search warrent for a person who had used my address to register a car.
Do I have a case to sue them?
Because a judge said it was valid. There is a general presumption that unless the affidavit was intentionally falsified, that a warrant is valid when signed by a judge. In that affidavit presented to a judge the affiant supplies the information he/she believes sufficient to support the issuance of a warrant. if the officer wrote that the suspect put the address down once on a vehicle registration form, and the judge signed it, there is little that can be done. If the police said they did things that they did not do, then you might have a case.spafon said:How can a warrent be valid if the information used to obtain it is erronious?
The information in the affidavit must be truthFUL - not necessarily true. It's a matter of good faith and information known at the time. Warrants are issued to attempt to obtain information, not because there is a certainty of guilt or even a certainty that the searched for items will be present.Wouldn't that make the warrent invalid even if executed in good faith by the police? They can only obtain warrents with the use of factual info for it to be valid, Right?
Assuming what OP was 100% correct and factual and he knew nothing about the person who used his address (i.e., someone uses without my knowledge my address to register a car) then it would not make any difference if OP had a pound of marijuana in the living room on the coffee table.rmet4nzkx said:What did they find during the search?
Wait ... I don't see that. If the affidavit contained that weak information and was still granted, would that not protect the serving agency from liability resulting in the service of the warrant?seniorjudge said:Assuming what OP was 100% correct and factual and he knew nothing about the person who used his address (i.e., someone uses without my knowledge my address to register a car) then it would not make any difference if OP had a pound of marijuana in the living room on the coffee table.
The warrant was bad. Period.
CdwJava said:Wait ... I don't see that. If the affidavit contained that weak information and was still granted, would that not protect the serving agency from liability resulting in the service of the warrant?
If I had a wanted suspect that had once registered a car at a particular address (hopefully recently), and presented that fact to the judge as part of the affidavit, would I not be protected on the service of that warrant?
It would seem to me that if the information is always subjective, then every affidavit and every warrant could be challenged on the basis that it was insufficient. In which case, what woul dbe the point in having a judge sign a warrant? If any warrant could be quashed based on another court's interpretation of the "appropriate" foundation for the warrant?
Not having ever seen this case brought up, I really don't know. I have seen warrants challenged on items allegedly falsified or unsupported claims made within an affidavit, but not if the facts were as presented and the warrant was still signed.
Personally, if ALL they had was a previously registered car, I wouldn't touch it. But that's me.
- Carl
Ah ... well, when you stated the warrant was "bad", it made me balk. Because to me "bad" means my house could be gone in the pending civil suit. I usually don't concern myself at the suppression hearings ... having never lost one for a warrant, anyway. But then, I would NOT seek a warrant based solely on a vehicle registration anyway.seniorjudge said:I was talking about what would happen to any evidence gained in such a search in an exclusionary hearing. My answer was purely hypothetical but I said nothing about the liability of the agency serving the warrant.
All defense attorneys will attack every warrant, every arrest, every everything in every case.
That's their job.
Well, we never have heard the facts here so all we have done is spill a lot of electric ink discussing hypothetical stuff.CdwJava said:Ah ... well, when you stated the warrant was "bad", it made me balk. Because to me "bad" means my house could be gone in the pending civil suit. I usually don't concern myself at the suppression hearings ... having never lost one for a warrant, anyway. But then, I would NOT seek a warrant based solely on a vehicle registration anyway.
- Carl