Wheeler v. The City of Lansing, No. 10-1128 (6th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseDuring an investigation of home invasions, officers were told that plaintiff's boyfriend was a participant and that property had been taken to plaintiff's apartment. Officers executed a no-knock search. Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court found that an officer had violated the Fourth Amendment, but was entitled to qualified immunity. The Sixth Circuit reversed in part. Even if a disparity between the warrant affidavit and the warrant led to the inclusion of items without the requisite probable cause, a reasonable officer would not have recognized the discrepancy and would have believed that probable cause for the warrant existed. The warrant established probable cause to search and the officer could seize any items that constituted evidence of home invasions. The district court erred in granting qualified immunity on a claim that the warrant was constitutionally deficient because it failed to describe with particularity some of the items to be seized. The warrant listed broad categories of stolen property, providing no basis to distinguish stolen items from plaintiff's personal property, although the officers had additional information about the stolen items that they could have included in the warrant.
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