Maryland v. Garrison (1986)
- Docket
- 85-759
- Decided
- 1986-01-01
Summary
Question: If the police were unaware that there were two apartments on the third floor, does the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment prevent the use of a warrant to justify the seizure of evidence the police found in the second apartment? Conclusion: Yes. Justice John Paul Stevens delivered the opinion of the 6-3 majority. The Court held that the description of the place to be searched and the items to be seized in the original warrant was not unduly general given the information available to officers at the time. The fact that the officers found more information later did not invalidate the original warrant. The Court also held that the execution of the warrant did not violate the Fourth Amendment because the officers proceeded only based on the knowledge they had and stopped their search immediately when they discovered their error. In Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s dissent, he wrote that the Fourth Amendment values protection of the home above all else, and the actions of the police in this case violated the expectation of privacy. He argued that Court precedent required warrants to be specific when dealing with multi-tenant residences. He also found that the police officers’ mistake was not a reasonable one when there were several indicators that each floor of the building had multiple occupants. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and Justice Thurgood Marshall joined in the dissent.