U.S. District Juste Miranda M. Du rejected this argument, but wouldn’t suppress the evidence. “The Court finds that a tower dump is a search and the warrant law enforcement used to get it is a general warrant forbidden under the Fourth Amendment,” she said in a ruling filed on April 11. “That said, because the Court appears to be the first court within the Ninth Circuit to reach this conclusion and the good faith exception otherwise applies, the Court will not order any evidence suppressed.”
Du argued that the officers acted in good faith when they filed the warrant and that they didn’t know the search was unconstitutional when they conducted it. According to Du, the warrant wasn’t unconstitutional when a judge issued it.
Du’s ruling is the first time the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled on the constitutionality of tower dumps, but this isn’t the first time a federal judge has weighed in. One in Mississippi came to the same conclusion in February. A few weeks later, the Department of Justice appealed the ruling.
