THE UNWARRANTED WARRANT:THE WACO SEARCH WARRANT AND THE DECLINE OF THE FOURTH AMENDMENT
A careful study of the Waco search warrant reveals numerous flaws, not just with the warrant application but with search and seizure law as it has developed in the 1990s.
In this article, we examine in detail how the Waco warrants were procured and use the flaws in the Waco warrants to illustrate broader trends which have encroached the Fourth Amendment and other parts of the Constitution in the 1980s and 1990s. Part one of this article sets forth the background to the BATF investigation of the Branch Davidian residence at the Mount Carmel Center, outside of Waco, Texas, and suggests that there is no good reason for the federal BATF to have jurisdiction over the tax offenses it was allegedly investigating. Part two studies the warrant application and reveals how the application was riddled *2 with errors of law and fact, and offers reforms for how to reduce false or misleading statements in future warrant applications. Part three investigates the possibility that the lawful exercise of First Amendment rights may have been a key element in the BATF's determination that there was probable cause for the Waco raid. Part four proposes two broader reforms to reduce the poor quality law enforcement work of which the Waco warrant was symptomatic: first, replacing the Gates [3] "totality of the circumstances" standard for judging the sufficiency of a warrant application with the two-part Aguilar [4] test to offer magistrates better guidance; second, reinvigorating the Exclusionary Rule.
David Kopel is usually considered a solid source in conservative circles.
My goal was not to save you time and arguing ...