United States v. Grubbs
The Supreme Court upheld the use of "anticipatory" search warrants — warrants issued before evidence arrives at a location — ruling they are constitutional as long as there's good reason to believe the evidence will show up when the condition triggering the search occurs.
The Court also ruled that police do not have to write the specific triggering event into the warrant itself, rejecting a lower court's requirement that the homeowner be shown that condition before or during the search.
“the fact that the contraband is not presently located at the place described in the warrant is immaterial, so long as there is probable cause to believe that it will be there when the search warrant is executed.”
Explaining why anticipatory warrants can satisfy the Fourth Amendment's probable cause requirement.
How it got here: A trial court denied a motion to suppress the evidence; the Ninth Circuit reversed on Fourth Amendment grounds; the government appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A man ordered a videotape of child pornography from a website that turned out to be run by an undercover postal inspector. Postal inspectors arranged to deliver the package to his home and got a warrant to search his house once the package was carried inside. After his wife brought the package in, agents searched the home, and the man admitted ordering the tape and was arrested.
The question before the Court
Can police get a search warrant before the evidence even arrives, and does that kind of warrant have to spell out the exact event that will trigger the search?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that anticipatory search warrants (warrants that only take effect once a specific event, called a triggering condition, happens) are fully constitutional. The magistrate simply has to find probable cause both that evidence will show up once the condition occurs, and that the condition itself is likely to happen. Here, a controlled delivery of ordered child pornography easily met that standard.
The Court also ruled that police do not have to spell out the triggering condition in the warrant itself. The Fourth Amendment only requires warrants to describe the place searched and the items seized — nothing about describing the execution conditions — so the lower court was wrong to void the warrant for omitting that detail.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Law enforcement can continue using controlled-delivery stings — like mailing a suspect a package and searching once it's brought inside — without spelling out that plan in the warrant handed to the resident. Homeowners searched under such warrants cannot demand to see the triggering condition to check whether police followed the rules, though they can still challenge an unlawful search afterward in court.
What changes now
The Supreme Court's ruling is final on the constitutional questions presented, so anticipatory warrants remain a valid law enforcement tool and need not disclose the triggering condition to the property owner. The case was reversed and sent back to the Ninth Circuit for further proceedings consistent with this ruling, meaning the lower courts will apply this holding to finally resolve the suppression issue in the case.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether a property owner has any right to inspect a search warrant before police begin searching — Justice Souter's concurrence noted that question remains unresolved. The ruling also does not excuse warrants that misstate or omit the triggering condition from later legal challenge if the condition was never actually met.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Souter
Justice Souter agreed anticipatory warrants are constitutional and joined the outcome, but disagreed with the majority's reasoning that the triggering condition need not appear in the warrant. He argued that omitting the condition risks officers searching before it's actually met, which would make the search unreasonable, and that homeowners still have an interest in an accurate statement of what triggers police authority to search.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first asked whether warrants that authorize a search only after a future event occurs can ever satisfy the Fourth Amendment's rule that warrants may issue only 'upon probable cause.' It held that all warrants are in some sense forward-looking, since probable cause always concerns whether evidence will be present when the search actually happens.
- For a warrant conditioned on a triggering event (something other than mere passage of time), the magistrate must find probable cause on two levels: that the evidence will be at the location once the condition is met, and separately that the condition itself is likely to occur.
- Applying that framework, the Court found the triggering event here — successful delivery of the videotape into the home — would obviously establish probable cause for a search, and the affidavit gave enough reason to believe delivery would actually happen, since the buyer was unlikely to refuse a package he had ordered himself.
- The Court then turned to the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement, which by its text requires only that a warrant describe the place to be searched and the things to be seized — nothing more. Relying on its earlier ruling in Dalia v. United States, which refused to read extra execution-manner requirements into that text, the Court concluded the particularity requirement does not extend to describing the triggering condition.
- The Court rejected the homeowner's policy arguments that listing the triggering condition in the warrant was needed to limit officers' power or let the homeowner monitor the search, noting that neither the Fourth Amendment nor the federal rules require showing a warrant to the property owner before or during a search, so there is no textual or doctrinal hook for such a rule.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Dalia v. United States (441 U. S. 238)
The Court relied on Dalia's refusal to add unwritten execution requirements to the Fourth Amendment's particularity rule.