New Jersey v. Boone

by
Defendant Akeem Boone faced seven charges related to drugs and a weapon found during an August 2012 search of his apartment in Hackensack. He sought to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant police had secured for his apartment, Unit 4A, because the warrant application did not include any evidence as to why that specific unit should be searched. The trial court denied Boone’s motion to suppress. It found, based on the totality of the circumstances, that the warrant application sufficiently detailed hand-to-hand transactions, counter-surveillance techniques, and past interactions with Boone to establish probable cause for a search. Subsequently, Boone pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and a related weapons offense. The Appellate Division affirmed, finding that the application contained “adequate circumstantial indicia” to support issuing a warrant to search Boone’s apartment unit. The New Jersey Supreme Court disagreed: although police submitted a detailed warrant application that included information about Boone’s alleged drug-dealing in the general area, nothing in the application specified how police knew Boone lived in Unit 4A or why that unit -- one of thirty units in the building -- should have been searched. Because the warrant affidavit failed to provide specific information as to why Boone’s apartment and not other units should be searched, the warrant application was deficient. Accordingly, the judgment of the Appellate Division was reversed and Boone's convictions vacated. View "New Jersey v. Boone" on Justia Law