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[T] People v. Ventura5/6/2004
been committed? Answer: No. Question: Is this Court empowered to issue a search warrant where a building code violation has been alleged? Answer: Yes. Question: Is there sufficient cause in this case to uphold the issuance of a warrant or should the evidence be suppressed as the product of an illegal search? Answer: While there is sufficient cause for the issuance of the warrant, it is overbroad and the evidence seized in this particular search must be suppressed.
The Court reaches these legal conclusions very reluctantly and with the utmost deference and respect for my Associate Village Justice and all other Village officials. The fact of the matter is though that this Village is new to the search warrant business and this Court declines to allow these defendants or their tenants to be unknowingly used as part of a legal experiment.
The Village relies upon Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967) where the court held that: "The Fourth Amendment bars prosecution of a person who has refused to permit a warrantless code enforcement inspection [in San Francisco] of his personal residence." Several factors distinguish Camara from the case at hand. For one, Camara reminds us that so-called administrative searches are subject to warrant requirements. In Camara and its companion case of See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541 (1967) both cases address searches conducted in cities where apartments and multiple dwellings are in very close proximity with fire code and other violations having a possible effect on others aside from just the inhabitants of a particular dwelling unit. See also, Nora A. Jones, Monroe County Bar Association Municipal Attorneys Come Together For Committee Meeting, The Daily Record of Rochester (Rochester, N.Y.) October 9, 2003; C.P.L. § 690.05 and In re Property of John Kun, 190 Misc.2d 470 (Greene Co. Ct. 2002). It is also noteworthy that both Camara and See involve reasonable cause to believe that misdemeanors were being committed. They both involved cases before municipal courts more akin to our District Court than our Village Courts. It occurs to this Court that if the Building Inspector here stumbled upon illicit drugs during his search that he could not make an arrest for that violation of the law and this Court would have no jurisdiction over a drug possession case. A building inspector executing a warrant may then become an unwitting participant in a drug case or perhaps the victim of violence. This Court has grave concerns for the safety of building inspectors who enter residential dwellings, unarmed, at 6 a.m., under cover of darkness. In this Court's opinion sanctioning such conduct needlessly jeopardizes the safety of building inspectors and even police who are unsuspecting or even untrained in the execution of search warrants. The execution of search warrants is a specialized task for highly trained and experienced law enforcement personnel. If this Village is going to engage in the execution of search warrants then ample training must be provided to the police and building inspectors participating in those activities. To provide otherwise is to approve of sending well meaning law enforcement personnel on an endeavor that may be ill-fated, the veritable legal equivalent of a "kamikaze mission." While Mr. Mello has some experience in the execution of search warrants in Freeport, it has not been demonstrated that the other three building inspectors and two police officers involved in this search had any experience in that regard. In Camara Justice White delivered the opinion of the court upholding the Fourth Amendment's application to administrative searches. The pertinent portions of that opinion are set forth infra.
"In vie
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