GROH v. RAMIREZ et al.

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551 OCTOBER TERM, 2003
Syllabus
GROH v. RAMIREZ et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 02–811. Argued November 4, 2003—Decided February 24, 2004
Petitioner, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, prepared
and signed an application for a warrant to search respondents’ Montana
ranch, which stated that the search was for specified weapons, explo-
sives, and records. The application was supported by petitioner’s de-
tailed affidavit setting forth his basis for believing that such items were
on the ranch and was accompanied by a warrant form that he completed.
The Magistrate Judge (Magistrate) signed the warrant form even
though it did not identify any of the items that petitioner intended to
seize. The portion calling for a description of the “person or property”
described respondents’ house, not the alleged weapons; the warrant did
not incorporate by reference the application’s itemized list. Petitioner
led federal and local law enforcement officers to the ranch the next day
but found no illegal weapons or explosives. Petitioner left a copy of
the warrant, but not the application, with respondents. Respondents
sued petitioner and others under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics
Agents, 403 U. S. 388, and 42 U. S. C. § 1983, claiming, inter alia, a
Fourth Amendment violation. The District Court granted the defend-
ants summary judgment, finding no Fourth Amendment violation, and
finding that even if such a violation occurred, the defendants were enti-
tled to qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit affirmed except as to the
Fourth Amendment claim against petitioner, holding that the warrant
was invalid because it did not describe with particularity the place to
be searched and the items to be seized. The court also concluded that
United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, precluded qualified immunity for
petitioner because he was the leader of a search who did not read the
warrant and satisfy himself that he understood its scope and limitations
and that it was not obviously defective.
Held:
1. The search was clearly “unreasonable” under the Fourth Amend-
ment. Pp. 557–563.
(a) The warrant was plainly invalid. It did not meet the Fourth
Amendment’s unambiguous requirement that a warrant “particularly
describ[e] . . . the persons or things to be seized.” The fact that the
application adequately described those things does not save the warrant;
Fourth Amendment interests are not necessarily vindicated when an-

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552 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Syllabus
other document says something about the objects of the search, but that
document’s contents are neither known to the person whose home is
being searched nor available for her inspection. It is not necessary to
decide whether the Amendment permits a warrant to cross-reference
other documents, because such incorporation did not occur here.
Pp. 557–558.
(b) Petitioner’s argument that the search was nonetheless reason-
able is rejected. Because the warrant did not describe the items at
all, it was so obviously deficient that the search must be regarded as
warrantless, and thus presumptively unreasonable. This presumptive
rule applies to searches whose only defect is a lack of particularity in
the warrant. Petitioner errs in arguing that such searches should be
exempt from the presumption if they otherwise satisfy the particularity
requirement’s goals. Unless items in the affidavit are set forth in the
warrant, there is no written assurance that the Magistrate actually
found probable cause for a search as broad as the affiant requested.
The restraint petitioner showed in conducting the instant search was
imposed by the agent himself, not a judicial officer. Moreover, the par-
ticularity requirement’s purpose is not limited to preventing general
searches; it also assures the individual whose property is searched and
seized of the executing officer’s legal authority, his need to search, and
the limits of his power to do so. This case presents no occasion to reach
petitioner’s argument that the particularity requirements’ goals were
served when he orally described the items to respondents, because re-
spondents dispute his account. Pp. 558–563.
2. Petitioner is not entitled to qualified immunity despite the constitu-
tional violation because “it would be clear to a reasonable officer that
his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted,” Saucier v.
Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 202. Given that the particularity requirement is
stated in the Constitution’s text, no reasonable officer could believe that
a warrant that did not comply with that requirement was valid. More-
over, because petitioner prepared the warrant, he may not argue that
he reasonably relied on the Magistrate’s assurance that it contained an
adequate description and was valid. Nor could a reasonable officer
claim to be unaware of the basic rule that, absent consent or exigency,
a warrantless search of a home is presumptively unconstitutional. “[A]
warrant may be so facially deficient . . . that the executing officers can-
not reasonably presume it to be valid.” Leon, 468 U. S., at 923. This
is such a case. Pp. 563–565.
298 F. 3d 1022, affirmed.
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O’Connor,
Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a dis-

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553 Cite as: 540 U. S. 551 (2004)
Opinion of the Court
senting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., joined, post, p. 566. Thomas,
J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined, and in which
Rehnquist, C. J., joined as to Part III, post, p. 571.
Richard A. Cordray argued the cause for petitioner.
With him on the briefs was Harry Litman.
Austin C. Schlick argued the cause for the United States
as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief
were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General
McCallum, Deputy Solicitor General Clement, Barbara L.
Herwig, and Howard S. Scher.
Vincent J. Kozakiewicz argued the cause for respondents.
With him on the brief was W. G. Gilbert III.*
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner conducted a search of respondents’ home pursu-
ant to a warrant that failed to describe the “persons or
things to be seized.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 4. The questions
presented are (1) whether the search violated the Fourth
Amendment, and (2) if so, whether petitioner nevertheless is
entitled to qualified immunity, given that a Magistrate Judge
(Magistrate), relying on an affidavit that particularly de-
scribed the items in question, found probable cause to con-
duct the search.
*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for the State of Texas
et al. by Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, R. Ted Cruz, Solicitor
General, Barry R. McBee, First Assistant Attorney General, Jay Kim-
brough, Deputy Attorney General, and Ryan D. Clinton, Assistant Solici-
tor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as
follows: Gregg D. Renkes of Alaska, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Charles
J. Crist, Jr., of Florida, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Steve Carter of Indiana,
J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Mike Hatch of Minnesota, Mike Moore
of Mississippi, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, W. A. Drew Edmondson of
Oklahoma, D. Michael Fisher of Pennsylvania, Lawrence E. Long of South
Dakota, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Jerry W. Kilgore of Virginia,
Christine O. Gregoire of Washington, and Peggy A. Lautenschlager of
Wisconsin.

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554 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Opinion of the Court
I
Respondents, Joseph Ramirez and members of his family,
live on a large ranch in Butte-Silver Bow County, Montana.
Petitioner, Jeff Groh, has been a Special Agent for the Bu-
reau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) since 1989. In
February 1997, a concerned citizen informed petitioner that
on a number of visits to respondents’ ranch the visitor had
seen a large stock of weaponry, including an automatic rifle,
grenades, a grenade launcher, and a rocket launcher.1 Based
on that information, petitioner prepared and signed an appli-
cation for a warrant to search the ranch. The application
stated that the search was for “any automatic firearms or
parts to automatic weapons, destructive devices to include
but not limited to grenades, grenade launchers, rocket
launchers, and any and all receipts pertaining to the pur-
chase or manufacture of automatic weapons or explosive de-
vices or launchers.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a. Petitioner
supported the application with a detailed affidavit, which he
also prepared and executed, that set forth the basis for his
belief that the listed items were concealed on the ranch.
Petitioner then presented these documents to a Magistrate,
along with a warrant form that petitioner also had com-
pleted. The Magistrate signed the warrant form.
Although the application particularly described the place
to be searched and the contraband petitioner expected to
find, the warrant itself was less specific; it failed to identify
any of the items that petitioner intended to seize. In the
portion of the form that called for a description of the “per-
son or property” to be seized, petitioner typed a description
of respondents’ two-story blue house rather than the alleged
stockpile of firearms.2 The warrant did not incorporate by
1 Possession of these items, if unregistered, would violate 18 U. S. C.
§ 922(o)(1) and 26 U. S. C. § 5861.
2 The warrant stated: “[T]here is now concealed [on the specified prem-
ises] a certain person or property, namely [a] single dwelling residence two
story in height which is blue in color and has two additions attached to

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reference the itemized list contained in the application. It
did, however, recite that the Magistrate was satisfied the af-
fidavit established probable cause to believe that contraband
was concealed on the premises, and that sufficient grounds
existed for the warrant’s issuance.3
The day after the Magistrate issued the warrant, peti-
tioner led a team of law enforcement officers, including both
federal agents and members of the local sheriff ’s depart-
ment, in the search of respondents’ premises. Although
respondent Joseph Ramirez was not home, his wife and
children were. Petitioner states that he orally described
the objects of the search to Mrs. Ramirez in person and
to Mr. Ramirez by telephone. According to Mrs. Ramirez,
however, petitioner explained only that he was searching for
“ ‘an explosive device in a box.’ ” Ramirez v. Butte-Silver
Bow County, 298 F. 3d 1022, 1026 (CA9 2002). At any rate,
the officers’ search uncovered no illegal weapons or explo-
sives. When the officers left, petitioner gave Mrs. Ramirez
a copy of the search warrant, but not a copy of the appli-
cation, which had been sealed. The following day, in re-
sponse to a request from respondents’ attorney, petitioner
faxed the attorney a copy of the page of the application that
listed the items to be seized. No charges were filed against
the Ramirezes.
Respondents sued petitioner and the other officers under
Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388
(1971), and Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, raising eight
claims, including violation of the Fourth Amendment. App.
17–27. The District Court entered summary judgment for
all defendants. The court found no Fourth Amendment vio-
lation, because it considered the case comparable to one in
which the warrant contained an inaccurate address, and in
such a case, the court reasoned, the warrant is sufficiently
the east. The front entrance to the residence faces in a southerly direc-
tion.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a.
3 The affidavit was sealed. Its sufficiency is not disputed.

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detailed if the executing officers can locate the correct house.
App. to Pet. for Cert. 20a–22a. The court added that even
if a constitutional violation occurred, the defendants were
entitled to qualified immunity because the failure of the war-
rant to describe the objects of the search amounted to a mere
“typographical error.” Id., at 22a–24a.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment with respect
to all defendants and all claims, with the exception of re-
spondents’ Fourth Amendment claim against petitioner.
298 F. 3d, at 1029–1030. On that claim, the court held that
the warrant was invalid because it did not “describe with
particularity the place to be searched and the items to be
seized,” and that oral statements by petitioner during or
after the search could not cure the omission. Id., at 1025–
1026. The court observed that the warrant’s facial defect
“increased the likelihood and degree of confrontation be-
tween the Ramirezes and the police” and deprived respond-
ents of the means “to challenge officers who might have ex-
ceeded the limits imposed by the magistrate.” Id., at 1027.
The court also expressed concern that “permitting officers to
expand the scope of the warrant by oral statements would
broaden the area of dispute between the parties in subse-
quent litigation.” Ibid. The court nevertheless concluded
that all of the officers except petitioner were protected by
qualified immunity. With respect to petitioner, the court
read our opinion in United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897
(1984), as precluding qualified immunity for the leader of a
search who fails to “read the warrant and satisfy [himself]
that [he] understand[s] its scope and limitations, and that it
is not defective in some obvious way.” 298 F. 3d, at 1027.
The court added that “[t]he leaders of the search team must
also make sure that a copy of the warrant is available to
give to the person whose property is being searched at the
commencement of the search, and that such copy has no miss-
ing pages or other obvious defects.” Ibid. (footnote omit-
ted). We granted certiorari. 537 U. S. 1231 (2003).

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II
The warrant was plainly invalid. The Fourth Amendment
states unambiguously that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and partic-
ularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons
or things to be seized.” (Emphasis added.) The warrant in
this case complied with the first three of these requirements:
It was based on probable cause and supported by a sworn
affidavit, and it described particularly the place of the search.
On the fourth requirement, however, the warrant failed alto-
gether. Indeed, petitioner concedes that “the warrant . . .
was deficient in particularity because it provided no descrip-
tion of the type of evidence sought.” Brief for Petitioner 10.
The fact that the application adequately described the
“things to be seized” does not save the warrant from its
facial invalidity. The Fourth Amendment by its terms re-
quires particularity in the warrant, not in the supporting
documents. See Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U. S. 981,
988, n. 5 (1984) (“[A] warrant that fails to conform to the
particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is un-
constitutional”); see also United States v. Stefonek, 179 F. 3d
1030, 1033 (CA7 1999) (“The Fourth Amendment requires
that the warrant particularly describe the things to be
seized, not the papers presented to the judicial officer . . .
asked to issue the warrant” (emphasis in original)). And for
good reason: “The presence of a search warrant serves a high
function,” McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 455
(1948), and that high function is not necessarily vindicated
when some other document, somewhere, says something
about the objects of the search, but the contents of that docu-
ment are neither known to the person whose home is being
searched nor available for her inspection. We do not say
that the Fourth Amendment prohibits a warrant from cross-
referencing other documents. Indeed, most Courts of Ap-
peals have held that a court may construe a warrant with
reference to a supporting application or affidavit if the war-

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558 GROH v. RAMIREZ
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rant uses appropriate words of incorporation, and if the
supporting document accompanies the warrant. See, e. g.,
United States v. McGrew, 122 F. 3d 847, 849–850 (CA9 1997);
United States v. Williamson, 1 F. 3d 1134, 1136, n. 1 (CA10
1993); United States v. Blakeney, 942 F. 2d 1001, 1025–1026
(CA6 1991); United States v. Maxwell, 920 F. 2d 1028, 1031
(CADC 1990); United States v. Curry, 911 F. 2d 72, 76–77
(CA8 1990); United States v. Roche, 614 F. 2d 6, 8 (CA1 1980).
But in this case the warrant did not incorporate other docu-
ments by reference, nor did either the affidavit or the appli-
cation (which had been placed under seal) accompany the
warrant. Hence, we need not further explore the matter
of incorporation.
Petitioner argues that even though the warrant was in-
valid, the search nevertheless was “reasonable” within the
meaning of the Fourth Amendment. He notes that a Magis-
trate authorized the search on the basis of adequate evidence
of probable cause, that petitioner orally described to re-
spondents the items to be seized, and that the search did not
exceed the limits intended by the Magistrate and described
by petitioner. Thus, petitioner maintains, his search of re-
spondents’ ranch was functionally equivalent to a search au-
thorized by a valid warrant.
We disagree. This warrant did not simply omit a few
items from a list of many to be seized, or misdescribe a few
of several items. Nor did it make what fairly could be char-
acterized as a mere technical mistake or typographical error.
Rather, in the space set aside for a description of the items
to be seized, the warrant stated that the items consisted of
a “single dwelling residence . . . blue in color.” In other
words, the warrant did not describe the items to be seized
at all. In this respect the warrant was so obviously defi-
cient that we must regard the search as “warrantless” within
the meaning of our case law. See Leon, 468 U. S., at 923; cf.
Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79, 85 (1987); Steele v.
United States, 267 U. S. 498, 503–504 (1925). “We are not

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dealing with formalities.” McDonald, 335 U. S., at 455.
Because “ ‘the right of a man to retreat into his own home
and there be free from unreasonable governmental intru-
sion’ ” stands “ ‘[a]t the very core’ of the Fourth Amend-
ment,” Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 31 (2001) (quoting
Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961)), our
cases have firmly established the “ ‘basic principle of Fourth
Amendment law’ that searches and seizures inside a home
without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable,” Payton
v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 586 (1980) (footnote omitted).
Thus, “absent exigent circumstances, a warrantless entry to
search for weapons or contraband is unconstitutional even
when a felony has been committed and there is probable
cause to believe that incriminating evidence will be found
within.” Id., at 587–588 (footnote omitted). See Kyllo, 533
U. S., at 29; Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. 177, 181 (1990);
Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 761–763 (1969); McDon-
ald, 335 U. S., at 454; Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S.
10 (1948).
We have clearly stated that the presumptive rule against
warrantless searches applies with equal force to searches
whose only defect is a lack of particularity in the warrant.
In Sheppard, for instance, the petitioner argued that even
though the warrant was invalid for lack of particularity, “the
search was constitutional because it was reasonable within
the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” 468 U. S., at 988,
n. 5. In squarely rejecting that position, we explained:
“The uniformly applied rule is that a search conducted
pursuant to a warrant that fails to conform to the partic-
ularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment is uncon-
stitutional. Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476 (1965);
United States v. Cardwell, 680 F. 2d 75, 77–78 (CA9
1982); United States v. Crozier, 674 F. 2d 1293, 1299
(CA9 1982); United States v. Klein, 565 F. 2d 183, 185
(CA1 1977); United States v. Gardner, 537 F. 2d 861, 862
(CA6 1976); United States v. Marti, 421 F. 2d 1263, 1268–

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560 GROH v. RAMIREZ
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1269 (CA2 1970). That rule is in keeping with the well-
established principle that ‘except in certain carefully
defined classes of cases, a search of private property
without proper consent is “unreasonable” unless it has
been authorized by a valid search warrant.’ Camara
v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 528–529 (1967). See
Steagald v. United States, 451 U. S. 204, 211–212 (1981);
Jones v. United States, 357 U. S. 493, 499 (1958).” Ibid.
Petitioner asks us to hold that a search conducted pursuant
to a warrant lacking particularity should be exempt from the
presumption of unreasonableness if the goals served by the
particularity requirement are otherwise satisfied. He main-
tains that the search in this case satisfied those goals—which
he says are “to prevent general searches, to prevent the sei-
zure of one thing under a warrant describing another, and
to prevent warrants from being issued on vague or dubious
information,” Brief for Petitioner 16—because the scope of
the search did not exceed the limits set forth in the applica-
tion. But unless the particular items described in the affi-
davit are also set forth in the warrant itself (or at least incor-
porated by reference, and the affidavit present at the search),
there can be no written assurance that the Magistrate actu-
ally found probable cause to search for, and to seize, every
item mentioned in the affidavit. See McDonald, 335 U. S.,
at 455 (“Absent some grave emergency, the Fourth Amend-
ment has interposed a magistrate between the citizen and
the police. This was done . . . so that an objective mind
might weigh the need to invade [the citizen’s] privacy in
order to enforce the law”). In this case, for example, it is at
least theoretically possible that the Magistrate was satisfied
that the search for weapons and explosives was justified by
the showing in the affidavit, but not convinced that any evi-
dentiary basis existed for rummaging through respondents’
files and papers for receipts pertaining to the purchase or
manufacture of such items. Cf. Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S.
476, 485–486 (1965). Or, conceivably, the Magistrate might

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have believed that some of the weapons mentioned in the
affidavit could have been lawfully possessed and therefore
should not be seized. See 26 U. S. C. § 5861 (requiring reg-
istration, but not banning possession of, certain firearms).
The mere fact that the Magistrate issued a warrant does not
necessarily establish that he agreed that the scope of the
search should be as broad as the affiant’s request. Even
though petitioner acted with restraint in conducting the
search, “the inescapable fact is that this restraint was im-
posed by the agents themselves, not by a judicial officer.”
Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 356 (1967).4
We have long held, moreover, that the purpose of the par-
ticularity requirement is not limited to the prevention of
general searches. See Garrison, 480 U. S., at 84. A partic-
ular warrant also “assures the individual whose property is
searched or seized of the lawful authority of the executing
officer, his need to search, and the limits of his power to
search.” United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 9 (1977)
(citing Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of
San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 532 (1967)), abrogated on other
grounds, California v. Acevedo, 500 U. S. 565 (1991). See
also Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 236 (1983) (“[P]ossession
4 For this reason petitioner’s argument that any constitutional error was
committed by the Magistrate, not petitioner, is misplaced. In Massachu-
setts v. Sheppard, 468 U. S. 981 (1984), we suggested that “the judge, not
the police officers,” may have committed “[a]n error of constitutional di-
mension,” id., at 990, because the judge had assured the officers requesting
the warrant that he would take the steps necessary to conform the war-
rant to constitutional requirements, id., at 986. Thus, “it was not unrea-
sonable for the police in [that] case to rely on the judge’s assurances that
the warrant authorized the search they had requested.” Id., at 989, n. 6.
In this case, by contrast, petitioner did not alert the Magistrate to the
defect in the warrant that petitioner had drafted, and we therefore cannot
know whether the Magistrate was aware of the scope of the search he
was authorizing. Nor would it have been reasonable for petitioner to rely
on a warrant that was so patently defective, even if the Magistrate was
aware of the deficiency. See United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 915,
922, n. 23 (1984).

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of a warrant by officers conducting an arrest or search
greatly reduces the perception of unlawful or intrusive po-
lice conduct”).5
Petitioner argues that even if the goals of the particularity
requirement are broader than he acknowledges, those goals
nevertheless were served because he orally described to re-
spondents the items for which he was searching. Thus, he
submits, respondents had all of the notice that a proper war-
rant would have accorded. But this case presents no occa-
sion even to reach this argument, since respondents, as noted
above, dispute petitioner’s account. According to Mrs.
Ramirez, petitioner stated only that he was looking for an
“ ‘explosive device in a box.’ ” 298 F. 3d, at 1026. Because
this dispute is before us on petitioner’s motion for summary
judgment, App. to Pet. for Cert. 13a, “[t]he evidence of the
nonmovant is to be believed, and all justifiable inferences are
to be drawn in [her] favor,” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,
477 U. S. 242, 255 (1986) (citation omitted). The posture of
the case therefore obliges us to credit Mrs. Ramirez’s ac-
count, and we find that petitioner’s description of “ ‘an explo-
5 It is true, as petitioner points out, that neither the Fourth Amendment
nor Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requires the exe-
cuting officer to serve the warrant on the owner before commencing the
search. Rule 41(f)(3) provides that “[t]he officer executing the warrant
must: (A) give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken
to the person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was
taken; or (B) leave a copy of the warrant and receipt at the place where
the officer took the property.” Quite obviously, in some circumstances—
a surreptitious search by means of a wiretap, for example, or the search
of empty or abandoned premises—it will be impracticable or imprudent
for the officers to show the warrant in advance. See Katz v. United
States, 389 U. S. 347, 355, n. 16 (1967); Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23,
37–41 (1963). Whether it would be unreasonable to refuse a request to
furnish the warrant at the outset of the search when, as in this case, an
occupant of the premises is present and poses no threat to the officers’
safe and effective performance of their mission, is a question that this case
does not present.

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sive device in a box’ ” was little better than no guidance at
all. See Stefonek, 179 F. 3d, at 1032–1033 (holding that a
search warrant for “ ‘evidence of crime’ ” was “[s]o open-
ended” in its description that it could “only be described as
a general warrant”).
It is incumbent on the officer executing a search warrant
to ensure the search is lawfully authorized and lawfully con-
ducted.6 Because petitioner did not have in his possession
a warrant particularly describing the things he intended to
seize, proceeding with the search was clearly “unreasonable”
under the Fourth Amendment. The Court of Appeals cor-
rectly held that the search was unconstitutional.
III
Having concluded that a constitutional violation occurred,
we turn to the question whether petitioner is entitled to
qualified immunity despite that violation. See Wilson v.
Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 609 (1999). The answer depends on
whether the right that was transgressed was “ ‘clearly estab-
lished’ ”—that is, “whether it would be clear to a reasonable
officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he con-
fronted.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 202 (2001).
Given that the particularity requirement is set forth in the
text of the Constitution, no reasonable officer could believe
that a warrant that plainly did not comply with that require-
ment was valid. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800,
818–819 (1982) (“If the law was clearly established, the im-
6 The Court of Appeals’ decision is consistent with this principle. Peti-
tioner mischaracterizes the court’s decision when he contends that it im-
posed a novel proofreading requirement on officers executing warrants.
The court held that officers leading a search team must “mak[e] sure that
they have a proper warrant that in fact authorizes the search and seizure
they are about to conduct.” 298 F. 3d 1022, 1027 (CA9 2002). That is not
a duty to proofread; it is, rather, a duty to ensure that the warrant con-
forms to constitutional requirements.

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564 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Opinion of the Court
munity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably
competent public official should know the law governing his
conduct”). Moreover, because petitioner himself prepared
the invalid warrant, he may not argue that he reasonably
relied on the Magistrate’s assurance that the warrant con-
tained an adequate description of the things to be seized and
was therefore valid. Cf. Sheppard, 468 U. S., at 989–990.
In fact, the guidelines of petitioner’s own department placed
him on notice that he might be liable for executing a mani-
festly invalid warrant. An ATF directive in force at the
time of this search warned: “Special agents are liable if they
exceed their authority while executing a search warrant and
must be sure that a search warrant is sufficient on its face
even when issued by a magistrate.” Searches and Examina-
tions, ATF Order O 3220.1(7)(d) (Feb. 13, 1997). See also id.,
at 3220.1(23)(b) (“If any error or deficiency is discovered and
there is a reasonable probability that it will invalidate the
warrant, such warrant shall not be executed. The search
shall be postponed until a satisfactory warrant has been ob-
tained”).7 And even a cursory reading of the warrant in this
case—perhaps just a simple glance—would have revealed a
glaring deficiency that any reasonable police officer would
have known was constitutionally fatal.
No reasonable officer could claim to be unaware of the
basic rule, well established by our cases, that, absent consent
or exigency, a warrantless search of the home is presump-
tively unconstitutional. See Payton, 445 U. S., at 586–588.
Indeed, as we noted nearly 20 years ago in Sheppard: “The
uniformly applied rule is that a search conducted pursuant
to a warrant that fails to conform to the particularity re-
quirement of the Fourth Amendment is unconstitutional.”
7 We do not suggest that an official is deprived of qualified immunity
whenever he violates an internal guideline. We refer to the ATF Order
only to underscore that petitioner should have known that he should not
execute a patently defective warrant.

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Opinion of the Court
468 U. S., at 988, n. 5.8 Because not a word in any of our
cases would suggest to a reasonable officer that this case fits
within any exception to that fundamental tenet, petitioner is
asking us, in effect, to craft a new exception. Absent any
support for such an exception in our cases, he cannot reason-
ably have relied on an expectation that we would do so.
Petitioner contends that the search in this case was the
product, at worst, of a lack of due care, and that our case law
requires more than negligent behavior before depriving an
official of qualified immunity. See Malley v. Briggs, 475
U. S. 335, 341 (1986). But as we observed in the companion
case to Sheppard, “a warrant may be so facially deficient—
i. e., in failing to particularize the place to be searched or
the things to be seized—that the executing officers cannot
reasonably presume it to be valid.” Leon, 468 U. S., at 923.
This is such a case.9
8 Although both Sheppard and Leon involved the application of the “good
faith” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s general exclusionary rule, we
have explained that “the same standard of objective reasonableness that
we applied in the context of a suppression hearing in Leon defines the
qualified immunity accorded an officer.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U. S. 335,
344 (1986) (citation omitted).
9 Justice Kennedy argues in dissent that we have not allowed “ ‘ample
room for mistaken judgments,’ ” post, at 571 (quoting Malley, 475 U. S., at
343), because “difficult and important tasks demand the officer’s full atten-
tion in the heat of an ongoing and often dangerous criminal investigation,”
post, at 568. In this case, however, petitioner does not contend that any
sort of exigency existed when he drafted the affidavit, the warrant applica-
tion, and the warrant, or when he conducted the search. This is not the
situation, therefore, in which we have recognized that “officers in the dan-
gerous and difficult process of making arrests and executing search war-
rants” require “some latitude.” Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79, 87
(1987).
Nor are we according “the correctness of paper forms” a higher status
than “substantive rights.” Post, at 571. As we have explained, the
Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement assures the subject of the
search that a magistrate has duly authorized the officer to conduct a
search of limited scope. This substantive right is not protected when the
officer fails to take the time to glance at the authorizing document and

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566 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Kennedy, J., dissenting
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kennedy, with whom The Chief Justice
joins, dissenting.
I agree with the Court that the Fourth Amendment was
violated in this case. The Fourth Amendment states that
“no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The
warrant issued in this case did not particularly describe the
things to be seized, and so did not comply with the Fourth
Amendment. I disagree with the Court on whether the of-
ficer who obtained the warrant and led the search team is
entitled to qualified immunity for his role in the search. In
my view, the officer should receive qualified immunity.
An officer conducting a search is entitled to qualified im-
munity if “a reasonable officer could have believed” that the
search was lawful “in light of clearly established law and the
information the searching officers possessed.” Anderson v.
Creighton, 483 U. S. 635, 641 (1987). As the Court notes,
this is the same objective reasonableness standard applied
under the “ ‘good faith’ ” exception to the exclusionary rule.
See ante, at 565, n. 8 (citing Malley v. Briggs, 475 U. S. 335,
344 (1986)). The central question is whether someone in the
officer’s position could reasonably but mistakenly conclude
that his conduct complied with the Fourth Amendment.
Creighton, supra, at 641. See also Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S.
194, 206 (2001); Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U. S. 224, 227 (1991)
(per curiam).
An officer might reach such a mistaken conclusion for
several reasons. He may be unaware of existing law and
how it should be applied. See, e. g., Saucier, supra. Alter-
detect a glaring defect that Justice Kennedy agrees is of constitutional
magnitude, post this page.

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Kennedy, J., dissenting
natively, he may misunderstand important facts about the
search and assess the legality of his conduct based on that
misunderstanding. See, e. g., Arizona v. Evans, 514 U. S. 1
(1995). Finally, an officer may misunderstand elements of
both the facts and the law. See, e. g., Creighton, supra.
Our qualified immunity doctrine applies regardless of
whether the officer’s error is a mistake of law, a mistake of
fact, or a mistake based on mixed questions of law and fact.
Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 507 (1978) (noting that
qualified immunity covers “mere mistakes in judgment,
whether the mistake is one of fact or one of law”).
The present case involves a straightforward mistake of
fact. Although the Court does not acknowledge it directly,
it is obvious from the record below that the officer simply
made a clerical error when he filled out the proposed warrant
and offered it to the Magistrate Judge. The officer used the
proper description of the property to be seized when he com-
pleted the affidavit. He also used the proper description in
the accompanying application. When he typed up the de-
scription a third time for the proposed warrant, however, the
officer accidentally entered a description of the place to be
searched in the part of the warrant form that called for a
description of the property to be seized. No one noticed the
error before the search was executed. Although the record
is not entirely clear on this point, the mistake apparently
remained undiscovered until the day after the search when
respondents’ attorney reviewed the warrant for defects.
The officer, being unaware of his mistake, did not rely on it
in any way. It is uncontested that the officer trained the
search team and executed the warrant based on his mistaken
belief that the warrant contained the proper description of
the items to be seized.
The question is whether the officer’s mistaken belief that
the warrant contained the proper language was a reason-
able belief. In my view, it was. A law enforcement officer
charged with leading a team to execute a search warrant for

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568 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Kennedy, J., dissenting
illegal weapons must fulfill a number of serious responsibil-
ities. The officer must establish probable cause to believe
the crime has been committed and that evidence is likely to
be found at the place to be searched; must articulate specific
items that can be seized, and a specific place to be searched;
must obtain the warrant from a magistrate judge; and must
instruct a search team to execute the warrant within the
time allowed by the warrant. The officer must also oversee
the execution of the warrant in a way that protects offi-
cer safety, directs a thorough and professional search for the
evidence, and avoids unnecessary destruction of property.
These difficult and important tasks demand the officer’s full
attention in the heat of an ongoing and often dangerous crim-
inal investigation.
An officer who complies fully with all of these duties can
be excused for not being aware that he had made a clerical
error in the course of filling out the proposed warrant. See
Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79, 87 (1987) (recognizing
“the need to allow some latitude for honest mistakes that are
made by officers in the dangerous and difficult process of
making arrests and executing search warrants”). An officer
who drafts an affidavit, types up an application and proposed
warrant, and then obtains a judge’s approval naturally as-
sumes that he has filled out the warrant form correctly.
Even if the officer checks over the warrant, he may very well
miss a mistake. We all tend toward myopia when looking
for our own errors. Every lawyer and every judge can re-
cite examples of documents that they wrote, checked, and
doublechecked, but that still contained glaring errors. Law
enforcement officers are no different. It would be better if
the officer recognizes the error, of course. It would be bet-
ter still if he does not make the mistake in the first place.
In the context of an otherwise proper search, however, an
officer’s failure to recognize his clerical error on a warrant
form can be a reasonable mistake.

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Kennedy, J., dissenting
The Court reaches a different result by construing the of-
ficer’s error as a mistake of law rather than a mistake of
fact. According to the Court, the officer should not receive
qualified immunity because “no reasonable officer could be-
lieve that a warrant that plainly did not comply with [the
particularity] requirement was valid.” Ante, at 563. The
majority is surely right that a reasonable officer must know
that a defective warrant is invalid. This much is obvious, if
not tautological. It is also irrelevant, for the essential ques-
tion here is whether a reasonable officer in petitioner’s posi-
tion would necessarily know that the warrant had a clerical
error in the first place. The issue in this case is whether an
officer can reasonably fail to recognize a clerical error, not
whether an officer who recognizes a clerical error can reason-
ably conclude that a defective warrant is legally valid.
The Court gives little attention to this important and
difficult question. It receives only two sentences at the
very end of the Court’s opinion. In the first sentence, the
Court quotes dictum from United States v. Leon, 468 U. S.
897, 923 (1984), to the effect that “ ‘a warrant may be so fa-
cially deficient—i. e., in failing to particularize the place to
be searched or the things to be seized—that the executing
officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.’ ” Ante, at
565. In the second sentence, the Court informs us without
explanation that “[t]his is such a case.” Ibid. This reason-
ing is not convincing.
To understand the passage from Leon that the Court relies
upon, it helps to recognize that most challenges to defective
search warrants arise when officers rely on the defect and
conduct a search that should not have occurred. The target
of the improper search then brings a civil action challenging
the improper search, or, if charges have been filed, moves to
suppress the fruits of the search. The inquiry in both in-
stances is whether the officers’ reliance on the defect was
reasonable. See, e. g., Garrison, supra (apartment wrongly
searched because the searching officers did not realize that

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570 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Kennedy, J., dissenting
there were two apartments on the third floor and obtained a
warrant to search the entire floor); Arizona v. Evans, 514
U. S. 1 (1995) (person wrongly arrested and searched because
a court employee’s clerical error led officer to believe a war-
rant existed for person’s arrest); McCleary v. Navarro, 504
U. S. 966 (1992) (White, J., dissenting from denial of certio-
rari) (house wrongly searched because informant told officers
the suspect lived in the second house on the right, but the
suspect lived in the third house on the right).
The language the Court quotes from Leon comes from a
discussion of when “an officer [who] has obtained a [defective]
warrant and abided by its terms” has acted reasonably. 468
U. S., at 922. The discussion notes that there are some cases
in which “no reasonably well trained officer should rely on
the warrant.” Id., at 923. The passage also includes sev-
eral examples, among them the one that the Court relies on
in this case: “[D]epending on the circumstances of the partic-
ular case, a warrant may be so facially deficient—i.e., in fail-
ing to particularize the place to be searched or the things
to be seized—that the executing officers cannot reasonably
presume it to be valid.” Ibid.
The Court interprets this language to mean that a clerical
mistake can be so obvious that an officer who fails to rec-
ognize the mistake should not receive qualified immunity.
Read in context, however, the quoted language is addressed
to a quite different issue. The most natural interpretation
of the language is that a clerical mistake can be so obvious
that the officer cannot reasonably rely on the mistake in the
course of executing the warrant. In other words, a defect
can be so clear that an officer cannot reasonably “abid[e] by
its terms” and execute the warrant as written. Id., at 922.
We confront no such issue here, of course. No one sug-
gests that the officer reasonably could have relied on the
defective language in the warrant. This is a case about an
officer being unaware of a clerical error, not a case about an
officer relying on one. The respondents do not make the

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571 Cite as: 540 U. S. 551 (2004)
Thomas, J., dissenting
usual claim that they were injured by a defect that led to an
improper search. Rather, they make an unusual claim that
they were injured simply because the warrant form did not
contain the correct description of the property to be seized,
even though no property was seized. The language from
Leon is not on point.
Our Court has stressed that “the purpose of encouraging
recourse to the warrant procedure” can be served best by
rejecting overly technical standards when courts review
warrants. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 237 (1983). We
have also stressed that qualified immunity “provides ample
protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who
knowingly violate the law.” Malley, 475 U. S., at 341. The
Court’s opinion is inconsistent with these principles. Its
analysis requires our Nation’s police officers to concentrate
more on the correctness of paper forms than substantive
rights. The Court’s new “duty to ensure that the warrant
conforms to constitutional requirements” sounds laudable,
ante, at 563, n. 6, but would be more at home in a regime
of strict liability than within the “ample room for mistaken
judgments” that our qualified immunity jurisprudence tradi-
tionally provides, Malley, supra, at 343.
For these reasons, I dissent.
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Scalia joins,
and with whom The Chief Justice joins as to Part III,
dissenting.
The Fourth Amendment provides: “The right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly de-
scribing the place to be searched, and the persons or things
to be seized.” The precise relationship between the Amend-
ment’s Warrant Clause and Unreasonableness Clause is un-
clear. But neither Clause explicitly requires a warrant.

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572 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Thomas, J., dissenting
While “it is of course textually possible to consider [a war-
rant requirement] implicit within the requirement of reason-
ableness,” California v. Acevedo, 500 U. S. 565, 582 (1991)
(Scalia, J., concurring in judgment), the text of the Fourth
Amendment certainly does not mandate this result. Nor
does the Amendment’s history, which is clear as to the
Amendment’s principal target (general warrants), but not
as clear with respect to when warrants were required, if
ever. Indeed, because of the very different nature and
scope of federal authority and ability to conduct searches and
arrests at the founding, it is possible that neither the history
of the Fourth Amendment nor the common law provides
much guidance.
As a result, the Court has vacillated between imposing
a categorical warrant requirement and applying a general
reasonableness standard. Compare Thompson v. Louisi-
ana, 469 U. S. 17, 20 (1984) (per curiam), with United States
v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56, 65 (1950). The Court has most
frequently held that warrantless searches are presump-
tively unreasonable, see, e. g., Katz v. United States, 389 U. S.
347, 357 (1967); Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 583
(1980), but has also found a plethora of exceptions to pre-
sumptive unreasonableness, see, e. g., Chimel v. California,
395 U. S. 752, 762–763 (1969) (searches incident to arrest);
United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798, 800 (1982) (automo-
bile searches); United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311, 315–
317 (1972) (searches of “pervasively regulated” businesses);
Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San
Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 534–539 (1967) (administrative
searches); Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U. S.
294, 298 (1967) (exigent circumstances); California v. Car-
ney, 471 U. S. 386, 390–394 (1985) (mobile home searches);
Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U. S. 640, 648 (1983) (inventory
searches); Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266,
272 (1973) (border searches). That is, our cases stand for

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Thomas, J., dissenting
the illuminating proposition that warrantless searches are
per se unreasonable, except, of course, when they are not.
Today the Court holds that the warrant in this case was
“so obviously deficient” that the ensuing search must be re-
garded as a warrantless search and thus presumptively un-
reasonable. Ante, at 558–559. However, the text of the
Fourth Amendment, its history, and the sheer number of ex-
ceptions to the Court’s categorical warrant requirement seri-
ously undermine the bases upon which the Court today rests
its holding. Instead of adding to this confusing jurispru-
dence, as the Court has done, I would turn to first principles
in order to determine the relationship between the Warrant
Clause and the Unreasonableness Clause. But even within
the Court’s current framework, a search conducted pursuant
to a defective warrant is constitutionally different from a
“warrantless search.” Consequently, despite the defective
warrant, I would still ask whether this search was unreason-
able and would conclude that it was not. Furthermore, even
if the Court were correct that this search violated the Con-
stitution (and in particular, respondents’ Fourth Amendment
rights), given the confused state of our Fourth Amendment
jurisprudence and the reasonableness of petitioner’s actions,
I cannot agree with the Court’s conclusion that petitioner
is not entitled to qualified immunity. For these reasons, I
respectfully dissent.
I
“[A]ny Fourth Amendment case may present two separate
questions: whether the search was conducted pursuant to a
warrant issued in accordance with the second Clause, and,
if not, whether it was nevertheless ‘reasonable’ within the
meaning of the first.” United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897,
961 (1984) (Stevens, J., dissenting). By categorizing the
search here to be a “warrantless” one, the Court declines to
perform a reasonableness inquiry and ignores the fact that
this search is quite different from searches that the Court
has considered to be “warrantless” in the past. Our cases

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574 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Thomas, J., dissenting
involving “warrantless” searches do not generally involve
situations in which an officer has obtained a warrant that is
later determined to be facially defective, but rather involve
situations in which the officers neither sought nor obtained
a warrant. See, e. g., Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U. S. 635
(1987) (officer entitled to qualified immunity despite conduct-
ing a warrantless search of respondents’ home in the mis-
taken belief that a robbery suspect was hiding there); Pay-
ton v. New York, supra (striking down a New York statute
authorizing the warrantless entry into a private residence to
make a routine felony arrest). By simply treating this case
as if no warrant had even been sought or issued, the Court
glosses over what should be the key inquiry: whether it is
always appropriate to treat a search made pursuant to a war-
rant that fails to describe particularly the things to be seized
as presumptively unreasonable.
The Court bases its holding that a defect in the particular-
ity of the warrant by itself renders a search “warrantless”
on a citation of a single footnote in Massachusetts v. Shep-
pard, 468 U. S. 981 (1984). In Sheppard, the Court, after
noting that “the sole issue . . . in th[e] case is whether the
officers reasonably believed that the search they conducted
was authorized by a valid warrant,” id., at 988, rejected the
petitioner’s argument that despite the invalid warrant, the
otherwise reasonable search was constitutional, id., at 988,
n. 5. The Court recognized that under its case law a reason-
ableness inquiry would be appropriate if one of the excep-
tions to the warrant requirement applied. But the Court
declined to consider whether such an exception applied and
whether the search actually violated the Fourth Amendment
because that question presented merely a “fact-bound issue
of little importance.” Ibid. Because the Court in Shep-
pard did not conduct any sort of inquiry into whether a
Fourth Amendment violation actually occurred, it is clear
that the Court assumed a violation for the purposes of its
analysis. Rather than rely on dicta buried in a footnote in

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Thomas, J., dissenting
Sheppard, the Court should actually analyze the arguably
dispositive issue in this case.
The Court also rejects the argument that the details of the
warrant application and affidavit save the warrant, because
“ ‘[t]he presence of a search warrant serves a high function.’ ”
Ante, at 557 (quoting McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S.
451, 455 (1948)). But it is not only the physical existence of
the warrant and its typewritten contents that serve this high
function. The Warrant Clause’s principal protection lies
in the fact that the “ ‘Fourth Amendment has interposed a
magistrate between the citizen and the police . . . so that
an objective mind might weigh the need to invade [the
searchee’s] privacy in order to enforce the law.’ ” Ante, at
560. The Court has further explained:
“The point of the Fourth Amendment . . . is not that
it denies law enforcement the support of the usual infer-
ences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its
protection consists in requiring that those inferences be
drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of
being judged by the officer engaged in the often compet-
itive enterprise of ferreting out crime. Any assumption
that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate’s disin-
terested determination to issue a search warrant will
justify the officers in making a search without a warrant
would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the
people’s homes secure only in the discretion of police
officers. . . . When the right of privacy must reasonably
yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided
by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government
enforcement agent.” Johnson v. United States, 333
U. S. 10, 13–14 (1948) (footnotes omitted).
But the actual contents of the warrant are simply manifesta-
tions of this protection. Hence, in contrast to the case of a
truly warrantless search, where a warrant (due to a mistake)
does not specify on its face the particular items to be seized

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576 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Thomas, J., dissenting
but the warrant application passed on by the magistrate
judge contains such details, a searchee still has the benefit
of a determination by a neutral magistrate that there is
probable cause to search a particular place and to seize par-
ticular items. In such a circumstance, the principal justifi-
cation for applying a rule of presumptive unreasonableness
falls away.
In the instant case, the items to be seized were clearly
specified in the warrant application and set forth in the affi-
davit, both of which were given to the Judge (Magistrate).
The Magistrate reviewed all of the documents and signed the
warrant application and made no adjustment or correction to
this application. It is clear that respondents here received
the protection of the Warrant Clause, as described in John-
son and McDonald. Under these circumstances, I would
not hold that any ensuing search constitutes a presumptively
unreasonable warrantless search. Instead, I would deter-
mine whether, despite the invalid warrant, the resulting
search was reasonable and hence constitutional.
II
Because the search was not unreasonable, I would con-
clude that it was constitutional. Prior to execution of the
warrant, petitioner briefed the search team and provided a
copy of the search warrant application, the supporting affi-
davit, and the warrant for the officers to review. Petitioner
orally reviewed the terms of the warrant with the officers,
including the specific items for which the officers were au-
thorized to search. Petitioner and his search team then con-
ducted the search entirely within the scope of the warrant
application and warrant; that is, within the scope of what the
Magistrate had authorized. Finding no illegal weapons or
explosives, the search team seized nothing. 298 F. 3d 1022,
1025 (CA9 2002). When petitioner left, he gave respondents
a copy of the search warrant. Upon request the next day,
petitioner faxed respondents a copy of the more detailed

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577 Cite as: 540 U. S. 551 (2004)
Thomas, J., dissenting
warrant application. Indeed, putting aside the technical de-
fect in the warrant, it is hard to imagine how the actual
search could have been carried out any more reasonably.
The Court argues that this eminently reasonable search is
nonetheless unreasonable because “there can be no written
assurance that the Magistrate actually found probable cause
to search for, and to seize, every item mentioned in the affi-
davit” “unless the particular items described in the affidavit
are also set forth in the warrant itself.” Ante, at 560. The
Court argues that it was at least possible that the Magistrate
intended to authorize a much more limited search than the
one petitioner requested. Ante, at 560–561. As a theoreti-
cal matter, this may be true. But the more reasonable infer-
ence is that the Magistrate intended to authorize everything
in the warrant application, as he signed the application and
did not make any written adjustments to the application or
the warrant itself.
The Court also attempts to bolster its focus on the faulty
warrant by arguing that the purpose of the particularity
requirement is not only to prevent general searches, but
also to assure the searchee of the lawful authority for the
search. Ante, at 561. But as the Court recognizes, neither
the Fourth Amendment nor Federal Rule of Criminal Pro-
cedure 41 requires an officer to serve the warrant on the
searchee before the search. Ante, at 562, n. 5. Thus, a
search should not be considered per se unreasonable for fail-
ing to apprise the searchee of the lawful authority prior to
the search, especially where, as here, the officer promptly
provides the requisite information when the defect in the
papers is detected. Additionally, unless the Court adopts
the Court of Appeals’ view that the Constitution protects a
searchee’s ability to “be on the lookout and to challenge offi-
cers,” while the officers are actually carrying out the search,
298 F. 3d, at 1027, petitioner’s provision of the requisite
information the following day is sufficient to satisfy this
interest.

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578 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Thomas, J., dissenting
III
Even assuming a constitutional violation, I would find that
petitioner is entitled to qualified immunity. The qualified
immunity inquiry rests on “the ‘objective legal reason-
ableness’ of the action, Harlow [v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800,
819 (1982)], assessed in light of the legal rules that were
‘clearly established’ at the time it was taken.” Anderson v.
Creighton, 483 U. S., at 639. The outcome of this inquiry
“depends substantially upon the level of generality at which
the relevant ‘legal rule’ is . . . identified. For example, the
right to due process of law is quite clearly established by the
Due Process Clause, and thus there is a sense in which any
action that violates that Clause . . . violates a clearly estab-
lished right.” Ibid. To apply the standard at such a high
level of generality would allow plaintiffs “to convert the rule
of qualified immunity . . . into a rule of virtually unqualified
liability simply by alleging violation of extremely abstract
rights.” Ibid. The Court in Anderson criticized the Court
of Appeals for considering the qualified immunity question
only in terms of the petitioner’s “right to be free from war-
rantless searches of one’s home unless the searching officers
have probable cause and there are exigent circumstances.”
Id., at 640. The Court of Appeals should have instead con-
sidered “the objective (albeit fact-specific) question whether
a reasonable officer could have believed Anderson’s warrant-
less search to be lawful, in light of clearly established law
and the information the searching officers possessed.” Id.,
at 641.
The Court errs not only by defining the question at too
high a level of generality but also by assessing the question
without regard to the relevant circumstances. Even if it
were true that no reasonable officer could believe that a
search of a home pursuant to a warrant that fails the particu-
larity requirement is lawful absent exigent circumstances—
a proposition apparently established by dicta buried in a
footnote in Sheppard—petitioner did not know when he car-

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579 Cite as: 540 U. S. 551 (2004)
Thomas, J., dissenting
ried out the search that the search warrant was invalid—let
alone legally nonexistent. Petitioner’s entitlement to quali-
fied immunity, then, turns on whether his belief that the
search warrant was valid was objectively reasonable. Peti-
tioner’s belief surely was reasonable.
The Court has stated that “depending on the circum-
stances of the particular case, a warrant may be so facially
deficient . . . that the executing officers cannot reasonably
presume it to be valid.” United States v. Leon, 468 U. S.,
at 923. This language makes clear that this exception to
Leon’s good-faith exception does not apply in every circum-
stance. And the Court does not explain why it should apply
here. As an initial matter, the Court does not even argue
that the fact that petitioner made a mistake in preparing the
warrant was objectively unreasonable, nor could it. Given
the sheer number of warrants prepared and executed by of-
ficers each year, combined with the fact that these same offi-
cers also prepare detailed and sometimes somewhat compre-
hensive documents supporting the warrant applications, it is
inevitable that officers acting reasonably and entirely in good
faith will occasionally make such errors.
The only remaining question is whether petitioner’s fail-
ure to notice the defect was objectively unreasonable. The
Court today points to no cases directing an officer to proof-
read a warrant after it has been passed on by a neutral mag-
istrate, where the officer is already fully aware of the scope
of the intended search and the magistrate gives no reason
to believe that he has authorized anything other than the
requested search. Nor does the Court point to any case sug-
gesting that where the same officer both prepares and exe-
cutes the invalid warrant, he can never rely on the magis-
trate’s assurance that the warrant is proper. Indeed, in
Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U. S. 981 (1984), the Court
suggested that although an officer who is not involved in the
warrant application process would normally read the issued
warrant to determine the object of the search, an executing

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580 GROH v. RAMIREZ
Thomas, J., dissenting
officer who is also the affiant might not need to do so. Id.,
at 989, n. 6.
Although the Court contends that it does not impose a
proofreading requirement upon officers executing warrants,
ante, at 563, n. 6, I see no other way to read its decision,
particularly where, as here, petitioner could have done noth-
ing more to ensure the reasonableness of his actions than to
proofread the warrant. After receiving several allegations
that respondents possessed illegal firearms and explosives,
petitioner prepared an application for a warrant to search
respondents’ ranch, along with a supporting affidavit detail-
ing the history of allegations against respondents, peti-
tioner’s investigation into these allegations, and petitioner’s
verification of the sources of the allegations. Petitioner
properly filled out the warrant application, which described
both the place to be searched and the things to be seized,
and obtained the Magistrate’s signature on both the warrant
application and the warrant itself. Prior to execution of the
warrant, petitioner briefed the search team to ensure that
each officer understood the limits of the search. Petitioner
and his search team then executed the warrant within those
limits. And when the error in the search warrant was dis-
covered, petitioner promptly faxed the missing information
to respondents. In my view, petitioner’s actions were objec-
tively reasonable, and thus he should be entitled to quali-
fied immunity.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.