The Supreme Court of Virginia releases opinions in three criminal cases today. In this one, it clarifies the scope of procedural protections governing the execution of search warrants under Code § 19.2-56(B).
After an undercover officer conducted a controlled drug purchase from Demeatric Blow at a clothing store in a Norfolk strip mall, police obtained an arrest warrant for Blow and a search warrant for the store. When officers executed the search warrant, they directed Blow, the only occupant, to exit through the back door and immediately placed him in handcuffs. An officer read Blow the contents of the warrant and supporting affidavit but did not provide him with physical copies of either document. Officers then searched the store and discovered large quantities of marijuana and two firearms, resulting in additional charges.
Blow moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that Code § 19.2-56(B) bars no-knock warrants for a “place of abode,” but requires officers to provide a copy of the warrant to the owner or occupant of the searched premises regardless of whether it is a “place of abode.” The circuit court denied the motion. Although the circuit court agreed that the copy requirement applies to all search warrants generally, it concluded that Blow was no longer an “occupant” once officers directed him to leave the store, and therefore he was not entitled to copies.
The Court of Appeals affirmed under the “right result for the wrong reason” doctrine, concluding that the copy requirement in the second paragraph of § 19.2-56(B) applies only to search warrants for a “place of abode,”: not to all search warrants generally. Because the clothing store was a commercial establishment, the officers were not required to provide Blow with copies.
The Supreme Court affirmed. The sole question on appeal was whether the second paragraph of Code § 19.2-56(B)—the provision that requires executing officers to provide the owner or occupant with a copy of the search warrant and affidavit—applies to all search warrants or only to warrants for a “place of abode.” Analyzing the statute’s five paragraphs as a whole, the Court observed that the first and third paragraphs expressly reference search warrants for a “place of abode,” while the second and fourth paragraphs refer to “the search warrant” or “the warrant” using the definite article “the” as opposed to the indefinite article “a.” Drawing on the established principle that the definite article “the” particularizes the noun it modifies by referring back to something already identified, the Court concluded that “the search warrant” in the second paragraph refers to the specific warrant described in the first paragraph: a warrant for a “place of abode.” The Court found this reading further supported by the parallel relationship between the third and fourth paragraphs, where “the warrant” in the fourth paragraph similarly refers back to the place-of-abode warrant in the third.
The Court acknowledged its prior caution against overreliance on grammatical construction in statutory interpretation but found the grammatical analysis appropriate here because the use of the definite article does not render the statute ambiguous but instead clarifies its scope, and because the Court has routinely relied on the placement of definite and indefinite articles as an interpretive tool. The Court also noted in a footnote that its holding is consistent with the lower expectation of privacy individuals have in commercial premises as compared to private residences under Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, citing New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 700 (1987).
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