Can a search warrant authorize the seizure of items not specified in the warrant?

Defendant complains so many items were seized that were not specified in the warrants that the officers perforce conducted a general search. As discussed above (ante, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 43, 5 P.3d at p. 106), however, searching officers may seize items not listed in the warrant, provided such items are in plain view while the officers are lawfully in the location where they are searching and the incriminating character of the items is immediately apparent. (Horton v. California, supra, 496 U.S. at p. 136, 110 S.Ct. 2301.) Defendant vaguely asserts, "It is not any single item that presents the problem, but the overall array of items taken and the failure to present any substantial reason for

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seizing many items that highlights the overall legal problem." The assertion, lacking as it is in specificity, virtually defies review. Defendant observes that the burden is on the People to justify the seizure of items not seized under the warrants, but on appeal all presumptions favor the judgment. (In re Marriage of Arceneaux (1990) 51 Cal.3d 1130, 1133, 275 Cal. Rptr. 797, 800 P.2d 1227.) Defendant seems to suggest that searching officers must have probable cause to connect each item seized with a particular murder victim, and that every such item be precisely described in the warrant, but he cites no authority for such an exacting interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. In sum, all the items of any significance that defendant enumerates as having been seized outside the scope of the warrant and used against him at trial are of a character that searching officers would immediately have recognized as incriminating. To cite but one example, the seizure of shoelaces from defendant's garage and den closet was clearly proper under the plain view doctrine, given the significance of ligatures and the fact that victims were missing shoelaces in several of the murders charged to defendant.

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