239 F.3d 138 (2nd Cir.

2000)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee,

v.
SHI YAN LIU, a/k/a Simon Liu, Defendant,
JIE HU and SHAO ZHEN LIN, Defendants-Appellants.
Docket Nos. 00-1037 (L), 00-1038 (CON)
August Term, 2000

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
Argued: October 18, 2000
Decided: December 27, 2000

Appeal from judgments of conviction entered by the United States District

Court for the Southern District of New York (Sidney H. Stein, Judge)
following a jury trial. We hold, inter alia, that government agents do not
flagrantly disregard the terms of a warrant so that all fruits of their search
must be suppressed when they conduct a search that bears none of the
hallmarks of a general search.
Affirmed.
JOEL B. RUDIN, New York, NY, for defendant-appellant Jie Hu.
JEREMY GUTMAN, New York, NY, for defendant-appellant Shao Zhen
Lin.
MICHAEL GILBERT, Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern
District of New York (Kevin S. Reed, Jamie L. Kogan, and Christine H.
Chung, Assistant United States Attorneys, on the brief), for appellee.
Before: MESKILL, CABRANES, and POOLER, Circuit Judges.
JOSE A. CABRANES, Circuit Judge:

Defendants Jie Hu and Shao Zhen Lin appeal from judgments of conviction
entered by the District Court (Sidney H. Stein, Judge) on January 25, 2000. For

the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgments.

2

The following facts are not in dispute. At all relevant times, Hu and Lin were
employees of a New York immigration assistance agency ("the agency"). On
October 2, 1996, Wing Fung Chau, a government informant posing as an
undocumented alien, met with Hu at the agency. During the meeting, Chau
signed a blank copy of Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") Form I589, an application for political asylum, and left it at the agency. Chau
subsequently spoke with Lin. The content of Chau's conversations with Hu and
Lin is discussed below to the extent relevant.

On November 8, 1996, the agency filed a completed asylum application with

the INS on Chau's behalf. The completed application contained an allegedly
fictitious account of Chau's persecution in China.

On July 8, 1997, a grand jury in the Southern District of New York returned an
indictment that charged Hu and Lin with conspiring to file fraudulent political
asylum applications in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371.1 On July 10, 1997, United
States Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz issued a search warrant ("the
warrant") authorizing INS agents to search the agency. The agents did so, and
seized various materials. Hu and Lin then moved to suppress these materials,
and on November 16, 1998, the District Court denied their motion in a ruling
from the bench.

A trial followed, and on July 22, 1999, the jury returned its verdicts, convicting
both Hu and Lin on one count each of conspiring to submit fraudulent political
asylum applications to the INS in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371, and on two
counts each of preparing and filing fraudulent political asylum applications in
violation of 18 U.S.C. 1546. The District Court entered judgment accordingly,
and this timely appeal followed.

On appeal, Hu and Lin press four substantial arguments, none of which is

persuasive.
I.

First, appellants contend that their motion to suppress should have been granted
because the warrant issued by Magistrate Judge Katz was insufficiently
particular. We disagree. A warrant must be "sufficiently specific to permit the
rational exercise of judgment [by the executing officers] in selecting what items
to seize." United States v. LaChance, 788 F.2d 856, 874 (2d Cir. 1986) (internal

quotation marks omitted). The warrant here met this standard. It identified the
statute that had allegedly been violated, and authorized only the seizure of a
relatively narrow range of items-namely, "[d]ocuments containing fraudulent
statements in relation to political asylum applications, fraudulent birth
certificates, 'boiler-plate' political asylum applications, fictitious stories
outlining political persecution, [and] receipts and financial records relating to
these asylum applications, including computer records."
II.
8

Appellants next argue that the INS agents' search was conducted in "flagrant
disregard" of the warrant so that all fruits of the search must be suppressed.
Again, we disagree.

Government agents "flagrantly disregard" the terms of a warrant so that

wholesale suppression is required only when (1) they effect a "widespread
seizure of items that were not within the scope of the warrant," United States v.
Matias, 836 F.2d 744, 748 (2d Cir. 1988), and (2) do not act in good faith, see
Marvin v. United States, 732 F.2d 669, 675 (8th Cir. 1984) (holding that
complete suppression is inappropriate where government "agents attempted to
stay within the boundaries of the warrant and ... the extensive seizure of
documents was prompted largely by practical considerations and time
constraints"); United States v. Lambert, 771 F.2d 83, 93 (6th Cir. 1985)
(similar); United States v. Tamura, 694 F.2d 591, 597 (9th Cir. 1982) (similar);
United States v. Heldt, 668 F.2d 1238, 1269 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (similar); see also
United States v. Foster, 100 F.3d 846, 852 (10th Cir. 1996) (ordering blanket
suppression when "at the time he obtained the warrant, [the officer who applied
for it] ... knew that the limits of the warrant would not be honored"); United
States v. Rettig, 589 F.2d 418, 423 (9th Cir. 1978) (similar).

10

The cornerstone of the blanket suppression doctrine is the enduring aversion of

Anglo-American law to so-called general searches. Such searches-which have
been variously described as "wide ranging exploratory searches," Maryland v.
Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 84 (1987), and "indiscriminate rummaging[s]," United
States v. George, 975 F.2d 72, 75 (2d Cir. 1992)-are especially pernicious, and
"have long been deemed to violate fundamental rights." Marron v. United
States, 275 U.S. 192, 195 (1927); see also, e.g., Go Bart Importing Co. v.
United States, 282 U.S. 344, 357 (1931) ("Since before the creation of our
government, [general] searches have been deemed obnoxious to fundamental
principles of liberty. They are denounced in the constitutions or statutes of
every State in the Union. The need of protection against them is attested alike
by history and present conditions." (internal citation omitted)). Eliminating

general searches was the basic impetus for the Fourth Amendment's Warrant
Clause, see Garrison, 480 U.S. at 84, and the instruments that authorized
government agents to conduct such searches were much-reviled throughout the
colonial period.2
11

The rationale for blanket suppression is that a search that greatly exceeds the
bounds of a warrant and is not conducted in good faith is essentially
indistinguishable from a general search. See United States v. Squillacote, 221
F.3d 542, 556 (4th Cir. 2000) (collecting cases); cf. United States v. Dzialak,
441 F.2d 212, 217 (2d Cir. 1971) (describing law enforcement officers as
conducting a "general search" when "[i]n executing what was a very precise
warrant, the[y] spent more than four hours ransacking a[] house for any
possible incriminating evidence," and "[o]f the items seized, those which were
not described in the warrant far outnumbered those described"). Accordingly, to
satisfy the first prong of the two-part test described above, the search conducted
by government agents must actually resemble a general search.3 See Heldt, 668
F.2d at 1262 (declining to require "complete suppression" when conduct of
government agents did not "result[] in a general search"); Rettig, 589 F.2d at
423 (ordering blanket suppression where, "[a]s interpreted and executed by the
[searching] agents, th[e] warrant became an instrument for conducting a general
search"). See generally Dzialak, 441 F.2d at 217 (describing a general search).

12

Here, appellants claim, inter alia, that government agents seized some asylum
application files without first determining that they contained "fraudulent
statements," as required by the warrant. Accordingly, appellants argue, Judge
Stein erred in not granting their motion for wholesale suppression.

13

We are not persuaded. At a suppression hearing, the INS agent who supervised
the search testified-credibly, Judge Stein found-as follows: during the search he
spent approximately 30 minutes reviewing asylum application files contained in
agency file cabinets; of the files he reviewed in that time, "pretty much all of
the[m]" listed the asylum applicant's address as 55-03 Van Doren Street; such
repetition of one address indicated that the applications might include
fraudulent statements; and he ordered all files in the file cabinets seized-even
the ones that he had not individually searched.

14

These actions bear none of the hallmarks of a general search: They suggest a
fairly systematic inventory, not "indiscriminate rummaging," and a search for
items enumerated in the warrant, not an "exploratory" search for items not
mentioned there. Indeed, federal courts have repeatedly held that such actions
as were taken by the INS agents in this case, standing alone, do not support a
finding that government agents have flagrantly disregarded the terms of a

warrant. See, e.g., United States v. Hargus, 128 F.3d 1358, 1363 (10th Cir.
1997) (holding that where government agents were authorized by a warrant to
search for "broad categories" of documentary evidence, and records belonging
to each category were found in every drawer of some file cabinets, the officers
did not "grossly exceed" the terms of the warrant when they seized entire file
cabinets so that complete suppression was required) (collecting cases).
15

Accordingly, even assuming arguendo that the INS agents exceeded the bounds
of the warrant when they seized individual agency files without first searching
them, we hold that appellants have not shown that the agents' search resembled
a general search. We therefore conclude that the first prong of the two-part test
for flagrantly disregarding the terms of the warrant has not been satisfied, and
wholesale suppression-a remedy that we have described as "drastic," Matias,
836 F.2d at 747-is not required here. See generally Foster, 100 F.3d at 852
(observing that "the extreme remedy of blanket suppression should only be
imposed in the most extraordinary of cases" (internal quotation marks
omitted)).

16

In light of our conclusion that the first prong of the applicable test has not been
satisfied, we do not reach the question of whether the proper approach to "good
faith" in this context is objective or subjective. Compare, e.g., United States v.
Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922 n.23 (1984) (describing a "good-faith inquiry . .
.confined to the objectively ascertainable question [of] whether a reasonably
well trained officer would have known that the search was illegal") (emphasis
added), with DELUXE BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 693 (6th ed. 1990)
(defining "good faith" in a subjective fashion as, inter alia, "an honest belief,
the absence of malice").
III.

17

Appellants' third argument is that the evidence was insufficient to support the
jury's conspiracy verdict because it failed to establish the existence of an
agreement between Hu and Lin. We believe, however, that a rational juror
could have found that such an agreement existed. See generally Jackson v.
Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (holding that a verdict must be sustained
against a sufficiency of the evidence challenge if "any rational trier of fact
could have found the essential elements of the [charged] crime beyond a
reasonable doubt"); United States v. Pitre, 960 F.2d 1112, 1121 (2d Cir. 1992)
(noting that deference to a jury's verdict is "especially important when
reviewing a conviction of conspiracy. ... because a conspiracy by its very nature
is a secretive operation, and it is a rare case where all aspects of a conspiracy
can be laid bare in court with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel" (internal

quotation marks and citations omitted)). A rational juror could have found
beyond a reasonable doubt that at his October 2, 1996 meeting with Chau, Hu
outlined three "persecution stories" for possible use in Chau's asylum
application; picked one of these stories for use in the application, not because it
was true, but because it was most likely to induce the INS to grant Chau
asylum; and directed Chau to sign a blank application form so that agency
personnel could write the persecution story on the application and file it on
Hu's behalf. Furthermore, based on the transcripts of Lin's conversations with
Chau, a rational juror could have inferred that Hu told Lin about this
conversation, and that Hu and Lin then agreed to complete and file the
fraudulent application together. For example, on October 24, 1996, Chau spoke
by telephone with Lin, who had apparently acquired Chau's file; during that
conversation, Lin expressed reluctance to process the application after Chau
said that he had not been persecuted in China, but agreed to do so after Chau
told her that the "previous person" had said that the application could be filed in
"this way."
IV.
18

Finally, appellants argue that the District Court should not have given a
Pinkerton charge. See generally Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640
(1946); United States v. Romero, 897 F.2d 47, 51 (2d Cir. 1990) (noting that
under a Pinkerton theory of liability, a "conspirator can be held responsible for
the substantive crimes committed by his co conspirators to the extent those
offenses were reasonably foreseeable consequences of acts furthering the
unlawful agreement, even if he did not himself participate in the substantive
crimes"). A Pinkerton charge should not be given where "the jury is required to
resort to the inversion of Pinkerton and infer the existence of a conspiracy from
a series of disparate criminal offenses." United States v. Salameh, 152 F.3d 88,
149 (2d Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, however, there was
sufficient evidence, independent of the substantive counts, from which the jury
could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Hu and Lin conspired to file a
fraudulent application on Chau's behalf. Moreover, this was not a case in which
the jury found that defendants had participated in a "series of disparate criminal
offenses." Rather, the jury convicted defendants on two substantive counts,
each of which was directly related to the filing of fraudulent asylum
applications on behalf of Chau. Finally, the District Court instructed the jurors
that they could consider a Pinkerton theory of liability only if they first
determined that the charged conspiracy existed, and that defendants were
members of it. See id. at 149-50 (upholding use of Pinkerton charge where "the
district court cautiously instructed the jury that [defendant] could be found
guilty of the substantive crimes only after the jury had concluded that he was a

conspirator"); United States v. Harwood, 998 F.2d 91, 100 (2d Cir. 1993)
(similar).
CONCLUSION
To summarize, we hold that:
19

(1) the warrant was not insufficiently particular;

20

(2) INS agents did not flagrantly disregard the terms of the warrant because the
search they conducted bears none of the hallmarks of a general search;

21

(3) the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's finding that a conspiratorial
agreement existed between Hu and Lin; and

22

(4) the Pinkerton charge was not erroneously given.

23

We have considered appellants' remaining arguments, and conclude that they

are without merit.

24

Accordingly, the judgments entered by the District Court are AFFIRMED.

Notes:
1

Subsequently filed superseding indictments added counts of, inter alia,

preparing and filing fraudulent asylum applications in violation of 18 U.S.C.
1546.

During that period, general searches were conducted pursuant to, inter alia,
general warrants and writs of assistance. See Vernonia School District 47J v.
Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 669 (1995) (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (collecting sources).
To great acclamation in the American colonies, Chief Justice Pratt (later Lord
Camden) criticized general warrants on the ground that they would permit "the
secret cabinets and bureaus of every subject in this kingdom [to] be thrown
open to the search and inspection of a messenger." Entick v. Carrington, 19
How. St. Tr. 1029, 1063 (C.P. 1765); see also Wilkes v. Wood, 19 How. St. Tr.
1153 (C.P. 1763) (similar). See generally William J. Stuntz, The Substantive
Origins of Criminal Procedure, 105 YALE L.J. 393, 397 (1995) (noting that
Lord Camden became "famous" throughout the colonies for these views).
Similarly, in a 1761 argument before a Boston court, James Otis, the

Massachusetts lawyer and legislator, described the writs of assistance "as the
worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and
the fundamental principles of law, that was ever found in an English law book."
JAMES OTIS, SPEECH ON THE WRITS OF ASSISTANCE (1761), in 1
JOHN WESLEY HALL, JR., SEARCH AND SEIZURE 7 n.35 (2d ed. 1991).
John Adams later characterized Otis's argument to the court as the precise
moment when "the child Independence was born." See Boyd v. United States,
116 U.S. 616, 625 (1886). See generally Thomas Davis, Recovering the
Original Fourth Amendment, 98 MICH. L. REV. 547, 561 n.20 (1999)
(describing dissemination of Otis's argument in the colonies).
3

To satisfy the second prong, it is not the search itself that must resemble a
general search. Rather, the search must resemble a general search in the sense
that it-like a general search-is not conducted in good faith.