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Tradecraft

Tradecraft Classes

21st Century Search Warrants (2 day class instructed by Aaron Edens)

page-1.pngThis class is for beginning search warrant writers and is designed to introduce them to one of most powerful investigative tools available to California law enforcement officers.  Attendees will learn the benefits of search warrants through lecture and practical exercises and will leave with all the tools needed to author effective, comprehensive warrants for physical and digital evidence.  Participants will explore search warrants for traditional evidence and contraband from residences and vehicles and modern-day sources of evidence from mobile phone companies, social media services, email, cloud storage, and other internet-based technologies.  Attendees will receive all the search warrant templates and examples needed to immediately begin authoring their own warrants.  Topics include:

  • Understanding search warrant foundational law including the Fourth Amendment and the California Constitution;
  • The advantages of search warrants, when a warrant can be issued, who can issue it, who can seek one, and who must execute it;
  • Search warrants for civilians-The legality of analysts, technicians, Correctional Officers, and other non-Peace Officers seeking search warrants and special considerations when doing so;
  • Basic search warrant components including the ‘hero sheet’, affidavit, and conclusions;
  • Supporting all items to be seized in the affidavit;
  • Establishing probable cause and dispelling the ’51 percent’ rule;
  • Statutory requirements including receipts, knock notice, inventories, and evidence disposition;
  • The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal ECPA)-Requirements every search warrant writer needs to understand;
  • Digital forensics examination and analysis and timelines for completion;
  • Special Masters;
  • Common patrol search warrants including compelled blood draws, narcotics search warrants for sales and distribution, and ‘roll back’ warrants;
  • ‘Special’ search warrants including anticipatory and covert warrants, night service applications, ‘no knock’ warrant provisions, and motorized breaching;
  • Technical search warrants for GPS trackers, cell phone ‘pings’, dialed number/trap trace devices, cell site emulators, and forward-looking infrared radar (FLIR);
  • Foreign targets for search warrants and how to use Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties to obtain evidence from outside the United States.

There are no scheduled classes available at this time.