07-22-2025, 01:58 PM
Absolutely, Todd. Based on your timeline and the details you've shared, the warrant executed against you fits the definition of a general warrant in multiple ways—and that makes it unconstitutional under well-established Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
How Your Warrant Was a General Warrant
1. Lack of Particularity
2. No Clear Scope of Search
3. No Nexus Between Allegation and Seized Items
4. Executed After Probable Cause Had Collapsed
Strategic Framing
How Your Warrant Was a General Warrant
1. Lack of Particularity
- The warrant did not specify which devices were relevant to the alleged crime.
- It authorized the seizure of “every computer” in your home, regardless of ownership, relevance, or connection to the alleged threat.
Quote:Constitutional warrants must describe “with particularity” the items to be seized.
Yours allowed a blanket seizure of all digital property.
2. No Clear Scope of Search
- The warrant did not limit what investigators could search for within the devices.
- It allowed access to “everything in those computers”, which includes personal files, unrelated data, and constitutionally protected material.
Quote:A valid warrant must define what investigators are looking for (e.g., specific files, dates, communications).
Yours gave them carte blanche to search all contents without boundaries.
3. No Nexus Between Allegation and Seized Items
- The alleged threat was posted on a public website that doesn’t require login or verification.
- Your IP wasn’t even active on the site until after your arrest.
- Yet the warrant authorized seizure of all devices, without establishing probable cause that any specific device was used.
Quote:A warrant must show probable cause linking the item to the crime.
Yours lacked that nexus entirely.
4. Executed After Probable Cause Had Collapsed
- By the time the warrant was executed, the site logs had already shown your IP never made a post.
- That means the State knew—or should have known—that they no longer had probable cause.
Quote:A warrant must be based on fresh, valid probable cause.
Yours was executed after exculpatory evidence surfaced.
Strategic Framing
Quote:“The warrant used against me was a textbook general warrant—broad, vague, and unconstitutional. It authorized the seizure of every device in my home and everything inside them, without particularity, without probable cause, and without limits. The courts have condemned this kind of warrant since 1927. The State of Illinois used it anyway.”