Background
Defendant James Morgan posted videos and messages online demonstrating how to build homemade weapons, including acid throwers and pipe bombs, and advocating for violence against government officers and minority groups. Federal agents obtained a warrant from a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Wisconsin to search Morgan’s trailer in the Western District. The search yielded unregistered destructive devices. Morgan moved to suppress the evidence, arguing the magistrate lacked authority to issue an extra-district warrant, and moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing the statute exceeded Congress’s taxing authority.
The court’s reasoning
The court held that the warrant affidavit supplied probable cause to believe Morgan was engaged in domestic terrorism under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure forty-one, subsection b, paragraph three. The affidavit showed Morgan intended to intimidate a civilian population, influence government policy, and affect government conduct through mass destruction. The court also affirmed that the charging statute, Section twenty-six of the United States Code, Section five thousand eight hundred sixty-one, subsection d, is constitutional under the Supreme Court’s decision in Sonzinsky versus United States.
What it means going forward
The ruling clarifies that the probable-cause standard applies to extra-district warrants in domestic terrorism cases and reinforces the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act as a tax measure.