On August 14, 2026, the Fourth Circuit threw out a 180-month sentence because the search warrant that produced the evidence never should have issued. United States v. Griffin is a significant win for anyone who cares about what police must actually prove before a judge lets them through the front door of a home. The court’s message is direct: a neighborhood’s reputation is not a substitute for facts about a particular house.
The Warrant and the Search
Calvert County’s Drug Enforcement Unit sought a no-knock warrant for a residence in a small Maryland community the affidavit called an “open-air drug market.” The supporting affidavit ran twenty-one pages. It described decades of drug sales in the area, listed criminal histories, and recounted surveillance from the preceding months.
Officers executed the warrant and found no drugs inside the home. What they did find was in a locked SUV parked beside the house: cocaine, marijuana, and a firearm. A jury later acquitted Earl Griffin, Jr. of the drug and firearm-trafficking counts but convicted him of being a felon in possession. The district court denied his motion to suppress, conceding the affidavit “may not be the strongest” it had read while finding it good enough.
Nexus: Proximity Is Not Enough
The Fourth Circuit disagreed, and its reasoning rests on two requirements every residential warrant must satisfy: nexus and timing.
Nexus means the affidavit must connect the evidence sought to the specific place searched. Drug activity near a home is relevant, but the court reaffirmed that proximity alone will not do. The affidavit needed additional facts—that a dealer lived there and kept drugs there, left the house to make a sale, returned after one, retrieved drugs from inside, or carried proceeds in. None of that appeared.
What the affidavit did describe was people gathering near the property and vehicles parked along the tree line. Officers never reported seeing drugs or money change hands during those encounters, never stopped a buyer afterward, and never recovered contraband from them. The defendant’s brother was seen walking in and out of the family home around the time of suspected transactions, but the affidavit never said he sold anything, carried anything, or moved contraband through the door.
The court made a further point that deserves attention. The affidavit itself named several other residences in the same small area and tied suspected dealers to them. When an affidavit makes multiple locations equally plausible, it cannot single out one home without explaining why the evidence would probably be there. As the court put it, the government cannot search every unit in an apartment building because something incriminating is somewhere inside it.
Timing: A Thirteen-Year-Old Incident
The only concrete allegation of drugs inside the home came from a 2006 search—thirteen years before the warrant issued. The affidavit offered no controlled buys, no trash pulls, no informant reports, and no surveillance suggesting the house remained in use for drug activity in the intervening years. Old facts can still support probable cause when criminal conduct is recurrent and the evidence is likely to stay put. An isolated incident from more than a decade earlier is neither.
Good Faith Did Not Rescue the Search
Most defendants who win the probable cause argument still lose, because the good-faith exception permits evidence when officers reasonably relied on a warrant a judge approved. Not here. The court held the affidavit so lacking in indicia of probable cause that no reasonably trained officer could have relied on it.
The court also addressed an argument that surfaces constantly in suppression litigation—that two judges already blessed the warrant, so the officers must have acted reasonably. The panel rejected treating that as decisive. If the issuing judge’s approval settled the question, this branch of the good-faith exception would never apply, since every such case involves an issued warrant. And because good faith is reviewed fresh on appeal, the district court’s agreement receives no deference at all. Judge Heytens dissented, arguing the affidavit was detailed enough that reliance on it was not entirely unreasonable.
What This Means Going Forward
For anyone whose home was searched on a warrant, Griffin is a reminder that the affidavit is the case. Ask what it actually alleges about your residence, as opposed to your street, your relatives, or your neighbors. Ask how old those allegations are. Suppression motions are won on precisely these details, and an acquittal on the most serious counts—as happened here—does not always end the exposure.
We have written before about Fourth Amendment limits on warrantless home entries, about how local drug investigations become federal prosecutions, and about recent Fourth Circuit sentencing decisions. Published opinions are available at the court’s website.
Damon Chetson is a Board Certified Specialist in State and Federal Criminal Law with more than fifteen years defending search-and-seizure cases. If police searched your home or vehicle and you are facing charges, contact The Chetson Firm in Raleigh to discuss your options.