*1 This matter is before the Court on Defendants Jayce Gibbs's and Johnnie Broughton's Motions to Suppress (R. 40; R. 42). These Motions are before the undersigned pursuant to the presiding District Judge's referral order. (R. 10). The Government responded to the motions (R. 43), and both Defendants replied (R. 44; R. 45). The Motions are now ripe for consideration and preparation of a Report and Recommendation.[1] See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). For the reasons discussed below, it will be recommended that the Motions to Suppress (R. 40; R. 42) be denied.

I. BACKGROUND[2]

In September 2023, the Boone County Crime Suppression Unit (“CSU”) became aware that Defendants Johnnie Broughton and Jayce Gibbs were trafficking narcotics after investigators began working with a confidential informant (“CI”). (R. 40-1 at Page ID 102; R. 42-2 at Page ID 113; R. 43 at Page ID 117-18). The CI was previously a customer of Broughton and Gibbs and had communicated with them via Facebook Messenger. (R. 40-1 at Page ID 103; R. 42-2 at Page ID 114; R. 43 at Page ID 118). Investigators served a preservation request on Facebook for Gibbs's Facebook account on September 18, 2023. (R. 43 at Page ID 118). On September 19, 2023, the CI purchased a pound of marijuana from Gibbs and Broughton in a controlled buy. (Id.).

Thereafter, the CSU obtained a search warrant for the residence, where both Broughton and Gibbs were living. (R. 40-1 at Page ID 102-03; R. 42-2 at Page ID 113-14; R. 47-1) Upon executing that warrant they recovered 4 pounds of marijuana, 910 marijuana cigarettes, 920 cartridges of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), 190 packs of THC edibles, 18 jars of THC wax, 728 grams of psylocibin, 38 grams of cocaine, and 22 firearms. (R. 40-1 at Page ID 102-03; R. 42-2 at Page ID 113-14; R. 43 at Page ID 118). The CSU served a preservation request on Facebook for Broughton's Facebook account the same day as the search. (R. 43 at Page ID 118).

On October 5, 2023, Deputy Robert Andres with the CSU sought two warrants from a Boone County District Judge for the Facebook account data of Broughton and Gibbs. (R. 40-1; R. 42-2; R. 43 at Page ID 118-19). The search warrants for both Facebook accounts were nearly identical. (See R. 40-1; R. 42; R. 42-1). Deputy Andres outlined the tip from the CI regarding narcotics trafficking at Defendants' residence, the fact that the informant had communicated with Defendants over Facebook messenger, and the substantial amount of narcotics recovered after a search of the residence. (R. 40-1 at Page ID 102-03). He then stated,

*2 (R. 40-1 at Page ID 103; R. 42-2 at Page ID 114). The Boone County District Judge approved the search warrants the same day, ordering Facebook to surrender the data with the following scope:

(R. 40-1 at Page ID 104-05; R. 42-2 at Page ID 115-16).[3] The warrant for Gibbs's Facebook account data returned a total of 32,092 pages of documentation. (R. 44 at Page ID 127). The number of documents produced by the warrant for Broughton's Facebook account data is unknown. Both Facebook warrants were erroneously dated September 5, 2023, while the affidavits were dated October 5, 2023. (R. 40-1 at Page ID 103, 105; R. 42-2 at Page ID 114, 116). In the Joint Notice, the parties state this was a scrivener's error and that the warrants should be dated October 5, 2024, the same day the affidavits were signed and presented to the state judge. (R. 52).

The CSU also obtained a warrant from the same Boone County District Judge to seize the balance in Gibbs's Cash App account.[4] (R. 40 at Page ID 96; R. 43 at Page ID 119; R. 47-1). Unlike the Facebook warrants, which included an exhaustive list of data to be surrendered, the Cash App warrant was for the seizure of the balance in Gibbs's account as proceeds of Gibbs's narcotics trafficking to be held as evidence in the case. (Id. at Page ID 139). Like the Facebook warrants, it did not specify a date range limiting the request. (R. 40 at Page ID 96; R. 47-1 at Page ID 139).

On February 8, 2024, the federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Broughton and Gibbs with aiding and abetting each other in distributing, and possession with intent to distribute, marijuana as well as possessing with intent to distribute psilocybin, and cocaine. (See R. 3). Both Defendants are also charged with firearm offenses in furtherance of the drug trafficking conspiracy, and Defendant Gibbs is charged with possession of a firearm equipped with a machine gun conversion device. (See Id.). In this prosecution, Defendants now challenge the validity of the state warrants, arguing they are overbroad and thus violate the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment. (See R. 40; R. 42). The matter has now been submitted to the undersigned for a recommended disposition.

II. ANALYSIS

*3 In their Motions, Broughton and Gibbs ask the Court to suppress evidence obtained from the search of their Facebook accounts with Gibbs originally requesting suppression of the evidence seized through the search warrant of his Cash App balance.[5] (R. 40 at Page ID 96; R. 42 at Page ID 109). The Fourth Amendment guides the Court's analysis of these issues.

U.S. Const. amend. IV.

A. Probable Cause

In his reply,[6] Broughton challenges the sufficiency of his Facebook warrant's probable cause as the affidavit did not allege there were “Facebook communications concerning contraband or illegal activity between the [CI] and Mr. Broughton.” (R. 45 at Page ID 132). Under the Fourth Amendment, “[p]robable cause supports a search warrant when the affidavit demonstrates ‘a fair probability’ that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” See United States v. Powell, 847 F.3d 760, 769 (6th Cir. 2017) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983)). In other words, “[t]he affidavit must establish a nexus between the place to be searched and things to be seized, such that there is a substantial basis to believe that the things to be seized will be found in the place searched.” Ellison v. Balinksi, 625 F.3d 953, 958 (6th Cir. 2010). Further, a court's “[r]eview of the sufficiency of evidence supporting the probable cause determination is limited to the information contained in the four corners of the affidavit.” Id.

Specifically, Broughton argues that his Facebook warrant lacks a “nexus between the facts alleged, the evidence sought and the place to be searched,” relying upon Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983). (R. 45 at Page ID 131-32). The affidavits state that the confidential informant told investigators the residents of 413 Falmouth Road (where both Broughton and Gibbs lived) were trafficking in narcotics, and that the confidential informant had previously communicated with them over Facebook messenger, and that the investigators obtained a warrant for the premises and discovered “a large quantity of narcotics and firearms.” (R. 42-2 at Page ID 113-14). The affidavit went on to state that “[t]he Affiant believes that based off of his training and experience that narcotics traffickers commonly use social media for the sales of illegal narcotics and that there will be evidence of narcotics trafficking in Johnnie Broughton's Facebook account.” (Id.). These facts, as outlined in Broughton's Facebook account affidavit contain “a nexus between the place to be searched and the evidence sought.” United States v. Brown, 828 F.3d 375, 381 (6th Cir. 2016) (quoting United States v. Carpenter, 360 F.3d 591, 594 (6th Cir. 2004)); see also United States v. Marroquin, No. 6:19-CR-31, 2020 WL 7016990, at *4 (E.D. Ky. July 10, 2020) (holding that to establish an adequate nexus, an affidavit for a search of a social media account must link the targeted account to the crime), report and recommendation adopted, No. 6:19-CR-31, 2020 WL 6336105 (E.D. Ky. Oct. 29, 2020). The affidavit here demonstrates a nexus between Broughton and Gibbs's Facebook accounts and the alleged drug trafficking, as the confidential informant had previously contacted them via Facebook. See United States v. Whitt, No. 1:17CR060, 2018 WL 447586, at *4 (S.D. Ohio Jan. 17, 2018) (“For the requisite nexus to exist—regardless of whether the underlying crime requires the use of social media or an electronic device—the affidavit in support of the search warrant must establish why the government believes that relevant evidence may reside on the particular suspect's Facebook account.”).

B. Particularity

*4 Broughton and Gibbs challenge the search warrants for their Facebook accounts on particularity grounds. They argue that the search warrants were overbroad in the type of data sought and the time for that data.

The Fourth Amendment requires that “searches deemed necessary should be as limited as possible.” Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 467 (1971). Indeed, “[b]y requiring a ‘particular description’ of the things to be seized,” warrants help to protect against “a general, exploratory rummaging in a person's belongings,” which the Fourth Amendment seeks to protect against. Id. “A search warrant must particularly describe the things to be seized, but the description, whose specificity [varies] with the circumstances of the case, will be ‘valid if it is as specific as the circumstances and the nature of the activity under investigation permit.’ ” Guest v. Leis, 255 F.3d 325, 336 (6th Cir. 2001) (citing United States v. Henson, 848 F.2d 1374, 1383 (6th Cir. 1988)).

Although the Sixth Circuit has not addressed what consists of “rummaging” through a person's Facebook or social media accounts, as noted by one district court, “an apparent pattern has emerged: search warrants that ask for an entire copy of a Facebook account ... are likely overbroad[.]” United States v. Mize, No. 1:18-CR-74, 2020 WL 5505793, at *5 (S.D. Ohio Sept. 11, 2020) (search warrant for nine years of Facebook activity was overbroad); see also United States v. Blake, 868 F.3d 960, 974-75 (11th Cir. 2017) (Facebook warrant was likely overbroad); United States v. Shipp, 392 F. Supp. 3d 300, 307-11 (E.D. N.Y. July 15, 2019) (holding that a search of entire Facebook account was overbroad); United States v. Hamilton, No. 6:18-CR-57, 2019 WL 4455997, at *4 (E.D. Ky. Aug. 30, 2019), report and recommendation adopted, No. 6:18-cr-57, 2019 WL 4452828 (E.D. Ky. Sept. 17, 2019) (search warrant for ten months of activity on entire Facebook account was overbroad); United States v. Allen, No. 16-10141-01, 2018 WL 1726349, at *6 n. 25 (D. Kan. Apr. 10, 2018) (warrant was particular as it did not authorize a search of every record of the Facebook account).

Broughton and Gibbs rely heavily upon the reasoning in Hamilton. (See R. 40 at Page ID 97-8). The warrant in Hamilton required Facebook to disclose:

2019 WL 44559977, at *2. In Hamilton, the investigators requested the above data but limited it in time to a nine-month period. Id. Despite this, the court held that the scope of the warrant allowed “law enforcement to ‘rummage’ through ... Hamilton's entire digital life on Facebook.” Id. at *3 (quoting Coolidge, 403 U.S. at 467). The court also noted the increased invasiveness of social media warrants when compared to traditional computer hard drive searches as Facebook records entail “[t]he sum of an individual's private life ... through a thousand photographs labeled with dates, locations, and descriptions ...” Id. at *4 (quoting Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 394 (2014)).

*5 While the Sixth Circuit has not specifically addressed the particularity requirement in the context of a social media warrant, the Eleventh Circuit has approached the issue in dicta in the context of a prostitution case. United States v. Blake, 868 F.3d at 973-75. The warrant at issue “required disclosure to the government of virtually every kind of data that could be found in a social media account” but did state that after the disclosure, the data would only be seized if it “constituted fruits, evidence and instrumentalities of a specified crime.” Id. at 967, 973-75. The Court stated the warrants “should have requested data only from the period of time during which [the Defendant] was suspected of taking part in the prostitution ring.” Id. at 973-75. A district court in the Eleventh Circuit applied Blake to a similar warrant that requested 18 categories of information from Instagram in the context of a felon-in-possession case. United States v. Mercery, 591 F. Supp. 3d 1369, 1379-80 (M.D. Ga. 2022). Following the Blake court's analysis, the district court found the broad data disclosure was not “tailored to evidence of the crimes under investigation, the time period during which [the defendant] allegedly committed the crimes, or the persons allegedly involved in the crimes.” Id. at 1381.

The search warrants for Broughton and Gibbs' Facebook accounts were impermissibly broad. Those warrants permitted law enforcement to request more than fifteen different types of data from Broughton and Gibbs' Facebook accounts—including, for example, all stored or saved photographs, all account information and history, and messages sent and received—for a time frame as large as possible per Facebook policy. (See R. 40-1 at Page ID 104-5; R. 42-2 at Page ID 115-16). Most revealing though is the first category of data requested: “any and all information, electronic storage devices, or other documents.” (R. 40-1 at Page ID 104; R. 42-2 at Page ID 112). As Gibbs notes, this language is inherently not particular. (R. 44 at Page ID 127). Investigators could have particularized their search to Broughton and Gibbs' Facebook messages, comments, and posts to retrieve the evidence they sought. See Blake, 868 F.3d at 974 (“By contrast, when it comes to Facebook account searches, the government need only send a request with the specific data sought and Facebook will respond with precisely that data.”). Because the search warrants requested an extensive amount of information from Broughton and Gibbs's social media accounts, limited only temporally by a thirteen-month time period—as defined by Facebook policy, not the text of the warrant—the search warrants are akin to a “digital rummaging” of Broughton and Gibbs's belongings seemingly in violation of the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement.

The Sixth Circuit has held that a “[f]ailure to limit broad descriptive terms by relevant dates, when such dates are available to the police, will render a warrant overbroad.” United States v. Ford, 184 F.3d 566, 576 (6th Cir. 1999) (emphasis added). Here, law enforcement began an investigation with reliable information from a confidential informant regarding prior dealings with Broughton and Gibbs. Investigators likely had knowledge as to when Broughton and Gibbs's narcotic trafficking began, at least in relation to the confidential informant. As such, a time limitation is necessary here. United States v. Abboud, 438 F.3d 554, 576 (6th Cir. 2006) (“[L]aw enforcement knew that the evidence in support of probable cause in the affidavit revolved only around a three-month period in 1999; the authorization to search for evidence irrelevant to that time frame could well be described as ‘rummaging.’ ”).

The Government contends that the lack of a temporal limitation does not immediately doom a warrant's particularity. (R. 43 at Page ID 121). While courts do routinely uphold warrants with liberal time restrictions, it is usually in the context of crimes which can “only be proved by piercing together many bits of evidence” or in the context of certain specialized crimes. Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 481 n.10 (1976) (complex real estate fraud); see also United States v. Deleon, No. 21-8-DLB-EBA, 2021 WL 4338939, at *7 (E.D. Ky. Sept. 23, 2021) (upholding the particularity of a Facebook warrant for several years of data involving child sexual abuse and child pornography); United States v. Burkhow, No. 19-cr-59, 2020 WL 589536, *10 (N.D. Iowa Feb. 6, 2020) (Analysis of a search warrant's overbreadth must “accommodate the complexity of the crime under investigation.”). No such circumstances exist here. Investigators likely knew when the confidential informant began purchasing narcotics from Broughton and Gibbs, and such date could have been used as a temporal limitation on the warrant. Additionally, there are no facts in the record that allege Broughton and Gibbs were suspected of drug trafficking during the entire period of January 5, 2022, to September 5, 2023, during which investigators received the Facebook data. Instead, the affidavits states that CSU simply began investigation into Broughton and Gibbs in September 2023. (R. 40-1 at Page ID 102; R. 42-2 at Page ID 113).

*6 The Government also argues that the warrants are not overbroad as they contain what the Ford court called a “subject-matter limitation.” Ford, 184 F.3d at 578. A warrant is sufficiently particular when a description of the evidence to be seized is confined to evidence of a specific crime. See United States v. Honeysucker, No. 21-2614, 2023 WL 142265, at *4-5 (6th Cir. 2023) (holding a warrant was not a “general order to explore and rummage” as the records to be seized were “tied to a specific crime”). The Government cites to Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 480-81 (1976) and United States v. Raglin, 663 F.App'x 409, 413 (6th Cir. 2016). However, this argument fails to save the particularity of the warrants.

Sixth Circuit caselaw states a search warrant “satisfies the particularity requirement if its text constrains the search to evidence of a specific crime.” United States v. Castro, 881 F.3d 961, 965 (6th Cir. 2018) (emphasis added). Further, “specification of the underlying offense is the key limit on the scope of the search, not a speculative or boilerplate list.” United States v. Abdul-Latif, No. 3:22-cr-68, 2023 WL 8288265, at *10 (E.D. Tenn. Nov. 7, 2023) (citing Raglin, 663 F. App'x at 413), report and recommendation adopted, 2023 WL 8284367 (E.D. Tenn. Nov. 30, 2023). The Raglin court, similarly, stated that “specifying that a search is for evidence of a particular crime can bring an otherwise open-ended list of items into compliance with the particularity requirement.” Raglin, 663 F.App'x at 413. However, the language used in the Facebook warrants at issue here does not limit the scope of the evidence to be searched or seized, but merely describes the evidence. The affidavits, which were incorporated into the search warrants, contain descriptive language “that there will be evidence of narcotics trafficking in [Broughton and Gibbs's] Facebook account[s].” (R. 40-1 at Page ID 102-03; R. 42-2 at Page ID 113-14). The affidavits contained similar language regarding the Facebook data.

(R. 40-1 at Page ID 102; R. 42-2 at Page ID 113).

Notably, the Sixth Circuit has found that language limiting a search to information that is evidence of the “fruits, instrumentalities, or particularities of a crime” or similar such language can serve as a meaningful subject-matter limitation. See United States v. Ford, 184 F.3d 566, 578 (6th Cir. 1999) (holding that “fruits and evidence of gambling” was a sufficiently particular subject-matter limitation); see also United States v. Lostutter, No. 5:16-cr-62, 2016 WL 8761771 (E.D. Ky. Oct. 24, 2016) (a search constrained to the “records or information” that was “relevant to the subject matter addressed by the Warrant” was sufficiently particular). Here though, the language in the affidavits cannot serve as any meaningful limitation upon the search as to the scope of the search as the language of the affidavit does not support such a reading. Instead, the language is purely descriptive and offers no meaningful limitation on what investigators could search or seize. While the Court finds the Facebook warrant overbroad in scope, evidence obtained from these warrants should not be suppressed if the Leon good faith exception applies.

C. Leon Good Faith Exception

*7 The Government argues that the Leon good faith exception saves any evidence subject to potential exclusion for a lack of particularity. (R. 43 at Page ID 122-24). Gibbs contends in his Motion that the good faith exception cannot apply in this case. Specifically, he argues that case law for the past four years has shown that these types of warrants are overbroad and that objectively reasonable law enforcement officers would know the warrants lack particularity. (See R. 44 at Page ID 129-30). Broughton argues the warrant for his Facebook account data fails on general probable cause grounds, and specifically because the affidavit does not allege that investigators reviewed the confidential informant's Facebook to determine the “nature of the communications” between the informant and Broughton. (R. 45 at Page ID 132).

The Leon good faith exception allows admission of evidence that would otherwise be excluded when police have “seized [it] in reasonable, good-faith reliance on a search warrant that is subsequently held to be defective.” United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 905 (1984). The exception applies when “the evidence was obtained in objectively reasonable reliance on the ‘subsequently invalidated search warrant.’ ” United States v. Brown, 828 F.3d 375, 385 (6th Cir. 2016) (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 922)). The Supreme Court in Leon found four circumstances where an officer's reliance would not be objectively reasonable, including: 1) “if the magistrate or judge in issuing a warrant was misled by information in an affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard of the truth”; 2) “where the issuing magistrate wholly abandoned his judicial role”; 3) when “a warrant based on an affidavit [is] so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable”; and 4) if a warrant is “so facially deficient—i.e., in failing to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized—that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 923 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Of the four circumstances outlined in Leon, the third and fourth seem to be implicated here. There is no suggestion that the affiants presented false information or that he or she knew it was false or would have known but for recklessness. Nor is there any suggestion that the state district judge abandoned his judicial role.

To the extent Broughton and Gibbs challenge the warrants under the third Leon scenario, such assertions fail. To be considered “bare bones,” an affidavit must contain only “suspicions, beliefs, or conclusions, without providing some underlying factual circumstances regarding veracity, reliability, and basis of knowledge.” See United States v. White, 874 F.3d 490, 496 (6th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). An affidavit is not “bare bones” if there is a “minimally sufficient nexus” between the place to be searched and the evidence sought. United States v. Helton, 35 F.4th 511, 521 (6th Cir. 2022). “[The Sixth Circuit] has described a minimally sufficient nexus as one in which there is ‘some connection, regardless of how remote it may have been—some modicum of evidence, however slight—between the criminal activity at issue and the place to be searched.’ ” United States v. Reed, 993 F.3d 441, 450 (6th Cir. 2021) (quoting United States v. McCoy, 905 F.3d 409, 416 (6th Cir. 2018)). Applying that standard to this case, Deputy Andres's affidavits are not “bare-bones,” because they contained multiple substantive facts that established a minimally sufficient nexus between the drug trafficking and the Facebook accounts such that the state judge was able to determine probable cause existed for the searches, including: the digital interactions between the confidential informant and Broughton and Gibbs via Facebook messenger, the search of their residence, and subsequent discovery of an “enormous amount of narcotics” and other contraband during the residential search.

*8 The fourth circumstance in which a warrant is objectively unreasonable is when it is “so facially deficient ... that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.” This situation occurs the warrants fail to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized such that “a reasonable officer would have known that the search was illegal despite the magistrate's authorization.” United States v. Higgins, 557 F.3d 381, 391 (6th Cir. 2009); see also Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 565 (2004); United States v. White, 874 F.3d 490, 496 (6th Cir. 2017). The Sixth Circuit has interpreted this as a mainly “technical” requirement such that an affiant must only correctly state “the place to be searched or the objects to be seized.” United States v. Savoca, 761 F.2d 292, 296 (6th Cir. 1985); see also United States v. Lazar, 604 F.3d 230, 238-39 (6th Cir. 2010) (warrant was facially deficient when its execution led to the discovery of patient files whose names were not included in the warrant); Groh, 540 U.S. at 559, 564-65 (warrant was facially deficient when it completely failed to describe the items to be seized); United States v. Laughton, 409 F.3d 744, 751 (6th Cir. 2005) (warrant was facially deficient when it only listed the address of the premises to be searched, a summary of the affiant's experience, and two allegations without supporting evidence against the defendant). However, persuasive authorities do sometimes see this as a substantive check against overbroad warrants. See Burkhow, 2020 WL 589536, at *12 (finding a warrant was not facially deficient despite its lack of temporal limitations and overbreadth).

Gibbs argues that previous courts have found similar warrants to be overbroad, however, this argument fails. As the Supreme Court explained in Leon, “[i]n the ordinary case, an officer cannot be expected to question the magistrate's probable-cause determination or his judgment that the form of the warrant is technically sufficient.” See Leon, 468 U.S. at 921. As pointed out by the United States (see R. 43 at Page ID 140-41), given law enforcement's knowledge that Broughton and Gibbs had been distributing controlled substances via digital communication, it was not unreasonable on its face for law enforcement to seek a large portion of Broughton and Gibbs' social media account records. See Mize, 2020 WL 5505793, at *5 (good faith exception applied even though search warrant for nine years of Facebook activity was overbroad); Blake, 868 F.3d at 974-75 (although Facebook warrant was likely overbroad, Leon good faith exception applied); Hamilton, 2019 WL 4455997, at *6 (good faith exception applied to overbroad search warrant for ten months of activity on entire Facebook account). Moreover, as one district court has said “[t]he extent to which social media profiles can be searched is an evolving issue, particularly now that many people have retained such profiles for years.” Burkhow, 2020 WL 589536, at *12 (also noting that “courts have differed on the limitations required by such warrants and what limitations are appropriate under the circumstances”); United States v. Whitt, 2018 WL 447586, at *4 (applying the good faith exception to an invalid warrant, noting that “[w]hile Sixth Circuit jurisprudence on residential and other searches of a suspect is well-developed, Sixth Circuit jurisprudence on searching the Facebook account of a suspect is less so”). Overall, “this was not the kind of ‘deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent disregard for Fourth Amendment rights’ that triggers suppression.” United States v. Castro, 881 F.3d 961, 966 (6th Cir. 2018) (quoting Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 238 (2011)).

Here, a reasonable well-trained officer would not have known that the search was illegal. As was the crux of the Hamilton court's analysis of the good faith exception, Deputy Andres here had authorization from a neutral judicial officer to obtain information from Facebook, and nothing in the record indicates he was unreasonable in this reliance. See Hamilton, 2019 WL 4455997, at *6. Given the unsettled state of the law regarding broad social media warrants and the conflicting limitations various courts require, this warrant is an “ordinary case” where “an officer cannot be expected to question the magistrate's probable-cause determination or his judgment that the form of the warrant is technically sufficient.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 921. Knowledge of the Hamilton decision is exactly the type of determination the neutral and detached magistrate issuing the warrant should be aware of, not the officer. See Leon, 468 U.S. at 916 (“[T]he exclusionary rule is designed to deter police misconduct rather than to punish the errors of judges and magistrates.”). This situation is one in which “ ‘only a police officer with extraordinary legal training would have detected any deficiencies’ in the warrant.” Laughton, 409 F.3d at 749 (quoting United States v. Van Shutters, 163 F.3d 331, 337 (6th Cir. 1998)).

*9 However, Gibbs's point is well taken. The good faith exception cannot sanction overbroad warrants indefinitely. Notably, one district court in the Eleventh Circuit applied the reasoning in Blake and found that in the case of an overbroad social media warrant the good faith exception did not apply because “the Eleventh Circuit in Blake put law enforcement on notice that warrants authorizing this type of broad search of social media accounts are overbroad,” the warrant failed to contain a limitation on “what the government [could] seize from the broad production of data,” and “excluding the evidence obtained under the unconstitutional warrant [would] deter future violations. Mercery, 591 F. Supp. 3d at 1383. One district court opined that the Blake decision could not serve as notice for law enforcement in the Seventh Circuit, as it was persuasive case law. See United States v. Roberts, No. 122CR00136, 2023 WL 5509261 (S.D. Ind. Aug. 25, 2023). However, such case law is not yet developed in the Sixth Circuit that would warrant imputing that knowledge to a reasonable officer. See Whitt, 2018 WL 447586, at *4.

Thus, Broughton and Gibbs have not shown that CSU's reliance on the search warrants for their Facebook accounts was misplaced or that the officers' actions do not come under the good faith exception's guidance that, generally, “the marginal or nonexistent benefits produced by suppressing evidence obtained in objectively reasonable reliance on a subsequently invalidated search warrant cannot justify the substantial costs of exclusion.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 922. Accordingly, because the good faith exception should apply to law enforcement's actions in relation to the social media warrants in this case, Gibbs's Motion to Suppress and Broughton's Motion Joining Gibbs's Motion to Suppress should be denied on this ground. Since the Leon good faith exception applies in this case, the Court need not address the Government's severance argument. See Hamilton, 2019 WL 4455997, at *5.

Broughton and Gibbs have failed to demonstrate a violation of their rights under the Fourth Amendment warranting suppression, and Gibbs's Motion to Suppress and Broughton's Motion Joining Gibbs's Motion to Suppress as it relates to their Facebook account data should be denied.

III. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

In Gibbs's Motion to Suppress (R. 40) and Broughton's Motion Joining Codefendant Gibbs's Motion to Suppress (R. 43), Broughton and Gibbs ask the Court to suppress evidence obtained through the search of their Facebook accounts. As explained above, they have failed to show that they are entitled to suppression of any evidence produced from the Facebook warrants because the Leon good faith exception saves the warrants despite their lack of particularity.

Accordingly, IT IS RECOMMENDED that Defendant Jayce Gibbs's Motion to Suppress (R. 40) as to his Facebook account and Cash App account and Johnnie Broughton's Motion Joining Codefendant Gibbs's Motion to Suppress as to his Facebook account (R. 42) BE DENIED.

Specific objections to this Report and Recommendation must be filed within fourteen (14) days of the date of service or further appeal is waived. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); Fed. R. Crim. P. 59(b)(2); Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 142 (1985); United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d 947, 950-51 (6th Cir. 1981).

Dated this 25th day of November, 2024.