Colorado Supreme Court Holds that Raid of Immigrant’s Tax Preparer Violated Fourth Amendment
In a 4-3 decision in People v. Gutierrez, the Colorado Supreme Court held that a trial court properly suppressed evidence obtained pursuant to an unlawful search of defendant’s tax returns. The documents were found in Gutierrez’s files that police seized from his tax preparer’s office. The Court held that Gutierrez has standing under the Fourth Amendment to object to a search of his client file. A taxpayer has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her tax returns and return information, even when that information is in the custody of a tax preparer. This reasonable expectation of privacy is based on federal and state laws that protect the confidentiality of tax returns and return information. The Court also held that Gutierrez’s client file was searched in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The affidavit supporting the warrant did not name Gutierrez or refer to him in any way and therefore failed to establish individualized probable cause to search his client file. Finally, the Court found that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply in this case, because the affidavit supporting the warrant was so lacking in indicia of probable cause to search Gutierrez’s file that no reasonably well-trained officer could have relied on it. Therefore, suppression of the evidence was appropriate and the judgment was affirmed.
The case arose from a 2008 raid of a local tax preparer’s office (Amalia’s Tax and Translation, a business that caters to Spanish-speaking clients) aimed at building identity-theft cases against undocumented immigrants. The raid was part of “Operation Numbers Game,” an investigation launched by a local sheriff and district attorney that aimed to use tax returns to identify and prosecute undocumented immigrants. More than 100 persons reportedly were arrested because of the raid.
For the Denver Post story on this case, click here. For background on the case posted previously on ImmigrationProf, click here.
KJ