Nelson v. City of Rochester

Issue: (1) Whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits the issuance of general warrants to search occupied private dwellings, without individualized suspicion of wrongdoing, for the purpose of seeking evidence of zoning, housing code and other administrative violations that are punishable by fines and/or incarceration; (2) whether the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that warrants particularly describe the things to be seized applies to an administrative search warrant authorizing the search of an occupied private dwelling; and (3) whether a local law that authorizes the periodic issuance of general warrants against rented homes without any factual showing of wrongdoing, while requiring traditional probable cause and particularity to obtain a warrant against the home of a landowner, offends the Equal Protection Clause.