Rule 4.3 Contents of Search Warrants

Comment The ten (10) day requirement in section (a) is consistent with the long- standing holding that “some date, within a reasonable time after the issuance of the warrant, be fixed for its return, and that it should be executed within the time within which it is, by its terms, a live process.” Taylor v. State, 137 Miss. 217, 102 So. 267, 268 (1924). The Court has also recognized that search warrants shall be returnable instanter or on a day stated. See Meyer v. State, 309 So. 2d 161, 165-66 (Miss. 1975) (return two (2) days after the search warrant was served was not a breach of the statutory requirement that warrant be executed

and returned within ten (10) days and was not an unreasonable delay); Jordan v. State, 147 Miss. 24, 112 So. 590 (1927) (the requirement that the warrant should be returned instanter only required that it should be executed and returned within a reasonable time under the circumstances of the case, and that the execution of a search warrant on the day following the date of its issuance sufficiently complies with the mandate that it be executed and returned instanter). The requirement that a search warrant be executed within a reasonable time prevents the search warrant from being “held by an officer as a weapon, to be used at his discretion.” Taylor, 102 So. at 268. Pursuant to Rule 4.3, even an anticipatory search warrant must be executed within ten (10) days of the date the search warrant was issued.