Work by Salt Lake Tribune reporters Jessica Miller and Aubrey Wieber revealed this past weekend a shockingly short turnaround for court approval of warrant requests — 27 seconds in one instance, 38 seconds in another. There is just not enough time to read a warrant’s particulars in that amount of time. Yet judges approved them.
While there were only two dozen warrants, out of 8,400 electronic warrants in the last 12 months, granted in a under a minute, more than half were granted in under 10. And judges only denied 2 percent of warrant requests.
The question, of course, is how many of those warrants, if a judge took longer, say 15 to 20 minutes, to ask herself a few more questions, were really supported by probable cause?