> Has there ever been a recorded case where the request was denied, except maybe for even more shady reasons? Yes. And most are never reported, since law enfor

> Has there ever been a recorded case where the request was denied, except maybe for even more shady reasons? Yes. And most are never reported, since law enforcement will either fix what was wrong with their application, pursue a different line of investigation, or drop the investigation. Perhaps you are thinking of FISA court surveillance requests in the national security arena. Those have been revealed to have an extremely low denial rate. But nonzero. And that's a different space than criminal search warrants. Perhaps as important as the level of judicial scrutiny of warrants in the first instance, and their denial rate, is subsequent review. An improperly granted warrant is invalid. A party with notice of an invalid warrant can move to quash it. A criminal defendant implicated with evidence from an invalid warrant may be able to have the "fruit of the poisonous tree" suppressed. Just a few: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22in+re+search+warrant%22 http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22in+re+search+warrant%22 Your alternative is ridiculous; saying the police can conduct so many searches without respect as to whether or not there is probable cause that a crime has been committed and that the search will yield evidence of a crime. The point of the warrant is to force police to show probable cause to a neutral arbiter. That, plus judicial review and the suppression rule, plus federal §1983/Bivens claims, provide a powerful check on arbitrary behavior by law enforcement. Of course most warrants are granted; for the most part police don't waste time going to judges saying outright "Joe Bloggs is suspicious, unlikable, and has a Green Party yard sign. We want to go turn his house over just to harass him with a fishing expedition." If the police are corrupt and abusing warrants, what would their motivation be to use them properly just because they had some arbitrary quota? If they use them properly, what purpose does a quota serve? The idea that having to show a defensible reason to a judge with a paper trail is worse, betrays a complete ignorance of the legal system, and how much worse it could be in a really authoritarian society that doesn't have meaningful constitutional protections.