Why this result mattered
Functional tie
The principal comparison placed Qwen 3.8 and Claude under concealed A/B labels.
Both answers direct counsel to suppress the fentanyl and out-of-scope phone photograph, abandon staleness and knock-and-announce as suppression theories, concede the physical handgun’s lawful plain-view seizure, and preserve the remaining evidence through severability. Answer A’s unsupported charging and sentencing predictions are rejected through ordinary record verification, leaving the same materially safe, conditional plea posture stated by Answer B.
Fast audit
Open the underlying record
These links open all four answers, the principal blind judgment, original prompt, and sealed key.
Prompt and sealed key
The key is an audit reference. It was not shown to the contestant systems and did not determine the comparative verdict.
Read the original matter prompt
Question 24: The Motion That Chased the Wrong Search
Your role
You represent Aaron Bell in a drug and firearm prosecution. Prior counsel drafted a suppression motion. Review and correct it under the supplied rules. The draft leads with weak theories and omits the two strongest scope violations.
Governing law
Assume the following search rules apply:
A warrant is supported by timely probable cause when the affidavit establishes a fair probability that specified evidence remains at the place searched. Ongoing possession or trafficking and recent location data reduce staleness.
Officers executing a valid warrant may search only places and containers where an item described in the warrant could reasonably be found.
A warrant for a laptop or full-size sales records does not authorize opening a container too small to hold either. A separate listed small item may expand container scope only for that item.
The plain-view doctrine permits seizure when officers are lawfully in the viewing position, have lawful access, and the object's incriminating character is immediately apparent. It does not permit opening or manipulating an opaque container to create a view.
A warrant authorizing seizure of a phone does not authorize examination of digital content unless it describes the data to be searched. A data warrant must be limited by the categories, subject, and time period stated.
Evidence found outside a digital warrant's authorized categories or time period is suppressed unless officers encountered it while lawfully reviewing data within scope.
A knock-and-announce violation does not require suppression under this jurisdiction's supplied remedy rule, although another remedy may exist.
A defendant may challenge the search of the defendant's home and phone. Standing is not defeated merely because another person may also use the device.
Severable lawful portions of a search remain valid. Suppression of one item does not automatically suppress evidence found through a distinct lawful search path.
Facts
Police suspected Aaron of fencing stolen laptops. On February 20 they executed a warrant at his apartment. The affidavit described repeated online sales over six weeks, a buyer's statement that Aaron stored laptops at home, and a location ping placing a recently stolen laptop in the apartment on February 18.
The warrant authorized officers to search for and seize:
- Stolen 15-inch laptop computers.
- Shipping labels and paper sales records concerning laptop sales.
- Aaron's listed cellphone.
- Communications on that cellphone concerning stolen laptops from January 1 through February 18.
During the search:
- An officer opened a locked metal tube three inches long and one inch wide inside a dresser. The tube contained fentanyl capsules. No item listed in the warrant could fit inside it.
- Officers seized Aaron's phone. At the station they reviewed three years of photographs and found an image of Aaron holding an unregistered handgun. They did not encounter the image while reviewing January-February laptop communications.
- An officer looked under the bed, where a laptop could fit, and saw a handgun lying uncovered beside a laptop. The gun's serial number was visibly removed.
- Officers knocked, announced, waited approximately five seconds, and entered with a key obtained from the landlord. Aaron was inside and did not answer.
Prior counsel's draft motion contains three sections:
I. The warrant was stale because the first reported laptop theft was twelve days before issuance.
II. Every item must be suppressed because police waited only five seconds after knocking.
III. The firearm under the bed was outside a warrant for laptops.
The draft does not discuss the metal tube, the three-year photo search, severability, or the limited date and data categories in the phone warrant.
Assignment
Review and correct the motion by:
- Ranking the suppression issues from strongest to weakest.
- Identifying the winning issue prior counsel omitted concerning the metal tube.
- Identifying the winning issue prior counsel omitted concerning phone scope.
- Assessing staleness using the recent ping and ongoing conduct.
- Assessing knock-and-announce under the supplied remedy rule.
- Assessing the firearm under the bed and plain view.
- Explaining severability and which evidence survives.
- Providing a corrected motion outline and the concrete plea effect if the fentanyl and phone photograph are suppressed.
Read the sealed key
Q24 key (Suppression Motion Audit)
- Lead with the metal tube. No listed laptop, label, paper record, phone, or other described item could fit, so opening the opaque three-inch tube exceeded the warrant; fentanyl should be suppressed. Missed: the strongest physical-search issue is absent.
- Next challenge the three-year photo search. The warrant allowed January 1 through February 18 communications concerning stolen laptops, not unrestricted historical photographs; the gun image was not encountered during an in-scope review and should be suppressed. Missed: unrelated digital evidence survives an unbriefed scope violation.
- Staleness is weak. Six weeks of ongoing fencing, a home-storage statement, and a February 18 location ping support a fair probability on February 20. Do not lead with the twelve-day age of the first theft. Missed: credibility is spent on a fact the affidavit cures.
- Knock-and-announce does not yield suppression under the supplied remedy rule. Preserve any separate remedy but remove it as a basis to suppress every item. Missed: the motion asks for relief legally unavailable.
- The under-bed gun survives. Officers could lawfully look where a 15-inch laptop fit, the gun was uncovered beside a laptop, and the obliterated serial number made incriminating character apparent. Missed: a lawful plain-view seizure is overstated and weakens severability analysis.
- Suppression is severable: fentanyl and the phone photograph fall, while the laptop and under-bed gun remain. The corrected outline should present scope, digital scope, then the weaker preserved issues, not seek automatic suppression of all evidence. Missed: an all-or-nothing motion loses winnable item-specific relief.
- Plea analysis must remove the fentanyl count and any charge dependent solely on the old phone photograph while retaining firearm exposure from the under-bed gun. Missed: negotiation proceeds on either evidence that should fall or a gun that remains admissible.
Direct judge report
The report below is preserved from the Qwen 3.8 versus Claude verdict record.
Read the preserved judge report
Basis. Both answers direct counsel to suppress the fentanyl and out-of-scope phone photograph, abandon staleness and knock-and-announce as suppression theories, concede the physical handgun’s lawful plain-view seizure, and preserve the remaining evidence through severability. Answer A’s unsupported charging and sentencing predictions are rejected through ordinary record verification, leaving the same materially safe, conditional plea posture stated by Answer B.
[A] rejected: suppression necessarily eliminates all drug counts, mandatory minimums, and drug-firearm stacking — record lacks charging instruments, other drug evidence, and applicable penalty rules.
[A] rejected: the photograph depicts a separate handgun and its suppression eliminates a separate count — record lacks facts linking the photograph to a particular charged count.
[A] rejected: counsel could contest whether the removed serial number was visible — record states the serial number was visibly removed.
[A] rejected: the cellphone itself was too large for the tube — record lacks the phone’s dimensions, although it independently stipulates that no listed item could fit.
Failed candidates. Categorical versus conditional plea consequences — record support failed.
Failed candidates. Prospective phone-search protocol and sequestration requested only by A — concrete consequence failed because no further search or use is established.
Failed candidates. Preservation of an alternative challenge to the physical handgun by A — concrete consequence failed because the stipulated visible serial-number removal defeats it.
Failed candidates. Different ordering of the losing staleness, firearm, and knock-and-announce issues — different conduct failed.
Hard stop. The sentence cannot be completed with a concrete, record-supported consequence.
All six pairings
Every pair of the four model answers was judged independently under the same evaluation instrument.
Open the six head-to-head results
| Pairing | Result | Why it mattered | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.8 27B vs Claude Opus 5 | Functional tie | Both answers direct counsel to suppress the fentanyl and out-of-scope phone photograph, abandon staleness and knock-and-announce as suppression theories, concede the physical handgun’s lawful plain-view seizure, and preserve the remaining evidence through severability. | Judge record |
| Qwen 3.8 27B vs DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 | Functional tie | Both answers direct counsel to seek targeted suppression of the fentanyl from the undersized tube and the out-of-scope phone photograph, while abandoning staleness, knock-and-announce suppression, and suppression of the physical handgun. | Judge record |
| Qwen 3.8 27B vs Qwen 3.5 27B | Functional tie | Both answers direct counsel to suppress the fentanyl from the undersized tube and the out-of-scope phone photograph, abandon staleness and knock-and-announce suppression theories, and treat the physical handgun and other lawful search paths as severable. | Judge record |
| DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 vs Claude Opus 5 | Functional tie | Both answers direct counsel to suppress the fentanyl from the undersized tube and the out-of-scope phone photograph, abandon staleness and knock-and-announce as suppression grounds, concede the under-bed gun’s admissibility, and seek item-specific relief under severability. | Judge record |
| DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 vs Qwen 3.5 27B | Functional tie | Both answers place counsel on the same materially correct path: seek suppression of the fentanyl and out-of-scope phone photograph, abandon staleness and knock-and-announce suppression theories, concede the under-bed handgun likely survives under plain view, and apply severability. | Judge record |
| Qwen 3.5 27B vs Claude Opus 5 | Functional tie | Both answers direct counsel to seek suppression of the fentanyl and out-of-scope phone photograph, abandon staleness and knock-and-announce suppression theories, treat the under-bed firearm as admissible, and apply severability to preserve lawful evidence. | Judge record |
Rejected-point diagnostic
Judge-attributed rejected points for this matter across all six pairings:
| Qwen 3.8 27B | 0 |
|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 | 1 |
| Claude Opus 5 | 9 |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | 8 |
This is a review-burden diagnostic, not a universal hallucination measure.