To defense attorney Jerry McDevitt, the math is simple: No search warrants equals no case.

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. government could not use key evidence from two search warrants to pursue theft and fraud charges against Mr. McDevitt's client, former Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht.

Without that evidence, Mr. McDevitt said, the government has nothing left with which to pursue Dr. Wecht.

"There's no question this stuff all falls, in my opinion," Mr. McDevitt said yesterday.

Even U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin, who wrote the opinion, seemed to hint that the evidence from the search warrants constituted the bulk of the government's case.

"It appears that much of the evidence utilized by the government in support of these charges was obtained, either directly or indirectly, through the execution of two separate search warrants," the judge wrote.

The U.S. attorney's office declined comment as it ponders whether to appeal the ruling.

Judge McLaughlin threw out the evidence contained in boxes of materials seized in 2005 from Dr. Wecht's private pathology office and from a laptop belonging to a former assistant of Dr. Wecht.

He said both warrants were flawed, not narrowly tailored and "constitutionally infirm."

Not only can the government not use the evidence seized through the warrants, but Mr. McDevitt contends that other information gathered with the help of that evidence is tainted and off limits, too.

"There's no question that everything came after it, everything they learned came from it," Mr. McDevitt said. "I don't know how they think they even have a case without it."

University of Pittsburgh law professor David A. Harris also believes the government does not have much of a case anymore.

"It doesn't make the entire case go away, but it weakens it very significantly," Mr. Harris said.

"This was central to the case," he continued. "This evidence was very important, and without it any prosecutor paying attention to his or her duty to prosecute only when there is sufficient evidence to convict would have to think very, very hard about going forward now."

Mr. McDevitt said yesterday that he had been arguing against the search warrants for so long that Thursday's development was somewhat anti-climactic.

In his April 2006 motion for suppression, he lashed out at the government for allegedly disregarding the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

"The means and methods of such government misuse thereafter are a textbook example of what can happen when government agents ignore controlling law and conduct investigations without regard to clear limiting principles on honest services cases and simply toss aside the Fourth Amendment when seeking the powers of search and seizure in what is clearly a fishing expedition," Mr. McDevitt wrote.

Mr. Harris said Judge McLaughlin's reason for suppressing the evidence -- that the warrants were not specific enough -- was not only sound, but spoke to the essence of the Fourth Amendment.

The warrant on Dr. Wecht's business office called for seizing approximately 20 boxes of private autopsy files, but the judge said it did not provide enough guidance to FBI agents executing it. The judge found the warrant for the laptop was too broad.

"We go over these very points in the course I teach on criminal procedure. This is basic stuff," Mr. Harris said. "This is not a very difficult one to understand."