United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 23-1279

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United States of America,

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee,

v.

Raymond Lee March,

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant.

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Iowa - Eastern

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 Submitted: October 18, 2023

Filed: January 31, 2024

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Before SMITH, Chief Judge, LOKEN and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges. 

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COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

Raymond Lee March appeals the denial of a motion to suppress evidence

seized from his home. March pleaded guilty to unlawfully possessing a firearm as a

prohibited person, but reserved his right to appeal the suppression issue. We
conclude that the seizing officer acted in objectively reasonable reliance on a search

warrant, and therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.*

In January 2021, police executed a search warrant at March’s home and found

two firearms. The search arose from an investigation of March’s nephew, Edwin

Goodwin. In October 2020, a team led by Sergeant Greg Hill searched Goodwin’s

residence and found drugs but no guns. Hill then received information from a fellow

officer that Goodwin was storing his firearms at March’s home.

Hill began to investigate March and decided to pull trash from a receptacle

outside March’s home. Hill observed a trash can on the curb near March’s duplex

unit. Hill emptied the can and found mail addressed to March and two marijuana

stems. One stem tested positive for THC, the main active ingredient of cannabis.

Two days later, Hill drafted an application for a warrant to search March’s

home for drugs and firearms. Hill averred that he had received information that

March used marijuana. He also included the results of the trash survey and the

statement of the fellow officer that March stored firearms for Goodwin. An Iowa

district judge issued a search warrant.

Officers executed the warrant a week later. They found two firearms,

marijuana, and drug paraphernalia.

A grand jury charged March with the firearms offense. See 18 U.S.C.

§ 922(g)(1), (3). He moved to suppress evidence seized during the search. A

magistrate judge recommended denial of the motion, and the district court adopted

*The Honorable Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, United States District Judge for

the Southern District of Iowa, adopting the report and recommendation of the

Honorable Stephen B. Jackson, Jr., United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern

District of Iowa.

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the recommendation. The court concluded that the search warrant was supported by

probable cause. Alternatively, the court ruled that even if probable cause was

lacking, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied.

On appeal, March argues that the two marijuana stems in his trash and the

statements by Hill’s fellow officer about storage of Goodwin’s firearms were

insufficient to establish probable cause. We deem it unnecessary to address the

existence of probable cause, because the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule

is sufficient to resolve this appeal.

Even where an affidavit is insufficient to establish probable cause, suppression

of evidence is not warranted “when an officer acting with objective good faith has

obtained a search warrant from a judge” and reasonably relies on that judge’s

determination of probable cause. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 920-22 (1984). 

March argues that Hill’s reliance on the issuing judge was unreasonable because the

affidavit was “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its

existence entirely unreasonable.” Id. at 923 (internal quotation omitted).

We conclude, at a minimum, that the information set forth in the affidavit

justified reasonable reliance on the issuing judge’s determination of probable cause. 

The presence of recently discarded marijuana stems in a resident’s trash suggests

ongoing marijuana consumption inside the residence. United States v. Thurmond,

782 F.3d 1042, 1045 (8th Cir. 2015); United States v. Briscoe, 317 F.3d 906, 908 (8th

Cir. 2003). Simple possession of marijuana is itself a crime, so a reasonable officer

could have believed that the issuing judge properly found probable cause despite the

discovery of only two marijuana stems. See Thurmond, 782 F.3d at 1045. Hill’s

affidavit in this case also asserted his knowledge that March was involved with

marijuana usage and his receipt of information that March allegedly stored guns for

his nephew Goodwin. This additional information bolstered the reasonableness of

the officer’s reliance on the issuing judge’s determination.

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March cites United States v. Lyles, 910 F.3d 787 (4th Cir. 2018), where another

court of appeals declined to apply the good-faith exception. A trash survey in that

case revealed three marijuana stems and three empty packs of rolling papers. The

court declared that “a flimsy trash pull that produced scant evidence of a marginal

offense” was insufficient “to justify the indiscriminate rummaging through a

household.” Id. at 797. Lyles and its colorful language are in tension with this

court’s decisions on the same subject. See Briscoe, 317 F.3d at 908 (“[N]ot only does

the presence of discarded marijuana stems and seeds reasonably suggest that ongoing

marijuana consumption or trafficking is occurring within the premises, but the simple

possession of marijuana seeds is itself a crime under both federal and state law.”). 

Even assuming a reasonable debate in the law about whether the discovery of

discarded marijuana stems in trash justifies the search of a residence, the court’s

conclusion in Lyles is insufficient to undermine the officer’s good-faith reliance on

the warrant in this case.

March also argues that the searching officer was not entitled to rely on the

issuing judge’s probable-cause determination because he drafted the allegedly

deficient warrant. Nothing in Leon suggests that the good-faith exception requires

separation between the affiant and the officer who executes the warrant. No matter

which officer prepares the application, a judge must make a determination of probable

cause to issue the warrant. The good-faith rule is premised on the judge’s

independent determination. Hill reasonably relied on the issuing judge’s

determination of probable cause, and the district court properly denied the motion to

suppress evidence that was seized in accordance with the warrant.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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