Opinion ID: 2972108
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Material Omission

Text: The district court also found that Sedwick omitted from the affidavit the material fact that he and Hallowell had already entered Wright’s property and that several of the observations noted in the affidavit were discovered during this pre-warrant search. Central to the district court’s 1 Wright relies in his brief on the fact that Sedwick did not believe the hose by itself was sufficient to establish probable cause. Resp. Br. at 22. In his testimony, Sedwick stated that he entered the property and followed the hose to its end because he did not believe he had sufficient evidence to obtain a search warrant. J.A. at 318 (Sedwick Test. at 81). The Supreme Court has stated, however, that “[s]ubjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis.” Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996). 7 reasoning was its determination that the pre-warrant search was an unconstitutional search of the curtilage of Wright’s residence. The government disputes this conclusion and argues that the officers’ actions were limited to the open fields of the property and therefore, not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. We need not reach the curtilage question, however, because assuming arguendo that the officers entered the curtilage of Wright’s residence without a warrant, we hold that including the omitted information in the search warrant affidavit is insufficient to dispel probable cause to search the property. We have stated that a Franks challenge is appropriate where “the affiant engaged in deliberate or reckless disregard of the truth in omitting the information from the affidavit.” United States v. Graham, 275 F.3d 490, 506 (6th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 1026 (2002). In this case, Sedwick neglected to include in the affidavit that several of the observations were discovered during a pre-warrant search of the property. Specifically, Sedwick included two discovered facts: that “[t]he pond is approximately 50 yards from the above residence on the above property;” and that “[s]ix more marijuana plants were located in the garden of Wright’s residence of 7840 SR 78.” J.A. at 30 (Search Warrant Aff.). After the assistant county prosecutor reviewed the affidavit, she added two additional statements to the affidavit: “[t]he six plants growing in the garden of 7840 are within the curtilage of the residence;” and “[c]urtilage includes mowed property of the residence and the garden and the pond.” J.A. at 30 (Search Warrant Aff.). Citing the county prosecutor’s language, the district court held that even if Sedwick had initially simply neglected to include that he and Hallowell had already searched Wright’s property, failure to include that fact after the county prosecutor added those statements “was, at a minimum, reckless.” J.A. at 231 (Dist. Ct. Mem. & Order at 26). We agree. Having been advised by the county prosecutor that the areas which he entered were constitutionally protected, Sedwick should have informed the state-court judge that 8 information contained in the affidavit was discovered during what the prosecutor believed was an unconstitutional search. Failure to do so was at least a reckless omission of a material fact. We have stated that if a defendant demonstrates “that the government affiant engaged in ‘deliberate falsehood’ or ‘reckless disregard for the truth’ in omitting information from the affidavit, the court must then consider the affidavit including the omitted portions and determine whether probable cause still exists.” Atkin, 107 F.3d at 1217. In this case, if Sedwick had included the fact that he and Hallowell had entered the curtilage of Wright’s residence without a warrant, the district court held that the state-court judge would have concluded that the warrant affidavit was tainted by an unconstitutional search. We have stated, however, that the mere fact that an affidavit contains facts gained through an illegal search does not necessarily require that the search warrant be voided. United States v. Jenkins, 396 F.3d 751, 760 (6th Cir. 2005). Similar to the analysis in Franks, we have held that where a warrant affidavit contains both tainted and untainted information, a court must consider “the sufficiency of the untainted affidavit to see if probable cause exists without the tainted information.” Id.; see also Karo v. United States, 468 U.S. 705, 719 (1984) (holding that “if sufficient untainted evidence was presented in the warrant affidavit to establish probable cause, the warrant was nevertheless valid”). In this case, as we noted above, the search warrant affidavit contains information gained as a result of the pre-warrant search of the property — specifically, the location of the pond and the discovery of six more marijuana plants in the garden. The warrant affidavit also contains information which was obtained prior to the pre-warrant search of the property. Most importantly, the police discovered the water hose running from the marijuana patch on federal land through a culvert under SR78 and onto Wright’s property. As we observed earlier, the water hose itself is sufficient to establish “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found” on 9 the property. Gates, 462 U.S. at 238. Therefore, we conclude, if Sedwick had included the omitted facts, the state-court judge would have found probable cause to search Wright’s property without considering the facts obtained in the pre-warrant search. Thus, the district court erred in determining that the omission of the material fact required the search warrant to be voided.2