Opinion ID: 1763820
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: False Material, Misleading Information, or Omissions in the Affidavit

Text: Instead of Rule 13.1(b), the trial court should have applied Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), which contains the proper analysis for determining whether false material, misleading information, or omissions render an affidavit in support of a search warrant fatally defective. [1] In Franks, two police officers signed an affidavit that declared, in material part, that: 15. On Tuesday, 3/9/76, your affiant contacted Mr. James Williams and Mr. Wesley Lucas of the Delaware Youth Center where Jerome Franks is employed and did have personal conversation with both these people. 16. On Tuesday, 3/9/76, Mr. James Williams revealed to your affiant that the normal dress of Jerome Franks does consist of a white knit thermal undershirt and a brown leather jacket. 17. On Tuesday, 3/9/76, Mr. Wesley Lucas revealed to your affiant that in addition to the thermal undershirt and jacket, Jerome Franks often wears a dark green knit hat. Id. (emphasis added). After the search warrant was issued and executed, it was discovered that the affiant officers had not personally interviewed the two witnesses mentioned above, and that the descriptions given by the witnesses were somewhat different from what was recited in the affidavit. Id. The trial court refused to grant a suppression hearing on this basis. Id. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court held that: where the defendant makes a substantial preliminary showing that a false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, was included by the affiant in the warrant affidavit, and if the allegedly false statement is necessary to the finding of probable cause, the Fourth Amendment requires that a hearing be held at the defendant's request. In the event that at that hearing the allegation of perjury or reckless disregard is established by the defendant by a preponderance of the evidence, and, with the affidavit's false material set to one side, the affidavit's remaining content is insufficient to establish probable cause, the search warrant must be voided and the fruits of the search excluded to the same extent as if probable cause was lacking on the face of the affidavit. Id. (emphasis added). Upon remand, the Delaware Supreme Court excised the false information from the affidavit, and determined that the remaining portions were sufficient to establish probable cause such that it was not even necessary to hold a suppression hearing on the issue. Franks v. State, 398 A.2d 783 (Del.1979). Since Franks was handed down in 1978, courts have consistently held that a warrant should be invalidated if a defendant shows by a preponderance of evidence: 1) that the affiant made a false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, and 2) that with the affidavit's false material set to one side, the affidavit's remaining content is insufficient to establish probable cause. United States v. Clapp, 46 F.3d 795 (8th Cir.1995); Pyle v. State, 314 Ark. 165, 862 S.W.2d 823 (1993). Similarly, when an officer omits facts from an affidavit, the evidence will be suppressed if the defendant establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that: 1) the officer omitted facts knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard, and 2) the affidavit, if supplemented with the omitted information, is insufficient to establish probable cause. United States v. Buchanan, 167 F.3d 1207 (8th Cir.1999); Pyle, supra . This is not the first time that we have been faced with an affidavit where the affiant officer failed to disclose to the issuing judge that part of the information contained therein was obtained from a different officer. In Pyle, supra , the affiant officer asserted that he identified Mr. Pyle talking to an intermediary in a controlled drug buy when in actuality the identification was made by another officer who did not sign the warrant. Pyle, supra . We held that this error did not constitute a Franks violation. Id. As in Pyle , we conclude that Mr. Rufus has not satisfied his burden of establishing a Franks violation in this case. First, in light of the trial court's findings that there was no purposeful wrongdoing on the part of the officer but that it was merely an ministerial error, oversight, in signing the affidavit for a search warrant, we cannot say that Officer Baugh misled the judge knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard. Furthermore, Officer Baugh's conduct was less egregious than that in Franks, supra, where the officers wrote the affidavit in the first person and affirmatively stated on three occasions that they had personally spoken to the witnesses, when in fact, they had not. In contrast, Officer Baugh wrote the affidavit in the third person and, more importantly, never affirmatively stated that he had any personal knowledge of the facts contained in the affidavit. In fact, his affidavit begins with the declaration that he has reason to believe that the information contained therein is true. Hence, we conclude that Mr. Rufus has failed to satisfy the first prong of the Franks test. As to the second prong of Franks, we must decide whether the affidavit, if supplemented with the omitted information, would not have supported a finding of probable cause. Again, we must answer this question in the negative in light of the court's finding that it wouldn't have had any problem in sustaining and upholding the search warrant had the officer applying for the warrant indicated the source and nature of his information or had the officer that provided the information jointly signed the search warrant. Likewise, the court also found that the affidavit certainly would have been valid if Officer Andrews had signed and acknowledged the affidavit. Simply put, because the trial court would have upheld the search warrant even if the affidavit had disclosed that the information came from Officer Andrews instead of Officer Baugh, we cannot say that the omission rendered the affidavit fatally defective under Franks. Accordingly, we reverse the order of suppression and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The dissenting opinion contends that it is improper for us to reach the Franks analysis because it was not raised below. We disagree. Although neither of the parties nor the trial court specifically cited Franks, their arguments were based on the Franks holding. For instance, Mr. Rufus's argument to the trial court was that the search warrant was fatally defective because Officer Baugh failed to disclose that the affidavit was based on hearsay from Officer Andrews. Although Mr. Rufus and the trial court labeled this a Rule 13.1(b) argument, it is, as explained above, a Franks argument. Likewise, the State argued that the court should overlook the error because it was a good-faith mistake that did not affect the probable-cause determination. In making this argument, the State incorrectly referred to Leon instead of Franks. We cannot honestly say that the parties failed to develop the Franks argument below simply because they referred to it by the wrong name. Furthermore, we emphasize that the trial court rendered rulings on the two-prongs of the Franks analysis. Because the Franks arguments were made below and the trial court rendered the necessary rulings, we disagree with the dissenting opinion's assertion that this is a straw-man issue. We also disagree with the dissenting opinion's contention that this holding will water down Rule 13.1(b) and allow police officers henceforth to fail to disclose to a judge that the affidavit includes hearsay from another officer. The crucial facts of this case, which the dissenting opinion overlooks, are that the trial court found that Officer Baugh's mistake was a good-faith, ministerial error, and that the error did not affect the probable-cause determination. Based on the unique facts presented by this case, we cannot say that these findings are clearly erroneous or against the preponderance of the evidence. However, in future cases it is very possible that a trial court could find that the nondisclosure occurred in bad-faith and was material to the determination of probable cause. Under such circumstances, the seized evidence would have to be suppressed. Faced with such a consequence, officers in future cases would be remiss if they knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard failed to disclose that the affidavit included hearsay from another officer. The dissenting opinion refers to the objective standard used in Leon and asserts, without citation to authority, that [d]irect knowledge or disclosure of hearsay is essential to the validity of a warrant. In making this assertion, the dissenting opinion claims that we have missed the real issue in this case. We only need to turn to the facts of Franks to realize that this argument goes astray. In so few cases are we able to rely on a United States Supreme Court opinion that is directly on point. As in this case, the police officers in Franks failed to disclose that the affidavit included hearsay from another officer. As mentioned above, the facts of Franks were more egregious than this case because there the officers affirmatively declared that the information was based on their personal knowledge, whereas in this case the officers made no such affirmative misrepresentation and instead merely failed to disclose that fact to the judge. But what is more important about Franks, which the dissenting opinion has lost sight of, is that the Supreme Court gave us the exact legal analysis to use when officers make such an error. Different from the Leon analysis, the Franks analysis includes both a good-faith or intention prong and a materiality prong. As to the first prong, the dissenting opinion refers to the Leon objective standard and contends that a mere negligent nondisclosure is enough to render the warrant invalid. The Franks analysis, however, does not employ a negligence standard. Instead, the nondisclosure must be knowing, intentional, or reckless. Furthermore, the dissenting opinion has not even mentioned the materiality requirement, which is essential to a Franks analysis. In sum, the dissenting opinion has run astray because it relies upon Rule 13.1(b) and Leon , while ignoring the clear and applicable test established in Franks.