Opinion ID: 387282
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: administration of the oath

Text: 17 As we noted earlier, Rule 41(c)(2)(D) requires that the magistrate immediately placed under oath each person whose testimony forms a basis of the application in the event of a request for a telephonic search warrant. Agent Lucchesi was not placed under oath until after he had completed giving the oral affidavit of probable cause. 3 Johnson argues that noncompliance with this provision of the Rule requires suppression. 18 In United States v. Shorter, 600 F.2d 585 (6th Cir. 1979), the Sixth Circuit adopted a principle which supports Johnson's position. The Shorter court reasoned that Congress intended to bring the oath requirement of the fourth amendment in line with modern day technology by requiring in Rule 41 that oaths be given in advance of oral probable cause affidavits. The court further reasoned that the purpose of the oath requirement, to impress upon the affiant the solemnity of the occasion and the need to tell the truth, required that it read rule 41(c)(2)(D) to speak more of substance than procedure. . . .  600 F.2d at 589. Accordingly, it held that the failure to place the affiant immediately under oath required suppression. See also United States v. Turner, 558 F.2d 46 (2d Cir. 1977). 19 We do not agree with Shorter, and reach an opposite result. Under the test enunciated in Radlick, supra, we find that the failure to place Agent Lucchesi immediately under oath constitutes non-fundamental noncompliance with Rule 41 and does not require suppression. Agent Lucchesi undoubtedly would have given his testimony in substantially identical form had the oath been taken prior to the rendering of the oral affidavit. No prejudice resulted from the timing of the oath. Again, we do not condone noncompliance; we merely hold that this is not the magnitude of violation which requires suppression. 4 Rule 52(a), F.R.Cr.Pr. 20 With respect to Parts III and IV, we emphasize that Johnson does not urge any violation of constitutional proportions. Nor does he urge that the search and the seizure would not have occurred or would have been less intrusive or abrasive if these technical violations of Rule 41 had not been present. All of the interests sought to be preserved by the Fourth Amendment and implemented by Rule 41 were preserved in this case for the protection of Johnson. Primary among these is the preservation of a record for subsequent judicial scrutiny. Even with the technical violations, the search and seizure was not unreasonable under Fourth Amendment standards. The transgressions of the rule do not in any degree touch upon guilt or innocence. We decline to extend the exclusionary rule under these circumstances. United States v. Turner, supra, at 52-53.