Opinion ID: 346694
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the fact of misrepresentation

Text: 9 The government chiefly rests on its argument that the statement in question was correct in every detail, if ambiguous. Granted that an  inspection need not be visual and that one could designate by color a substance identified only by smell, a court's function is not to dissect the words of an affidavit at the request of either the accused or the prosecution. Consequently we agree with the court below: 10 (Reading) the statement in a commonsense fashion, it clearly misrepresents the true facts. An investigation that reveals a green vegetable substance implies that the inspectors have viewed the substance, and seeing contraband is materially different from smelling it, especially when highly relevant to a probable cause inquiry. 11 (R.40). While the DEA agent may have employed the label green vegetable substance out of an abundance of caution (as he testified) in attaching the label marijuana, the description by color is no less misleading, particularly in the context of an affidavit that has already mentioned odor, and could not reasonably have appeared otherwise. 12 The misstatement, moreover, was unquestionably material to the establishment of probable cause. Absent that statement, the affidavit says no more than that a baggage handler smelled a strong odor coming from the suitcases belonging to two young men suspicious by reason of a fictitious phone number given by the purchaser of their train tickets. As the court below observed, these remaining allegations cannot begin to demonstrate probable cause. 2 13 We concur also in the trial court's characterization of the misrepresentation as negligent. The reasonable implication of the words chosen by the affiant is that investigators viewed the substance in the suitcases. The record does not suggest that the affiant had any intention of deceiving the magistrate. Translating the report that investigators had smelled marijuana into the terms of the affidavit was nevertheless avoidable carelessness, as the trial court concluded. (R.42). 14