Opinion ID: 538915
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Heading: introduction

Text: On April 18, 1988, four grams of cocaine and $298,919.00 in cash were seized from Rene Corral-Corral's vehicle pursuant to a traffic stop and consent search near Laramie, Wyoming. Several hours later, law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant from a California state municipal judge for Corral's residence in Pittsburg, California. Pursuant to this search warrant, the officers seized one kilogram of cocaine, a small quantity of marijuana, a Browning B-80 12-gauge shotgun, a Remington 22-caliber bolt action rifle and a Browning 380 automatic handgun. In a thorough opinion, the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming upheld the traffic stop and consent search of Corral's vehicle, but suppressed the evidence seized from Corral's residence, rejecting the state municipal judge's probable cause determination. United States v. Corral-Corral, 702 F.Supp. 1539, 1547-51 (D.Wyo.1988). Specifically, the district court found that a small quantity of drugs and a large sum of money found in a vehicle pursuant to a consent search [did not] amount to probable cause to search a residence 1000 miles away. Corral, 702 F.Supp. at 1548. Moreover, the district court refused to apply the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule as set forth in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), concluding that the affidavit was 'so lacking in the indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence unreasonable.'  Corral, 702 F.Supp. at 1550. The government appeals pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3731. 1 Assuming but not holding that the affidavit fails to establish probable cause, we believe the district court erred in refusing to apply the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule as set forth in Leon. Specifically, we find that the affidavit was not so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable, and hold that the officers' reliance on the probable cause determination of the state municipal judge was objectively reasonable. Leon, 468 U.S. at 923, 926, 104 S.Ct. at 3420, 3422. Accordingly, we REVERSE.