Opinion ID: 702365
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sufficiency of the Search Warrants

Text: 14 The Defendant challenges the District Court's finding that the affidavits which supported the search warrants issued for 5526 North 50th Street and 2563 Ellison Avenue established probable cause and justified a denial of the Defendant's motion to suppress. An appellate court reviewing a District Court's denial of his motion to suppress must only ensure that the District Court had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed. United States v. Sherrell, 979 F.2d 1315, 1317 (8th Cir.1992). The District Court's disposition of the motion to suppress will be upheld unless it is clearly erroneous. Id. 15 In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), the Supreme Court held that evidence obtained pursuant to a search warrant that was later found to be invalid, would not be excluded where it was demonstrated that the officer who executed the warrant did so with an objectively reasonable good faith reliance on the issuing judicial officer's determination of probable cause. The Defendant argues that this case falls within two of the exceptions to the good faith doctrine that were recognized in Leon. First, he claims that the affidavits supporting the warrants contained so few indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable. Leon, 468 U.S. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3421. Second, he claims the warrants themselves are so facially defective that no executing officer could reasonably presume them to be valid. 16 The Defendant's first argument is that reliance on the warrants was unreasonable because of Magistrate Judge Jaudzemis's failure to sign the jurat on the affidavit supporting the warrant for 5526 North 50th Street. The Defendant's position is that an affidavit not acknowledged by a judge is no affidavit at all, and therefore the warrant for 5526 North 50th Street was not supported by an affidavit containing sufficient indicia of probable cause. 17 There can be no contention that any clerical errors made in connection with the search warrant was the fault of Agent Schwers. Agent Schwers properly signed both the pre-printed application for a warrant to search 5526 North 50th Street and his affidavit supporting the application. It was Magistrate Judge Jaudzemis who, while properly signing the pre-printed application form, failed to acknowledge Agent Schwers' affidavit. The fact that the error was the fault of the judicial officer and not the police officer is important because of the Supreme Court's holding in Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 104 S.Ct. 3424, 82 L.Ed.2d 737 (1984). In Sheppard, the Court held: 18 In sum, the police conduct in this case clearly was objectively reasonable and largely error-free. An error of constitutional dimensions may have been committed with respect to the issuance of the warrant, but it was the judge, not the police officers, who made the critical mistake. [T]he exclusionary rule was adopted to deter unlawful searches by police, not to punish the errors of magistrates and judges. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 263, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2346, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (White, J., concurring in judgment). Suppressing evidence because the judge failed to make all the necessary clerical corrections despite his assurances that such changes would be made will not serve the deterrent function that the exclusionary rule was designed to achieve. 19 468 U.S. at 990-91, 104 S.Ct. at 3429. 20 Given the inapplicability of the exclusionary rule to clerical mistakes by judges, it cannot be said the affidavit in question is not sufficient merely because it lacks the acknowledgment of the Magistrate Judge. This being the case, and after review of the affidavit, this Court finds that the affidavit in question did contain sufficient indicia of probable cause to support the issuance of a search warrant pursuant to Leon. 21 The Defendant's second argument is that the affidavits supporting the warrants for both 5526 North 50th Street and 2563 Ellison Avenue are so facially defective that no police officer could reasonably presume them to be valid. After review of the affidavits this Court rejects this argument. The warrants contain a sufficient recitation of facts so that the police officers who executed these warrants could have, and did, execute them with an objectively reasonable good faith reliance on the probable cause determination of the Magistrate Judge. The execution of the search warrants thereby fall within the good faith exception in Leon. 22 For these reasons we find that the District Court's denial of the Defendant's motion to suppress was not clearly erroneous.