Opinion ID: 178765
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Probable Cause and the Good-Faith Exception

Text: The Fourth Amendment requires probable cause to conduct a search in a criminal investigation. See Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 328 (1987) (“A dwelling-place search . . . requires probable cause”). Probable cause is “a fair probability that contraband or other evidence will be found in a particular place.” United States v. Biglow, 562 F.3d 1272, 1281 (10th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). In determining probable cause, magistrates may rely on the expert opinions of law-enforcement officers regarding where evidence might be kept. See id. at 1279. To enforce Fourth Amendment requirements, the exclusionary rule generally bars use of evidence obtained through a search or seizure that violates the Amendment, see United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 906–08 (1984), thereby deterring law-enforcement officers from violating it, see id. at 906. Excluding the evidence, however, will not always have the desired deterrent effect. In particular, the Supreme Court in Leon recognized that the exclusion of “reliable physical evidence seized by officers reasonably relying on a warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate” does not serve the primary purpose of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule—deterrence of police misconduct. Id. at 913. -4- Thus, Leon created the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule, which allows evidence obtained in such circumstances to be used at trial. See id. at 922; United States v. Gonzalez, 399 F.3d 1225, 1229 (10th Cir. 2005) (“Leon established that evidence obtained pursuant to a warrant that is later found to be defective is not properly excluded when the warrant is relied on by the officers in objective good faith.”). This is not to say that the exclusionary rule never applies when officers execute a warrant issued by a magistrate. Leon noted four situations in which the good-faith exception would not apply because reliance on the warrant by the officers would not be objectively reasonable: (1) if the affidavit for the warrant is “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable”; (2) if the issuing magistrate was “misled by information in an affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard for the truth”; (3) if the magistrate “wholly abandoned his judicial role”; and (4) if a warrant is “so facially deficient . . . that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.” 468 U.S. at 923 (internal quotation marks omitted).