Opinion ID: 736643
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Good Faith Exception to the First Search Warrant

Text: 27 Neither party challenges the magistrate judge's conclusion that the first search warrant lacked probable cause due to the mistaken dates in the narrative statement. However, defendants assert as error the magistrate judge's conclusion that the evidence seized pursuant to the first search warrant need not be suppressed under the good faith exception to the warrant requirement. We review the District Court's conclusion that officers reasonably and in good faith relied on a search warrant de novo. United States v. Bowling, 900 F.2d 926, 930 (6th Cir.1990). 28 In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), the Supreme Court announced the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule wherein the suppression of evidence obtained pursuant to an invalid search warrant is suppressed only in those cases where suppression will further the purposes of the judicially created exclusionary rule. In creating the good faith exception, the Court recognized that the purpose of the exclusionary rule, to deter police misconduct, is not served by suppressing evidence seized by an officer in reliance on a facially valid search warrant. Id. at 919-21. As long as an officer's reliance on the issuing judge's determination of probable cause is objectively reasonable, evidence seized pursuant to an ultimately invalid search warrant need not be suppressed. Id. at 922. In Leon, the Court enumerated the following four situations in which an officer's reliance would be unreasonable: (1) where the affiant included information in the affidavit that he knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard of the truth and that information misled the issuing judicial officer; (2) where the issuing judge wholly abandons his or her judicial role; (3) where the affidavit is so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its validity entirely unreasonable; and (4) where the warrant itself was so facially deficient that the executing officers could not reasonably presume it to be valid. Id. at 923. 29 Defendants argue that all four circumstances exist justifying our refusal to apply the good faith exception. They allege that the erroneous dates in the affidavit and the affidavit's failure to indicate any corroboration or independent investigation on the part of the officers are sufficient to constitute reckless disregard of the truth, an affidavit so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its validity entirely unreasonable, and a warrant so facially deficient that the executing officers could not reasonably presume it to be valid. Lastly, they argue that the warrant was not issued by a neutral and detached magistrate judge because the issuing judge had only refused to issue five warrants of approximately two hundred in his eighteen years on the bench. 30 We, however, find that none of these four circumstances exist in the present case. First, unlike the cases cited by the defendants, the officers here did not furnish information that was false or in reckless disregard of the truth. In comparison, the officer in United States v. Baxter, 889 F.2d 731 (6th Cir.1989), misrepresented to the magistrate judge the nature and character of the source of his information; he did not disclose that his source was an anonymous tipster who had not provided reliable information in the past and whose reliability was not corroborated. In the instant case, there is no evidence that any deficiency in the affidavit resulted from a knowing misstatement or reckless falsity on the part of the officer. 7 31 We also do not find that the affidavit was so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its validity entirely unreasonable or that the warrant itself was so facially deficient that the executing officers could not reasonably presume it to be valid. The principal officers involved in the search, Officers Bratcher and Vickous, had considerable knowledge of their own to support an objective belief that the warrant and the supporting affidavit were sufficient. Long gave detailed information about the stolen property, the Dilaudid, and the location of the goods and controlled substances. Additionally, Long identified the Merediths' residence and drew a diagram of the interior. Further, Long's statements were against his own penal interest, another basis for reliability. See United States v. Czuprynski, 46 F.3d 560, 564 (6th Cir.1995) (en banc). If there was a mistake in determining probable cause in this case either due to the mistaken dates recited in the affidavit or by the lack of corroboration, it was made by the state magistrate judge who issued the warrant. Penalizing the officer for the magistrate's error, rather than his own, cannot logically contribute to the deterrence of Fourth Amendment violations. Leon at 921. 32 Finally, defendants' recitation of the number of warrants the magistrate judge issued as compared to the number he refused to issue is insufficient to conclude that the magistrate judge was not acting as a detached and neutral judicial officer. The District Court properly applied the good faith exception to the first search warrant.