Opinion ID: 2803109
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Duty of Further Inquiry.

Text: The appellant's second claim of error raises a question of law, which engenders de novo review. See United States v. Garcia-Hernandez, 659 F.3d 108, 111 (1st Cir. 2011). This claim is premised on Nolet's omission of information not actually known to her at the time that she prepared the warrant application, but potentially available had she inquired further. The appellant argues that Nolet was given ample reason to doubt Wiggin's veracity and that her failure to undertake a further inquiry evinced a reckless disregard for the truth. Had she undertaken such a 2 Our rejection of this claim of error should not be understood to foreclose a reassessment of probable cause by the district court if, on remand, it finds that Nolet was reckless in failing to inquire further and unearth other relevant information (such as Wiggin's false report conviction). The relative weight of these three clusters of information might be altered if the totality of the circumstances were to include additional data about Wiggin's past. -14- further inquiry, his argument goes, she would have learned about a critically important fact — Wiggin's false report conviction — that would have eviscerated the showing of probable cause. At first blush, black-letter law may seem inhospitable to the appellant's argument. The prevailing view is that [t]he failure to investigate a matter fully, to 'exhaust every possible lead, interview all potential witnesses, and accumulate overwhelming corroborative evidence' rarely suggests a knowing or reckless disregard for the truth. Beard v. City of Northglenn, 24 F.3d 110, 116 (10th Cir. 1994) (quoting United States v. Dale, 991 F.2d 819, 844 (D.C. Cir. 1993)). Ordinarily, this makes good sense: when the affiant has no substantial reason to doubt the veracity or completeness of the information included in her affidavit, a failure either to verify the accuracy of that information or to go in search of contrary information is not reckless. See, e.g., United States v. Santana, 342 F.3d 60, 66 (1st Cir. 2003); United States v. Ranney, 298 F.3d 74, 78 (1st Cir. 2002). But this general rule — like virtually every general rule — admits of at least one exception. To understand the operation of this exception, some background is necessary. The Franks Court established that a defendant is entitled to an evidentiary hearing to test the veracity of a warrant affidavit if he can make a substantial showing that the affiant, -15- with reckless disregard for the truth, included a materially false statement in the affidavit. See 438 U.S. at 155-56. We have previously held that a material omission from a warrant affidavit, no less than the inclusion of a materially false statement, may furnish the basis for a successful Franks challenge when that omission was made with similar recklessness. See, e.g., Hadfield, 918 F.2d at 992. Withal, the Supreme Court in Franks gave no guidance concerning what constitutes a reckless disregard for the truth in fourth amendment cases, except to state that 'negligence or innocent mistake [is] insufficient.' United States v. Davis, 617 F.2d 677, 694 (D.C. Cir. 1979) (alteration in original) (quoting Franks, 438 U.S. at 171). We have added our own gloss in an attempt to lend color to this standard. In United States v. Ranney, we explained that reckless disregard for the truth may be proven either by evidence that the affiant 'in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth' of the allegations contained in the affidavit, or by inference 'from circumstances evincing obvious reasons to doubt the veracity of the allegations.' 298 F.3d at 78 (quoting United States v. Williams, 737 F.2d 594, 602 (7th Cir. 1984)). With this preface, we turn to the appellant's specific claim of error. We start with the district court's supportable finding that, when proffering the warrant application, Nolet -16- understood full well that [Wiggin's] credibility was at issue, based on his [altered prescription] conviction, if nothing else.3 Tanguay, 907 F. Supp. 2d at 182. Yet, Nolet did nothing further to check Wiggin's background, not even taking the seemingly easy and obvious step of asking Sergeant [Broyer] what he meant by 'scrapes.' Id. In the district court's view, Nolet could have — and almost certainly should have — learned [about the false report conviction] before seeking the warrant. Id. The court nonetheless concluded that, as a matter of law, a failure to investigate fully could not constitute a reckless disregard for the truth. See id. (citing cases). The court therefore held that it could not treat Wiggin's false report[] conviction, or any other part of his criminal history aside from his [altered prescription] conviction, as a reckless omission for purposes of the Franks analysis. Id. at 182-83. We think that the district court painted with too broad a brush. Its rejection of the appellant's claim rested on the erroneous assumption that a Franks violation could not arise out of a failure to include in a warrant affidavit facts not actually known to the affiant. See id. at 182. The rule is simply not so categorical. 3 Of course, this altered prescription conviction is different from the juvenile false report conviction (about which Nolet had no knowledge). -17- Here, Nolet had some reason to doubt the veracity of her informant. Broyer, a fellow police officer, had portrayed Wiggin as quirky, troubled, and possibly afflicted by some degree of mental instability. In addition, Nolet knew that Wiggin's history included the altered prescription conviction and that he had experienced other scrapes with the law. Given that Nolet's case for probable cause depended entirely on Wiggin's account, we think that this web of circumstantial evidence sent up a red flag — and that red flag may have been sufficient to create a duty of further inquiry. See United States v. Chesher, 678 F.2d 1353, 1361-62 (9th Cir. 1982). To sum up, our holding is that the district court erred in ruling as a matter of law that an affiant never has a duty to make further inquiry before presenting a warrant application to a magistrate.4 Because the court below, erroneously relying on its categorical disavowal of any duty of further inquiry, did not pose any of the further questions that had to be asked, we must regard its order denying the appellant's motion to suppress as without 4 The cases cited by the district court for its categorical proposition that no duty of further inquiry ever exists, see Tanguay, 907 F. Supp. 2d at 182, do not mandate so rigid a rule. In each of those cases, the Franks challenge failed because the affiant had no reason to doubt the truthfulness of the allegations that undergirded the showing of probable cause. See Ranney, 298 F.3d at 78; Castillo, 287 F.3d at 26; United States v. Miller, 753 F.2d 1475, 1478 (9th Cir. 1985). -18- force pending the completion of the further proceedings described below. This holding is not at odds with our earlier holding that the district court supportably found probable cause based on the reformed affidavit. See supra Part II(A). All that is required to trigger an officer's duty of further inquiry is her knowledge of an obvious and unexplored reason to doubt the truthfulness of the allegations. See Ranney, 298 F.3d at 78. When confronted with such a red flag, the officer should look into the matter even if she does not believe that what she will discover is likely to vitiate probable cause. After all, the officer is the only party who, in this context, has the tools to undertake any meaningful investigative work. The trigger for further investigation may function even when the officer's obvious reason only serves to diminish her confidence to some modest degree. Pieces of evidence should not be assessed in isolation: the whole sometimes can exceed the sum of the parts, and the appropriate test focuses on the totality of the circumstances. Mariko v. Holder, 632 F.3d 1, 6-7 (1st Cir. 2011). A district court is in a different position. The court is tasked with making a judgment based on what appears within the four corners of the affidavit (in this case, the reformed affidavit). It is entitled to assume that the warrant affidavit is the product of a good-faith investigation and provides a reasonably -19- complete picture of the circumstances relevant to probable cause. See Franks, 438 U.S. at 171 (recognizing presumption of validity of warrant affidavit). Relying on this implicit representation, a court may reasonably find probable cause despite some level of concern about the completeness of the investigation. While the court below plainly entertained some doubts based on Nolet's failure to follow investigatory leads, see Tanguay, 907 F. Supp. 2d at 181-82, those doubts were in the end insufficient to erode probable cause. Of course, explanation of those doubts may paint a different picture. If and when the court is at liberty to factor the results of a further investigation into the mix, its judgment may change. The questions that remain are fact-sensitive, and the answers are not so apparent that we can decide them without the benefit of additional factfinding. Consequently, we must return the case to the district court so that it can make the requisite findings. On remand, the court must first determine whether the information known to Nolet gave her an obvious reason to doubt Wiggin's truthfulness and, thus, triggered a duty of further inquiry. If so, the court then must ask whether Nolet's doubts were of such a magnitude that her failure to conduct an additional inquiry evinced a reckless disregard for the truth as opposed to, say, mere negligence. See Ranney, 298 F.3d at 78. In responding -20- to these two questions, the court is not bound by an affiant's declaration that she firmly believed in the credibility of the informant or the truth of his story. Rather, the court may evaluate such a declaration in light of circumstantial evidence indicating that the affiant had obvious reasons to doubt the veracity of the informant or the accuracy of his reports. St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 732 (1968). If the answers to these initial questions are in the affirmative, the court must ask a third question: whether Nolet, had she made a good-faith effort to dispel those doubts, would have discovered new information that warranted inclusion in her affidavit. And if the answer to this third question is also in the affirmative, the court must consider yet a fourth question: whether the affidavit, expanded to include that new information, would continue to support a finding of probable cause. See Castillo, 287 F.3d at 26. We take no view as to either the answers to these questions or the outcome of the proceedings on remand.