Opinion ID: 2972797
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutional Validity of the Search Warrant

Text: Because the Athens County Court of Common Pleas previously determined, in the context of ruling on a motion to suppress in Eric Knott’s criminal trial, that the Defendants’ search of Knott’s 1988 Plymouth Horizon did violate the Fourth Amendment, we must decide, as an initial matter, what preclusive effect (if any) should be given to this prior state-court determination. Because Knott would have us give preclusive effect to an Ohio state-court determination, we look to Ohio’s law of issue preclusion to resolve this question. See McKinley v. City of Mansfield, 404 F.3d 418, 428 (6th Cir. 2005). As this court has previously explained, Ohio’s: “doctrine of issue preclusion, also known as collateral estoppel, holds that a fact or a point that was actually and directly at issue in a previous action, and was passed upon and determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, may not be drawn into question in a subsequent action between the same parties or their privies, whether the cause of action in the two actions be identical or different.” Boone v. Spurgess, 385 F.3d 923, 927 n.4 (6th Cir. 2004) (quoting State ex rel. Stacy v. Batavia Local Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 779 N.E.2d 216, 219 (Ohio 2002)). Under Ohio law, the burden of demonstrating that these requirements have been satisfied rests with the party asserting that issue preclusion should apply. See Goodson v. McDonough Power Equip., Inc., 443 N.E.2d 978, 985 (Ohio 1983). The district court below concluded that preclusive effect should not be given to the state-court suppression order on two grounds. First, the district court ruled that issue preclusion should not apply because “[t]he general rule in Ohio is that a judgment in a criminal proceeding cannot operate as res judicata, or collateral estoppel, in a civil action to establish any fact determined in the criminal proceeding.” J.A. at 20-21 (D. Ct. Op. at 7-8) (citing State ex rel. Ferguson v. Court of Claims of Ohio, Victims of Crime Div., 98 Ohio St. 3d 399, 403-04 (2003)). Second, the district court also determined that giving preclusive effect to the Ohio trial court’s suppression order would be improper because none of the parties in this case had been parties in the prior state-court criminal proceeding, and the Defendants had not had a full and fair opportunity to litigate their position as privies of the State of Ohio. In her brief on appeal, Knott has not addressed these arguments or otherwise explained why issue preclusion should apply in this case. See Hill v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mich., 409 F.3d 710, 716 n.2 (6th Cir. 2005) (deeming issue not raised on appeal as waived) (citing Radvansky v. City of Olmsted Falls, 395 F.3d 291, 310-11 (6th Cir. 2005)). Moreover, it does not appear that the district court’s decision was in error. See Boone, 385 F.3d at 927 n.4 (noting that “Ohio state courts generally frown upon the use of criminal proceedings to estop parties in subsequent civil proceedings.”); cf. Shamaeizadeh v. Cunigan, 338 F.3d 535, 546 n.4 (6th Cir. 2003) (in § 1983 suit, declining to collaterally estop defendant police officers from asserting the validity of a search because, although the police officers had testified at the suppression hearing, they had not received a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 1041 (2004). Thus, we decline to give preclusive effect to the state-court suppression order and instead consider de novo the constitutional validity of the search warrant. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in part that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” U.S. CONST. amend. IV. In determining whether a warrant describes with sufficient particularity the place to be searched, we consider: “(1) whether the place to be searched is described with sufficient particularity as to enable the executing officers to locate and identify the premises with reasonable effort; and (2) whether there is reasonable probability that some other premises may be mistakenly searched.” United States v. Gahagan, 865 F.2d 1490, 1497 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 492 U.S. 918 (1989). In the case at bar, the parties do not dispute the fact that the warrant and its supporting affidavit inaccurately described the vehicle to be searched. This court has previously ruled, however, that technical No. 04-3045 Knott v. Sullivan et al. Page 5 inaccuracies in a warrant do not automatically render unconstitutional searches conducted pursuant to such a warrant. Rather, we must consider whether, given the circumstances of the particular case, there was a reasonable probability that another location could have been mistakenly searched because of the inaccuracies contained in the warrant. See United States v. Durk, 149 F.3d 464, 465 (6th Cir. 1998) (“The test for determining whether a search warrant describes the premises to be searched with sufficient particularity is not whether the description is technically accurate in every detail, but rather whether the description is sufficient to enable the executing officer to locate and identify the premises with reasonable effort, and whether there is any reasonable probability that another premises might be mistakenly searched.”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also United States v. Pelayo-Landero, 285 F.3d 491, 496 (6th Cir. 2002). Based on the record before us, we conclude that, in this case, the errors in the search warrant and affidavit were so extensive that there was a reasonable probability that the wrong vehicle could have been mistakenly searched. Here, virtually every descriptor of the vehicle included in the search warrant and accompanying affidavit was incorrect: the vehicle’s make and model were wrong, the vehicle identification number was wrong, and the vehicle’s license plate number was wrong. Indeed, the only portion of the description contained in the warrant that appears to have been correct is the statement that the vehicle was “[l]ocated at the ACSO [Athens County Sheriff’s Office] garage.” J.A. at 58 (Search Warrant); J.A. at 59 (Search Warrant Affidavit). The danger that another vehicle could be mistakenly searched is further heightened in this case by the fact that the erroneous information included in the search warrant and affidavit did (accurately) describe another vehicle owned by a member of the Knott family, which could have also been the target of a search as part of the ongoing investigation into the Malcolm murders. Notwithstanding the extensive errors in the search warrant and affidavit, the district court concluded that the Defendants’ execution of the search warrant was still constitutionally permissible because Defendant Flickinger, the police officer who prepared the search warrant and affidavit, also participated in the execution of the search. It is true that this court has previously upheld searches conducted pursuant to warrants listing incorrect addresses or property descriptions in part because the police officers involved in executing the search had also served as affiants or were otherwise familiar with the location to be searched. See Pelayo-Landero, 285 F.3d at 497; Durk, 149 F.3d at 466; Gahagan, 865 F.2d at 1499. However, we believe that the risk of misidentification created by the defective warrants in those cases was markedly less severe than is at issue in the case presently before us. In Gahagan, we upheld the constitutionality of a search of a wood cabin with an address of 7577 Douglas Lake Road, even though the search warrant only listed the address 7609 Douglas Lake Road. In reaching such a conclusion, we explained that, although the address listed in the warrant did not include the cabin, the affidavit accompanying the warrant did clarify that the wood cabin was included as part of the premises to be searched. See Gahagan, 865 F.2d at 1492, 1497 (noting that information in the affidavit, including the statement that “‘[a]lso located on the property is a single story wood frame log cabin-type structure painted dark brown in color,’” “sufficiently described both House B and Cabin #3 so that the executing officers could reasonably ascertain the premises to be searched” as including both structures). By contrast, in the case at bar, the affidavit accompanying the search warrant contains the same errors as those included in the search warrant, and the affidavit contains no additional information beyond that already in the warrant that would indicate to the executing officer that the 1988 Plymouth Horizon was the vehicle to be searched. Moreover, while in Gahagan we were presented with a search warrant that, on its face, authorized a more narrow search than the one actually conducted, in this case the defect in the warrant is not vagueness or narrowness but rather wholesale inaccuracy. In Durk, we upheld a search of a residence, notwithstanding the fact that the warrant contained two errors: “(1) the transposition of the house numbers from 4216 to 4612, and (2) the description of [the defendant’s] house as ‘3 houses to the east of Grandview’ — in fact, it was three houses to the west of Grandview.” Durk, 149 F.3d at 465. In so ruling, we noted that other portions of the warrant accurately described the residence to be searched and included a reference to a particularly unusual feature of the No. 04-3045 Knott v. Sullivan et al. Page 6 property. See id. at 466 (“The warrant correctly identifies the house as a single-family red brick ranch home on the north side of Fulton street. Although brick, ranch style homes may be common in Shaw’s neighborhood, the warrant also describes a more unusual feature: a ten by fifteen foot metal storage shed, the entrance of which is secured by a plastic tie.”). Similarly, in Pelayo-Landero, we upheld the denial of a suppression motion brought by a defendant who claimed that the address for the mobile home that was searched was “in all likelihood 1412 Mae Collins Road, Lot #3,” not 1418 Mae Collins Road as listed in the warrant. 285 F.3d at 497. In reaching such a conclusion, we noted that the defendant did not definitively assert that the address listed in the warrant was incorrect, and that even if the address had been wrong, the warrant included other information (such as “specific directions from an identifiable point to the mobile home park at 1418 Mae Collins Road,” the color and trim of the trailer, the presence of a wooden deck, and the existence of “the number 954 displayed under a window air conditioner on the right end of the trailer”) that pointed the police officers to the correct location. Id. In this case, on the other hand, the only accurate portion of the vehicle description included in the warrant is the fact that the 1988 Plymouth Horizon was stored in the Athens County Sheriff’s garage. Such information may be of limited usefulness in identifying which particular vehicle is to be searched, however, given that many vehicles may be stored in the county garage at any one time, and the vehicles stored in the garage may change between the time the search warrant is issued and the time it is executed. In sum, in this case we conclude (as did the state court) that, in light of the profound errors contained in the search warrant and affidavit, the search of Knott’s 1988 Plymouth Horizon cannot be upheld as the lawful execution of a valid search warrant. Here, we are not presented with the mere transposition of digits in a license plate or vehicle identification number or a minor mistake in the description of one portion of the vehicle, but rather the wholesale inclusion of another vehicle’s make, model, year, license plate number, and vehicle identification number. Indeed, the vehicle described in the search warrant was not simply just another vehicle, but rather one owned by the father of a person suspected of committing a double murder. Given these circumstances, there was more than a reasonable probability that the incorrect vehicle could have been searched, notwithstanding the fact that the affiant was involved in executing the search and the warrant noted that the vehicle was stored in the Athens County Sheriff’s garage.