Opinion ID: 3012593
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Where the magistrate issued the warrant in

Text: reliance on a deliberately or recklessly false affidavit; 2. Where the magistrate abandoned his or her judicial role and failed to perform his or her neutral and detached function; 3. Where the warrant was based on an affidavit so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable; or 4. Where the warrant was so facially deficient that it failed to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized. Hodge, 246 F.3d at 308; see also Leon , 468 U.S. at 923. Zimmerman contends that all but the second situation apply here. If, of course, just one is present, application of the good faith exception will not be triggered. We, therefore, will address but one. The affidavit of Sergeant O'Connor so lacked the requisite indicia of probable cause that it was entirely unreasonable for an official to believe to the contrary. O'Connor applied for a warrant authorizing the seizure of images of both adult and child pornography, was the author of the supporting affidavit, and was one of the executing officers. In that affidavit, O'Connor recited information indicating that a single video clip of a woman engaged in oral sex with a horse was located on a computer in Zimmerman's home no earlier than six months before the search. As discussed above, this information was stale. Moreover, there was nothing that transpired over that six month period to even suggest that a hurried judgment had to be made to seek the warrant, excusing any reasonable mistake; indeed, the police had complete control over the timing.7 And, of course, while the warrant also _________________________________________________________________ 7. At the time he applied for the warrant, Sergeant O'Connor had no real reason to question the reliability of the mother's statement given to him 14 specifically authorized a search for child pornography, nothing in the affidavit indicated that such pornography was ever in Zimmerman's home. Any reasonably well-trained officer in the stationhouse shop would recognize as clearly insufficient the affidavit that was presented to the magistrate. United States v. Williams, 3 F.3d 69, 74 (3d Cir. 1993). When a police officer has not presented a colorable showing [of probable cause], and the warrant and affidavit on their face preclude reasonable reliance, the reasoning of Leon does not apply. United States v. Hove, 848 F.2d 137, 140 (9th Cir. 1988). It bears mention that Sergeant O'Connor crafted the affidavit to portray Zimmerman in the worst possible light. In that single-spaced, seven-page affidavit, O'Connor described in great detail the sexual misdeeds that Zimmerman allegedly committed against his students but which had nothing to do with whether there was pornography in his home. It is not until the next to the last line of the fifth page of the affidavit, however, that O'Connor even mentioned pornography, much less anything that might provide probable cause to search for pornography in Zimmerman's home, and that mention -- the John Doe #12 reference -- was fleeting. Any reasonably well-trained officer would have known that there was marginal evidence at best of adult pornography, evidence which was anything but current, and no evidence whatsoever to support a search for child pornography. Perhaps this is why the affidavit is loaded with lurid -- and irrelevant-- accusations. When the Supreme Court announced the good faith exception in Leon, it weakened the exclusionary rule, but it did not eviscerate it. Good faith is not a magic lamp for police officers to rub whenever they find themselves in _________________________________________________________________ that same day. Because he was not operating under any time pressure, however, some minimal further investigation -- contacting even one of the boys, for example -- would most likely have caused him to question her reliability before the application was made if, indeed, it would have been made at all given the precious little evidence that would have remained. 15 trouble. United States v. Reilly, 76 F.3d 1271, 1280 (2nd Cir. 1996). And particularly where the affiant is also one of the executing officers, it is somewhat disingenuous, after having gone to the magistrate with the paltry showing seen here, to suggest, as the government suggests, that at bottom it was the magistrate who made the error and the search and seizure are insulated because the officer's reliance on that error was objectively reasonable. That aside, [T]he good faith exception requires a sincerely held and objectively reasonable belief that the warrant is based on a valid application of the law to all known facts. Id. at 1273. The objective standard requires officers to have a reasonable knowledge of what the law prohibits. Leon, 468 U.S. at 919-20 n.20. No objectively reasonable police officer could believe that, despite the magistrate's authorization, the law did not prohibit a search of Zimmerman's home for pornography, child and adult. It follows that the good faith exception does not apply and the fruits of the search must be suppressed.8