Opinion ID: 6263723
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Third-Floor Search

Text: Whether a search exceeds the scope of a search warrant is an issue we determine through an objective assessment of the circumstances surrounding the issuance of the warrant, the contents of the search warrant, and the circumstances of the search. United States v. Hitchcock, 286 F.3d 1064, 1071 (9th Cir.), amended on other grounds, 298 F.3d 1021 (9th Cir. 2002). Determinations of good faith similarly do not follow a bright-line test, but are made when government agents rely on a warrant in objective good faith and in the interest of justice suppression is generally inappropriate. United States v. Woodbury, 511 F.3d 93, might have reasonably believed they were following the warrant's terms. See Angelos, 433 F.3d at 746 (finding that the warrant was without ambiguity and that, accordingly, the agents executing the warrant . . . reasonably should have noticed its limited scope and cannot be said to have acted reasonably); Medlin, 798 F.2d at 411 (acknowledging that the government's seizures went beyond the clear scope of the warrant but remanding to assess whether the seizures were lawful under the plain view doctrine, and if not, whether any misconduct was so flagrant as to justify suppression of all the evidence). These cases demonstrate that the Leon exception will not apply when -- on the facts of the case -- officers clearly or unreasonably exceed the scope of a warrant. However, they do not show that Leon is categorically inapplicable whenever the propriety of a warrant's execution is disputed. - 12 - 99 (1st Cir. 2007). Upon close examination of the language of the warrant and the overall circumstances of the search, we hold that the HPD officers reasonably believed that the warrant authorized them to search the third floor, and thus the Leon good-faith exception applies.5 The government argues on appeal that the language of the warrant itself, coupled with the discoveries made by the officers on the scene, generated a degree of ambiguity in the warrant's scope. The warrant described the place to be searched as follows: 88 Fountain St. 2nd floor is a 3 story, multi-unit building, with a basement, numbered 88 on the left side of the front deck. The building is colored white with white trim and red shutters and a red [] asphalt roof. The following line of the warrant, in reference to the place to be searched, added the phrase which is occupied by and/or in possession of Pimentel, his girlfriend, his aunt, and his grandmother. Separately, the warrant specified that the property to be searched includes any items that pertain to firearms and proof of residency, without referencing the second 5 We do not base this conclusion, as the government suggests, on the district court's finding that the officers made a reasonable mistake in seeking a warrant that authorized a search of the second floor. The parties do not dispute the validity of the warrant itself, and the Fourth Amendment's particularization and probable cause requirements are not at issue in this case. As such, the HPD officers' reasonable -- if ultimately incorrect -- belief that Pimentel lived on the second floor does not bear on the propriety of their decision to search the third floor. - 13 - floor, and similarly authorized a search for property on the person or in the possession of Pimentel and the three other individuals identified above. Pimentel argues that the phrase which is occupied by . . .  must be read only to modify the phrase 88 Fountain St. 2nd floor, which he views as the sole location that the warrant authorized searching. The government instead suggests that the which is occupied by clause could reasonably be read more broadly, i.e., to permit a search of Pimentel's residence within the building even after such residence was discovered to be on the third floor. To support this reading, the government cites to the focus -- both elsewhere in the warrant and in the supporting affidavit -- on Pimentel himself and his suspected possession of a firearm. The warrant here is not an exemplar of grammatical precision, and no reading of it is free from ambiguity. However, we are mindful that we do not subject warrants to the same exacting standard of textual rigor as we might demand in matters of statutory interpretation. Cf. O'Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy, 851 F.3d 69, 70 (1st Cir. 2017) (For want of a comma, we have this case.). Instead, our caselaw instructs that there is some breathing room in our analysis, since 'search warrants and affidavits should be considered in a common sense manner, and hypertechnical readings should be avoided.' United States v. - 14 - Peake, 804 F.3d 81, 87 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v. Bonner, 808 F.2d 864, 868 (1st Cir. 1986)). Here, a reasonable officer could understand the principal command of the warrant to authorize a search of Pimentel's person and residence within the building. Thus, we believe that the warrant's text, in light of the context in which it was executed, was sufficiently ambiguous to support a finding of good faith. The HPD officers' conduct and the on-the-scene discoveries they made in the dangerous and difficult process of . . . executing [the] search warrant[] also militate in favor of finding good faith. Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 87 (1987). In their initial sweep of the premises, the officers encountered Pimentel coming down the back stairwell from the thirdfloor apartment, and discovered that Pimentel's girlfriend and aunt were also present in that same unit -- three of the four people enumerated in the warrant's which is occupied by clause. Further, by Pimentel's own admission, the officers learned that the shotguns that were the primary object of the warrant were in Pimentel's bedroom, which the officers correctly understood to be on the third floor. It was thus only upon discovering that Pimentel's current bedroom and the whereabouts of the sought-after property were both on the third floor that the officers conducted the search at issue. They did so while searching for dangerous and possibly loaded weapons -- one of which had been discharged - 15 - only hours previously -- and holding a warrant in hand that spoke of the premises occupied by and/or in possession of Pimentel and authorized a search of property on the person or in the possession of the same. Under these particular circumstances, we cannot say the HPD's behavior reflects the type of lawlessness that requires application of the extreme sanction of exclusion. Leon, 468 U.S. at 916.6 As the district court noted, the instant case in many ways resembles United States v. Woodbury, 511 F.3d 93 (1st Cir. 2007), where we also applied the good-faith exception. In Woodbury, the police received a search warrant specifying the location to be searched as #7 Leisure Lane Windham, Maine[,] believed to be the bottom floor left apartment. Id. at 95. Upon arriving at the bottom-floor apartment, however, the police were informed by that apartment's occupant that the defendant actually resided in a second-floor unit, and proceeded to search the latter 6Other contextual factors point toward the same conclusion. The officers knew that Pimentel had recently resided on the second floor. Using the back staircase that directly connected the second and third floors, they did not have to open any locked doors to access the third-floor unit. Thus, throughout the search, the officers encountered a multigenerational living situation in a family-owned and family-occupied dwelling. To be sure, we find no error in the district court's determination that the third-floor unit constituted a separate apartment from the second-floor unit. But these facts underscore that the officers' search of the third floor was not the sort of deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct that the exclusionary rule serves to deter. Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 144 (2009). - 16 - apartment. Id. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence recovered in the search, including a firearm and drug paraphernalia, arguing in relevant part that the officers acted outside the scope of the warrant in searching the upstairs apartment. Id. at 96. We upheld the district court's denial of said motion. Despite the warrant's misidentification of the bottom-floor apartment, we emphasized that the police were able to execute the warrant against their intended target. Id. at 99. In doing so, they made clear their good faith by focusing their search on the defendant's apartment, as the warrant had clearly anticipated. Id. at 100. Here, as in Woodbury, the officers possessed a warrant to search the defendant's apartment, supported by an affidavit that focused on his suspected possession of contraband, but learned on the scene that the warrant had specified a different area of the dwelling. Moreover, in Woodbury, we did not rely on the warrant's believed to be qualification in finding the search had been made in good faith. Rather, we stated that it was plain from the face of the warrant[] that the wrong unit was specified on the warrant. Id. at 98–99. However, despite listing the wrong unit, the warrant made clear reference to the apartment - 17 - occupied by the defendant. Id. at 100. On the facts of the case, this sufficed for Leon to cover the officers' search. Id.7 The same logic applies to the case at bar. While the warrant referenced 88 Fountain Street's second-floor apartment, instead of the third-floor unit to which Pimentel had recently relocated, both the warrant and supporting affidavit identified him by name, and the warrant directed the officers toward the apartment which is occupied by him. Indeed, whereas in Woodbury the police learned of the error from an unknown third party, the officers here were able to ascertain from their own encounter with Pimentel both that he resided on the third floor and that the weapons they sought were located there. In searching the thirdfloor unit, the officers acted consistent with a reasonable effort to ascertain and identify the place intended to be searched. Garrison, 480 U.S. at 88. Given the overall context of this search, and judge[d] . . . in light of the information available 7 Caselaw in other circuits regarding searches of misidentified apartments has often pursued a similar line of reasoning. See, e.g., United States v. Owens, 848 F.2d 462, 463, 465 (4th Cir. 1988) (finding good faith where [t]he affidavit supporting this search warrant set forth facts [indicating that defendant] . . . exercised control over this apartment and where [t]he affidavit clearly identified the apartment to be searched as one that was occupied [by defendant]); United States v. Clement, 747 F.2d 460, 461 (8th Cir. 1984) (declining to conclude that the inaccurate address in the warrant should operate to invalidate the search where the search warrant named the correct street number and specifically named [defendant's] residence). - 18 - to them at the time they acted, we hold the officers' conduct to be covered by the Leon good-faith exception. Id. at 85. Pimentel argues that Garrison in fact supports suppression. In Garrison, the officers executing a warrant found contraband prior to realizing that there were two apartments contained within the premises described in the warrant, rather than one as they had initially believed. 480 U.S. at 87. In upholding the search, the Court noted that as the officers recognized, they were required to discontinue the search of respondent's apartment as soon as they . . . were put on notice of the risk that they might be in a unit erroneously included within the terms of the warrant. Id. at 87. Pimentel relies on this language to claim that the HPD officers should have ended their search when they discovered that his bedroom was not on the second floor. In parallel, Pimentel attempts to distinguish Woodbury by noting that the court there found evidence of good faith in the officers' declination to search the bottom-floor apartment mistakenly listed on the warrant. See Woodbury, 511 F.3d at 100. We are unpersuaded. Pimentel's argument would appear to call into question the officers' search of the second-floor apartment, which is the only unit that might have been erroneously included within the terms of the warrant in the manner of Garrison or Woodbury. Garrison, 480 U.S. at 87. But Pimentel does not question the propriety of the second-floor search, and all the - 19 - evidence he seeks to suppress was recovered from the third floor. In any event, Pimentel had recently relocated from the second floor, and one of the parties listed on the warrant (Pimentel's grandmother) did reside on that floor. As such, the officers' search of both floors hardly evidences bad faith or constitutes one of the wide-ranging exploratory searches the Framers intended to prohibit. Id. at 84. Rather, their actions reflected a reasonable interpretation of the command of the warrant, which authorized the recovery of firearms from Pimentel at the place he resided. We likewise find inapposite Pimentel's reliance on Second Circuit caselaw, arising from very different contexts, where the court declined to find good faith. In United States v. Voustianiouk, 685 F.3d 206 (2d Cir. 2012), the court emphasized that the police, by listing only the apartment unit to be searched, purposefully exclude[ed] any mention of [defendant's] name from the warrant and affidavit and did not even provide any basis for concluding that [defendant] may have been involved in a crime. Id. at 211. Accordingly, the court concluded that the search went beyond the issuing magistrate's intentions and exceeded the scope of the warrant. Id. In so holding, the court explicitly distinguished Woodbury by again highlighting that [n]either the warrant nor the affidavit mentioned [defendant] as the occupant of - 20 - the apartment that officials were authorized to search. Id. at 215. Similarly, in United States v. Bershchansky, 788 F.3d 102 (2d Cir. 2015), the Second Circuit declined to apply Leon where the warrant itself ma[de] no reference to [defendant] at all. Id. at 111. The court further stated that the government's invocation of good faith is undercut by [the agent's] repeated erroneous and conflicting statements, and, noting that the case involved the same agent as in Voustianiouk, found that the agent's 'recurring' conduct further supports the application of the exclusionary rule to the circumstances of this case. Id. at 113– 14 (quoting Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 144 (2009)). No such misconduct is apparent here.