Court Opinion

ID: 9465593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:50:35.918648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:15.762101
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting):
Although I agree that the indictment should be reinstated and the order suppressing the evidence reversed, I cannot agree *352that there was any basis for the district court’s finding that the agents had sworn falsely at the suppression hearing. The agents testified that when they were applying for the arrest warrants for Broward and Forbes, they had explained to the magistrate that the name “Career” was fictitious and that the fiction of an informant was necessary to protect Carriger, whose life had been threatened by Broward. However misguided their method of protecting Carriger, there can be no doubt that their motives were proper. There was no reason for them not to advise the magistrate of the true facts. Although the magistrate remembered talking to the agents for almost two hours on the day he issued the warrants, he testified that he could not remember the details of his meeting with the agents. The magistrate also expressed the opinion that he would not have issued a warrant had he known that it contained misstatements. The testimony of the magistrate was equivocal and speculative and not “definite and clear” as the district judge thought. Indeed, in light of the district judge’s attitude, the magistrate’s testimony seems to have been far more self-protective than enlightening. I would hold the district court’s finding that the agents had lied to be clearly erroneous.