Court Opinion

ID: 9481526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:21:52.371658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:22.800419
License: Public Domain

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge,
with whom JOHNSON, Circuit Judge, joins dissenting.
Officer Ernie Martinez negligently transmitted a vehicle’s license plate number, received an erroneous registration report because of his negligence, and then stopped the vehicle partially because of the erroneous registration information. The majority holds that the district court erred in refusing to include the registration information as a factor in determining whether Officer Martinez had a reasonable suspicion that the welding truck was transporting narcotics, but then pretermits the legality of the stop and applies the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule to hold that the district court erred in suppressing the cocaine which was discovered in the truck. My objection to both holdings is identical: erroneous information created by the negligent conduct of a law enforcement officer cannot be used to support a finding that the officer acted reasonably. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
I.
To better comprehend my position and the position of the majority, it is helpful to understand the genesis of this appeal. At issue is the suppression of 1200 pounds of cocaine. Nevertheless, from the beginning, this case has been poorly prosecuted by the government.1 The district court found that Officer Martinez acted negligently when he transmitted the welding truck’s license plate number because he did not use a word designation for the letters on the plate.2 See District Court Memoran*403dum and Order at 2, Record on Appeal, vol. 1, tab 16. Rather than appeal the finding that Officer Martinez’s conduct was negligent, the government conceded it. See En Banc Brief for the United States at 25.
The majority repeatedly attempts to slip out of the “negligence” label to which the government has yoked it. Its first tactic is to ignore the finding of negligence and focus on the word designation policy itself, arguing that the “code word policy [is not] constitutionally mandated,” “does not have the force of law,” and “is [not] even written, much less published.” See Majority Opinion at p. 400. Then, without any foundation in the record, it disparages transmissions in which word designations are used, hypothesizing them to be only eighty-five percent reliable and only twenty percent more reliable than transmissions in which the word designations are not used. See id. These arguments are specious. The codification and reliability of the border patrol’s communication policy are only relevant in determining whether Officer Martinez was negligent when he failed to follow that policy. The government conceded that he was. Therefore, because we must accept the finding that Martinez was acting unreasonably when he neglected to use the word designation policy, the fourth amendment and the good faith exception required him to follow that policy.
The second tactic that the majority uses to throw off the negligence yoke is to surreptitiously challenge its factual constitution: Officer Martinez “got up close to the back of” the truck and “carefully spoke the letters and numbers into his radio”; the dispatcher with thirteen years of experience thought that she understood the transmission, and Martinez had no reason to believe that she had not understood it; and “officers often did not follow the policy procedures when transmitting license plate numbers.”3 See id. at p. 400. But the reasonableness of the officer’s decision not to use word designations for the letters is not an issue on appeal; the district court found, and the government conceded, that a reasonable officer in Martinez’s position would have used word designations.
The second inexplicable blunder by the government was to tie the suppression of 1200 pounds of cocaine to the fate of the license registration report. As the majority points out, a number of peculiar things about the truck aroused Officer Martinez’s suspicions before he ran a check on the truck’s license plates. First, smugglers frequently used the road on which the truck was traveling, FM 2050, to avoid a border patrol checkpoint.4 Second, the welding truck did not have welding equipment in it but was filled with plywood, and Officer Martinez had read training manuals which indicated that plywood was often used to create hidden compartments for smuggling drugs.5 Third, the defendant, *404Mario De Leon-Reyna, appeared nervous and became rigid when he passed Martinez’s marked patrol car; he did not acknowledge Martinez’s presence as residents of that area usually did. Finally, after pulling behind the truck, Officer Martinez noticed that it appeared to be carrying a very heavy load, that it was bouncing erratically, and that it was dragging a shock absorber.6 Considering the low threshold for the kinds of observations that will justify an investigatory stop near the border, Officer Martinez may have had sufficient reason to stop the truck even without the erroneous license plate information.7 See United States v. Muniz-Ortega, 858 F.2d 258, 260 (5th Cir.1988) (holding that border patrol agent had reasonable suspicion to stop a flat-bed truck near the border after noticing mud on the tires and lower parts of the truck, seeing the driver look at him and then immediately turn his head back toward the road, and noticing debris and scratches on the truck).8
But the government never attempted to argue that the circumstances apart from the registration information justified an investigatory stop. See United States v. De Leon-Reyna, 898 F.2d 486, 488-89 (1990), rev’d, 930 F.2d 396 (5th Cir.1991) (en banc). The majority overcomes the government’s carelessness through a sophistic use of the *405“totality of the circumstances” test of United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981): if one considers the other suspicious activity that Officer Martinez perceived, he was reasonable in relying on the erroneous registration report, even though it was the product of his negligent conduct. See Majority Opinion at p. 400. Officer Martinez’s conduct was “negligent,” however, only if he failed to act as a reasonable person would under similar circumstances. See W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 32, at 175 (Lawyer’s 5th ed. 1984). Thus, the district court already considered the “totality of the circumstances” and concluded that Officer Martinez was negligent. Moreover, as I will explain below, the “totality of the circumstances” cannot be used to produce “reasonable reliance” from “unreasonable behavior.”
Therefore, despite its obfuscation, the majority is defending the following proposition: that information obtained through unreasonable means can make a law enforcement officer’s suspicions, or his “good faith” belief about those suspicions, more reasonable.
II.

A. The Good Faith Exception

The “good faith” exception is a misnomer. The key to determining whether the exception applies is not whether the officer acted in “good faith” but whether the officer’s actions were objectively reasonable. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 924, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3421, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984) (noting that the good faith exception turns on objective reasonableness). Officer Martinez’s conduct in failing to use the word designations was negligent and, therefore, not objectively reasonable.9
The majority attempts to separate Martinez’s conduct from his state of mind by arguing that Martinez did not have to be objectively reasonable in acquiring the information as long as he was objectively reasonable in believing the information after he received it. This premise makes no sense, however, when one considers that the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to affect the future conduct of law enforcement officers. See id. at 920, 104 S.Ct. at 3420. See also Horton v. California, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 2308-09, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990) (noting that “evenhanded law enforcement is best achieved by the application of objective standards of conduct, rather than standards that depend upon the subjective state of mind of the officer”).
The Supreme Court has consistently said that one of the purposes of the exclusionary rule is to deter negligent conduct by law enforcement officers. It has done so by reiterating the statement, first made in Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 447, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 2365, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974), that “[t]he deterrent purpose of the exclusionary rule necessarily assumes that the police have engaged in willful, or at the very least negligent, conduct which has deprived the defendant of some right” (emphasis added).10 Furthermore, in every case in which the Court has allowed evidence to be admitted under either the good faith exception or the fourth amendment, it has found every aspect of the law enforcement agents’ conduct to be objectively reasonable.11 Therefore, if an officer forms *406his belief based on information generated by his own actions, both his actions and his belief must be reasonable. The Supreme Court so noted in Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 104 S.Ct. 3424, 82 L.Ed.2d 737 (1984), the companion case to Leon.
In Sheppard, police discovered a woman's badly burned body in a vacant lot and suspected Osborne Sheppard, one of her boyfriends, of having killed her. See id. at 984, 104 S.Ct. at 3425. They wanted to obtain a warrant to search Sheppard’s home, but it was Sunday, and all they could find was a form authorizing a search for controlled substances. Nevertheless, they filled this out and brought it to a magistrate. They told the magistrate about the problem, and he purported to correct it. See id. at 985-86, 104 S.Ct. at 3426-27. Under the auspices of the amended warrant, the police searched Sheppard’s residence and found numerous incriminating pieces of evidence. See id. at 987 & n. 4, 104 S.Ct. at 3427 & n. 4.
At his trial, Sheppard moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the “corrected” warrant still failed to conform to the fourth amendment because it did not adequately describe the things to be seized. The Supreme Court noted that the warrant was constitutionally defective, see id. at 988 n. 5, 104 S.Ct. at 3427 n. 5, but held that the evidence was admissible under the good faith exception.
[T]he police conduct in this case clearly was objectively reasonable and largely error-free. An error of constitutional dimensions may have been committed with respect to the issuance of the warrant, but it was the judge, not the police officers, who made the critical mistake. “[T]he exclusionary rule was adopted to deter unlawful searches by police, not to punish the errors of magistrates and judges.”
Id. at 990, 104 S.Ct. at 3429 (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 265, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2346, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (White, J., concurring)).
The good faith exception only applies if the law enforcement officer has acted reasonably. No doctrinal basis exists for bifurcating Martinez’s actions from his state of mind.

B. The “Reasonableness” Requirement of the Fourth Amendment and That of the Good Faith Exception

Although the majority holds that Officer Martinez could have based his suspicions about the welding truck on the erroneous registration information, it explicitly refuses to decide whether the stop violated the fourth amendment. See Majority Opinion at p. 401 n. 5. Rather, it reaches the conclusion that the good faith exception permits the cocaine to be admitted as evidence at De Leon-Reyna’s trial.
The structure of the majority’s analysis is curious for two reasons. First, as noted above, Officer Martinez’s observations may have satisfied the fourth amendment even without the erroneous registration report. If, as the majority holds, we are permitted to add the erroneous report to those observations, the officer clearly had a reason to suspect that the truck was involved in criminal activity, and, therefore, the stop was legal.
Second, under the facts of this case, the fourth amendment is equipollent to the good faith exception, i.e., Officer Martinez could not have met the “reasonableness” requirement for the good faith exception without meeting the “reasonableness” requirement of the fourth amendment. Under the fourth amendment, Officer Mar*407tinez was justified in stopping De Leon-Reyna if his suspicions were reasonable; the good faith exception applies if he was reasonable in believing that he had a reasonable suspicion to stop De Leon-Reyna. If a mistake is made by someone other than the law enforcement officer, it is possible for the officer to be reasonable in believing that he is justified in stopping a defendant even though the basis for his suspicions is not objectively reasonable, but when the officer is also the one who made the mistake, the “reasonableness” required by the good faith exception is identical to the reasonableness required by the fourth amendment. Adding a “good faith” analysis to a fourth amendment analysis contributes nothing but confusion. Cf. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7-8, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (“We think the Court of Appeals’ effort to refine and elaborate the requirements of “reasonable suspicion” in this ease create [sic] unnecessary difficulty in dealing with one of the relatively simple concepts embodied in the Fourth Amendment.”) Two cases illustrate this point: Illinois v. Rodriguez, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990) and Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 91 S.Ct. 1106, 28 L.Ed.2d 484 (1971).
In Illinois v. Rodriguez, police officers searched the defendant’s apartment after receiving the consent of a woman whom they mistakenly believed had common authority over the premises. See 110 S.Ct. at 2797. Because the police officers were the ones who acquired the information upon which they based their right to search the apartment, the issue was whether the officers’ conduct had satisfied “the ‘reasonableness’ requirement of the Fourth Amendment.” See id. at 2800. The Court held that the fourth amendment would be satisfied if the facts available to the officers would support an objectively reasonable belief that the woman had authority over the premises. See id. at 2801.12
In Hill v. California, police investigating a robbery had probable cause to arrest Hill. See 401 U.S. at 799, 91 S.Ct. at 1108. They went to Hill’s apartment, knocked on the door, and Miller opened it. The police arrested Miller, believing that he was Hill, and then searched the apartment, where they discovered a number of items that connected Hill to the robbery. Subsequently, Hill was prosecuted for the robbery, and he moved to suppress the items discovered in his apartment, arguing that police did not make a lawful arrest and, therefore, had no right to search the apartment. Noting that the arresting officers had probable cause to arrest Hill, and that they had a reasonable good faith belief that Miller was Hill, the Court held that “the arrest and subsequent search were reasonable and valid under the Fourth Amendment.” See id. at 802, 804-05, 91 S.Ct. at 1110, 1111 (emphasis added).
Therefore, because Officer Martinez made the mistake and also made the stop, if that mistake had been reasonable, as the majority asserts, the stop would have been legal under the fourth amendment. In fact, the majority’s premise that there is a difference between its good faith exception and the fourth amendment is belied by the opinion itself. According to the majority, the fourth amendment is satisfied if Martinez’s “good faith reliance on the license plate report, along with the other circumstances, in determining to stop the defendant’s truck, was objectively reasonable.” See Majority Opinion at p. 399. The good faith exception is satisfied if “under all the circumstances there was a particularized and objective basis for reasonable suspicion that [the] defendant’s vehicle was engaged in criminal activity.” See id. at p. 401. Under the facts of this case, I cannot discern a difference between these two tests.
The majority does use slightly different language to distinguish its analysis of the fourth amendment from its analysis of the good faith exception: Officer Martinez was reasonable in relying on the erroneous license information under the fourth amendment if we consider the “totality of the circumstances,” but he was reasonable un*408der the good faith exception if we consider “all the circumstances.” Regardless of semantics, my objection to both arguments is identical: if the registration information was procured through unreasonable means, it cannot be modified by other circumstances and used to justify the stop.

C. A Reasonable Belief Cannot be the Product of Unreasonable Conduct Under Either the Fourth Amendment or the Good Faith Exception

As explained in Part 11(A), the exclusionary rule requires that an officer’s actions as well as his state of mind be objectively reasonable. In addition, the majority’s attempt to use the “totality of the circumstances” in order to distinguish Martinez’s actions from his state of mind is inherently illogical, whether it is done under the auspices of the fourth amendment or the exclusionary rule, because an actor’s belief cannot be characterized as “reasonable” if it is grounded on facts produced by that actor’s unreasonable conduct. See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979) (noting that the reasonableness standard requires “that the facts upon which an intrusion is based be capable of measurement against ‘an objective standard’ ”).
The “totality of the circumstances” approach is quantitative: it permits a court to add together individual facts known to law enforcement officers to determine whether the officers had a reasonable basis for suspecting that someone was involved in a crime. For example, police may not have reasonable suspicion to detain someone based solely on an anonymous tip, but they could have reasonable suspicion if that tip was corroborated by independent investigation. See Alabama v. White, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 2417, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990). The problem with the license registration report, however, is qualitative: it is tainted by negligence.
The majority disputes this: it argues that Officer Martinez’s negligence simply diminishes the reliability of the report and, therefore, it should be discounted “somewhat.” See Majority Opinion at p. 401. But again, the fallacy in this analysis is illustrated by the majority’s own argument. If, as the majority asserts, the only reason for “discounting” the registration report is that it was twenty percent less reliable than if Officer Martinez had used word designations, why would not the license report itself justify the stop? Why modify it using the “additional circumstances”? After all, if a law enforcement officer is sixty-five percent sure that a vehicle is operating with stolen license plates, he certainly would be reasonable in stopping the vehicle and asking to see its registration.
The majority implicitly recognizes the qualitative defect of the registration report and does not attempt to defend its value independent of the other incriminating circumstances. Rather it asserts that Officer Martinez’s “additional observations” made his tainted (unreasonable) reliance on the erroneous license plate information reasonable, and that we can then combine the converted “unreasonable” reliance on the license plate with those same “additional observations” and conclude that Officer Martinez had a “reasonable” belief that De Leon-Reyna was engaged in criminal activity. This type, of reasoning is commonly disparaged with the epithet, bootstrapping.13
If we assume that Officer Martinez would not have been objectively reasonable in believing that he could stop De Leon-Reyna before receiving the erroneous registration information, adding an additional piece of information to the equation, obtained through unreasonable means, does not make his belief objectively reasonable. *409See Leon, 468 U.S. at 960, 104 S.Ct. at 3445-46 (“[A]n official search and seizure cannot be both ‘unreasonabe’ [sic] and ‘reasonable’ at the same time”) (Stevens, J., concurring and dissenting). Both the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule and the fourth amendment require that the officer’s actions be objectively reasonable. Consequently, neither can be used to admit the evidence in this case.
III.
I understand the majority’s reluctance to suppress 1200 pounds of cocaine because the arresting officer failed to properly transmit a license plate number. Nevertheless, the touchstone for admitting that evidence under the fourth amendment and under the good faith exception is “objective reasonableness.” Here, the district court held and the government conceded that the officer was negligent and, therefore, by definition, unreasonable. Therefore, I do not believe that the registration information can be included as a factor in determining whether Officer Martinez had a reasonable suspicion that the welding truck was engaged in criminal activity or that the good faith exception can be used to admit this evidence, and I respectfully dissent.

. After the panel issued its original opinion affirming the suppression of the evidence, the government did not file a petition for rehearing.

. The district court’s determination that Officer Martinez was negligent is a finding of fact, which cannot be disturbed unless it is clearly erroneous. See In re Air Crash at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on August 2, 1985, 919 F.2d 1079, *4031085 (5th Cir.1991). The dispatcher testified that proper police policy was to use word designations so that similar sounding letters would not be confused. See Record on Appeal, vol. 2, at 78. She also testified that communication in the area where Officer Martinez was following De Leon-Reyna is particularly difficult. See id. Therefore, the district court’s finding is not clearly erroneous.

.That other officers failed to follow the word designation policy would not shield Officer Martinez from negligence. See, e.g., Helling v. Carey, 83 Wash.2d 514, 519 P.2d 981, 983 (1974) (en banc) (holding that defendants, ophthalmologists, were negligent as a matter of law for failing to administer a glaucoma test to a patient under age forty even though it was the practice of ophthalmologists never to test for glaucoma in patients younger than forty because only one in 25,000 of such patients would suffer from the disease).

. Compare United States v. Ortega-Serrano, 788 F.2d 299, 301-02 (5th Cir.1986) (holding that immigration agents did not have reasonable suspicion to stop a car driving between Fort Worth and Dallas because there was no testimony that the area was commonly used for smuggling or that this type of car was often used for smuggling).

. See United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 419, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695-96, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981) (noting that "when used by trained law enforcement officers, objective facts, meaningless to the untrained, can be combined with permissible deductions from such facts to form a legitimate basis for suspicion of a particular person and for action on that suspicion"). See also United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 10, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1587, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (holding that law enforcement agent could form a reasonable suspicion based on observation that defendant’s conduct was consistent with a “drug courier *404profile”); Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 493 & n. 2, 502, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1322 & n. 2, 1326, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (holding that police officers had reasonable suspicion to detain an airline passenger whose characteristics fit "drug courier profile”); United States v. Hanson, 801 F.2d 757, 761-62 (5th Cir.1986) (reviewing officers' observations of defendant, which matched “drug courier profile,” and finding that officers had reasonable suspicion to detain defendant, but noting that the match between the profile and the characteristics of the defendant did not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion).

. See United States v. Lopez-Gonzalez, 916 F.2d 1011, 1015 (5th Cir.1990) (holding "that the fact that a vehicle appears to be heavily loaded is a factor that may properly weigh in favor of justification for a stop” (emphasis in original)).

. If Martinez’s observations, by themselves, would have made a reasonable person with his four years of experience suspicious that the welding truck was engaged in illegal activity, he did not violate the fourth amendment when he stopped De Leon-Reyna’s truck. See Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7, 109 S.Ct. at 1585. This is true even if Officer Martinez testified that he would not have stopped the truck had he not received the erroneous information from the dispatcher. Courts use an objective touchstone to verify "reasonableness.” See Illinois v. Rodriguez, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 2800 n. *, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990); Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 355, 107 S.Ct. 1160, 1170, 94 L.Ed.2d 364 (1987). What Officer Martinez actually would have done once he acquired enough information to cross the fourth amendment's threshold of “reasonable suspicion" is irrelevant.

. See, e.g., United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 885-86, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2582, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975) (listing some of the observations that may enkindle an officer’s legitimate suspicions, including the “characteristics of the area in which [he] encounters] a vehicle,” “[i]ts proximity to the border," the amount of traffic on the road, the driver’s behavior, whether the vehicle looks as though it may have a secret compartment, and whether the vehicle appears to be heavily loaded); United States v. Lopez, 911 F.2d 1006, 1009-10 (5th Cir.1990) (finding reasonable suspicion to stop a heavily loaded truck when border patrol agents intercepted CB communications which indicated that the truck was travelling with two other cars, and the driver of the truck decelerated when he saw the agents approach); United States v. Boruff, 909 F.2d 111, 117 (5th Cir.) (holding that border patrol agent who observed a car and a pickup truck traveling at the same speed, at approximately the same distance apart, on two consecutive days, and who observed the driver of the car communicating with the driver of the pickup, had reasonable suspicion to stop the car after the pickup was found to be smuggling marijuana), petition for cert. denied, - U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1620, 113 L.Ed.2d 718 (1991); United States v. Kohler, 836 F.2d 885, 888 (5th Cir.1988) (finding reasonable suspicion to stop a heavily loaded motor home near the border after park rangers had observed changes in the motor home and its driver); United States v. Gordon, 712 F.2d 110, 113 (5th Cir.1983) (holding that border patrol agents who observed an unfamiliar truck with a -compartment underneath the bed had reasonable suspicion to stop the truck); United States v. Gandara-Nunez, 564 F.2d 693, 694-95 (5th Cir.1977) (holding that border patrol agents were justified in stopping a car which had a large trunk, was heavily loaded, and appeared to be evading marked border patrol cars by accelerating and then turning onto a small street). Cf. Alabama v. White, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 2416-17, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990) (holding that police had reasonable suspicion to stop a woman’s car based on an anonymous tip which accurately predicted that the woman would be leaving a particular apartment at a specific time and would be going to a particular motel, and which stated that the woman would be in possession of cocaine).

. See W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser & Keeton on Torts § 32, at 174-75 (Lawyer’s 5th ed. 1984) (explaining that one’s conduct is negligent if one fails to act as a reasonable person would in a similar situation).

. See, e.g., Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 191-92, 106 S.Ct. 477, 495, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985) (Burger, C.J., dissenting); Leon, 468 U.S. at 919, 104 S.Ct. at 3418; Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 260, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2344, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983); United States v. Peltier, 422 U.S. 531, 539, 95 S.Ct. 2313, 2318, 45 L.Ed.2d 374 (1975); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 612, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2266, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring).

. See, e.g., Illinois v. Rodriguez, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 2800, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990) (holding that the fourth amendment is not violated if police officers reasonably believe that they have consent to enter the premises); Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 88, 107 S.Ct. 1013, 1019, 94 L.Ed.2d 72 (1987) (holding that the validity of a search based on a warrant that is *406too broad depends on whether the officers’ failure to realize the overbreadth of the warrant was objectively understandable and reasonable); Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 802, 91 S.Ct. 1106, 1110, 28 L.Ed.2d 484 (1971) (holding that police were reasonable in believing that the person whom they arrested was a robbery suspect whom they had probable cause to arrest, and, therefore, search incident to that arrest was reasonable under the fourth amendment). See also United States v. Williams, 622 F.2d 830, 840 (5th Cir.1980) (en banc) (holding that the good faith exception applied when a narcotics agent reasonably believed that he had authority to arrest the defendant for violating a court order which required her to remain in Ohio), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1127, 101 S.Ct. 946, 67 L.Ed.2d 114 (1981).

. The State court did not evaluate the reasonableness of the officers’ belief, and, therefore, the case was remanded "for consideration of that question.” See Illinois v. Rodriguez, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 2801, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990).

. To illustrate the bootstrapping problem, assume that both the license plate information and the "additional circumstances” are necessary for Officer Martinez to form the reasonable belief required by the good faith exception. Therefore, if each of these pieces of information had a mathematical value of "1,” we would need a "2” for the exception to be satisfied (1 + 1). The problem is that the erroneous license plate information is worth "0,” and 1+0 does not equal 2. The majority argues that we can use the additional circumstances to change the 0 to a 1, or to a fraction of 1, but “(1 X 0) + 1” still equals 1.