Court Opinion

ID: 9467909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:59:32.277074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:35.414221
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the procedure followed by Agent Rabourn did not conform to the requirements of F.R.Crim.P. 41(c). I do not agree, however, that substantial departures from the directives of Rule 41(c) are nonfundamental noncompliances with the rule which, absent prejudice or bad faith, ought to be excused.
The majority defines a nonfundamental violation of the rule as one that does not rise to constitutional dimensions. Conversely, a violation is fundamental only if it renders the search unconstitutional under traditional Fourth Amendment standards. This distinction makes Rule 41(c) superfluous, except to the extent that it signifies approval of the use of telephones and recording devices to communicate and memorialize information needed to satisfy the oath or affirmation, probable cause, and particularity requirements of the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, the majority’s fundamental/nonfundamental dichotomy raises other problems. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure blend constitutional limitations on police activity, procedural limitations designed to avoid constitutional violations, and purely administrative “housekeeping” regulations. United States v. Searp, 586 F.2d 1117, 1123-24 (6th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 921, 99 S.Ct. 1247, 59 L.Ed.2d 474 (1979). Yet the majority would limit the exclusionary rule to Rule 41 violations that implicate constitutional limitations on police activity, but would not employ that sanction where other violations of Rule 41 occur, unless prejudice *512or bad faith is shown. One wonders then what purpose the Supreme Court and Congress envisioned when Rule 41(c), in its present form was promulgated in 1977 if the net effect of the new rule was merely to protect against police conduct already restricted by the Fourth Amendment itself. Because I do not agree with a result that basically eviscerates Rule 41(c) and the uniform telephone search warrant procedure it was designed to attain, and because I believe, at the very least, that procedural limitations designed to avoid constitutional violations are fundamental, I dissent.