Court Opinion

ID: 9495209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:57:25.472176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:53.414866
License: Public Domain

DENNIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment and in Parts I, III, and IV of the court’s opinion, and specially concurring in Part II:
In my judgment, Brown satisfied the first prong of the Franks v. Delaware1 test by showing that information was omitted from the warrant affidavit with intentional or reckless disregard for the truth. I concur in the judgment of the court, however. When the material that was intentionally or' recklessly omitted is added, and Patrick Graham’s uncorroborated statements are set aside, there remains sufficient content in the reconstructed affidavit to support a finding of probable cause for belief that Brown had committed, was committing, or was about to commit violations of the Hobbs Act. Consequently, Brown was not entitled to a Franks hearing.
In Franks, the Supreme Court held “that, where the defendant makes a substantial preliminary showing that a false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, was included by the affiant in the warrant affidavit, and if the allegedly false statement is necessary to the finding of probable cause, the Fourth Amendment requires that a hearing be held at the defendant’s request.”2 In summarizing its opinion, the Court repeated its holding with “some embellishment”:
There is, of course, a presumption of validity with respect to the affidavit supporting the search warrant. To mandate an evidentiary hearing, the challenger’s attack must be more than conclusory and must be supported by more than a mere desire to cross-examine. There must be allegations of. deliberate falsehood or of reckless disregard for the truth, and those allegations must be accompanied by an offer of proof. They should point out specifically the portion of the warrant affidavit that is claimed to be false; and they should be accompanied by a statement of supporting reasons. Affidavits or sworn or otherwise reliable statements of witnesses should be furnished, or their absence satisfactorily explained. Allegations of negligence or innocent mistake are insufficient. The deliberate falsity or reckless disregard whose impeachment is permitted today is only that of the affiant, not of any nongovernmental informant. Finally, if these requirements are met, and if, when material that is the subject of the alleged falsity or reckless disregard is set to one side, there remains sufficient content in the warrant affidavit to support a finding of probable cause, no hearing is required. On the other hand, if the remaining content is insufficient, the defendant is entitled, under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, to his hearing. Whether he will prevail at that hearing is, of course, another issue.3
In this circuit, “[o]missions or misrepresentations can constitute improper govern*408ment behavior.”4 “By reporting less than the total story, an affiant can manipulate the inferences a magistrate will draw. To allow a magistrate to be misled in such a manner could denude the probable cause requirement of all real meaning.”5 We therefore apply Franks to instances of omission.6 To warrant a Franks hearing, the exclusion of the information must reflect intentional or reckless misconduct by the affiant, and the omitted facts must be material.7 “Clear proof of deliberate or reckless omission is not required.... At this stage, all that is required is that the defendant make a substantial showing that the affiant intentionally or recklessly omitted facts required to prevent technically true statements in the affidavit from being misleading.”8
Furthermore, we have agreed with and adopted the holding of several other circuits “that a deliberate or reckless misstatement or omission by a governmental official who is not the affiant may nevertheless form the basis of a Franks claim.”9 Indeed, the Supreme Court noted in Franks that “police [can]not insulate one officer’s deliberate misstatements merely by relaying it through an officer-affiant personally ignorant of its falsity.” 10 Accordingly, a defendant is entitled to a Franks hearing upon making a substantial preliminary showing that a governmental official deliberately or recklessly caused facts that preclude a finding of probable cause to be omitted from a warrant affidavit, even if the governmental official at fault is not the affiant.
In challenging the presumption of validity afforded the affidavit supporting the wiretap order, Brown alleged, in his motion to suppress, that the affidavit of FBI Special Agent Freddy N. Cleveland was “materially misleading.” In particular, Brown contended that the government intentionally misled Judge Walter as to the trustworthiness of its cooperating witness, Patrick Graham, and misrepresented the content of the consensually recorded conversations between Graham and Brown. In support of those allegations, Brown submitted to the district court an offer of proof consisting of ten volumes of exhibits. The exhibits included: (1) a transcript of testimony given by former Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”) Steven J. Irwin before a federal bankruptcy court in Houston, Texas, on September 16, 1996;11 *409(2) transcripts of deposition testimony given by Irwin and James B. Letten in November 2000;12 (3) various news articles recounting Graham’s criminal history; and (4) the full transcripts of the consensually recorded conversations.
In his June 26, 1996 affidavit, Cleveland indicated that his cooperating witness was credible: “[Patrick Graham] has provided information to Special Agents of the FBI since April 30,1996. Since his cooperation with the FBI, he has never been known to provide false or misleading information.”13 Brown’s offer of proof demonstrates, however, that the government knew, as early as April 1996, that Graham was thoroughly dishonest and had a reputation in Texas for engaging in fraudulent and deceptive practices. The offer of proof also indicates that the affidavit purposefully understated the seriousness of the criminal matters that were pending against Graham in Texas and the magnitude of Graham’s incentive to provide false information about Brown and Edwin Edwards in order to curry favor with federal prosecutors in both Louisiana and Texas. Thus, Cleveland’s affidavit reported “less than the total story” to Judge Walter.14 By omitting information concerning Graham’s character and vouching for his trustworthiness, the government created a false impression of Graham’s reliability, which likely misled the issuing judge.
In his November 2000 deposition, Irwin, the AUSA who applied for the wiretap order, was asked whether he was aware, in April 1996, that Patrick and Michael Graham were swindlers and “con men” who lacked credibility. Irwin responded, “We knew what we were buying when we bought into them.” 115 He explained that the Grahams initially approached him through their attorney Charles Blau.16 After preliminary discussions with Blau, Irwin ran a Lexis/Nexis search and “reams and reams and reams of material came out about Patrick Graham and Michael Graham and the various schemes that they were involved in.”17 The search certainly would have uncovered the widely reported details of Patrick Graham’s January 1996 arrest for accepting a $150,000 down payment on a $750,000 total fee for arranging the escape of a convicted wife-murderer *410from a maximum-security prison in Texas.18 Irwin concluded, from the “reams of material” available to the government, that if the Grahams said, “ ‘It’s raining outside,’ somebody better go outside and come back wet.” 19
As his deposition makes clear, Irwin reached this conclusion on the Grahams’ trustworthiness prior to April 30,1996, the date that Patrick Graham began cooperating with the government. Irwin’s September 1996 testimony before the bankruptcy court is fully consistent with this early-held opinion of Graham’s bad character: “I’m not defending the Grahams as good people; they’re not.... They’re as bad as they come.... [T]he things that we’re not able to independently corroborate, we believe are lies. And that’s the way it has to be when you deal with the Grahams.”20 In sum, Irwin’s testimony at his deposition and in the bankruptcy-court establishes that, beginning shortly after his first knowledge of Patrick Graham, Irwin and other federal officials continuously viewed Graham as an unreliable person whose information was worthless in the absence of independent corroboration.
Soon after becoming an informant, Graham proved that the government’s distrust of him was justified. In his deposition, Letten characterized the government’s deal with the Grahams, which was never reduced to writing, as an “informal cooperation agreement with use/derivative use immunity” covering only offenses committed in Louisiana.21 The Grahams, however, wanted multistate transactional immunity, and, even though they did not receive it, they represented to others that they had.22 In a May 23, 1996 letter to Charles Blau, AUSA Peter G. Strasser complained that the Grahams had recently told attorney Dan Cogdell, who was representing Patrick Graham in the Texas jailbreak prosecution, that they had “ ‘immunity for (their) actions in Louisiana and Texas,’ ” a representation that was, in Strasser’s words, “simply wrong.”23 Thus, less than *411one month after Patrick Graham began cooperating, he was already misrepresenting his “deal” in an effort to broaden the scope of the immunity conferred on him by the government.24
By virtue of his role in the investigation, Cleveland must have known that Graham had provided false or misleading information about his cooperation/immunity agreement; in fact, Strasser sent Cleveland a copy of his letter to Blau. Yet, in his June 26, 1996 affidavit, Cleveland declared that Patrick Graham “has never been known to provide false or misleading information” since he began cooperating with the government. Because Cleveland may have meant that Graham had not been known to provide false or misleading information to the government (Cleveland stated, in the preceding sentence, that Graham “ha[d] provided information to Special Agents of the FBI since April 30, 1996”), that declaration may not qualify as a deliberate falsehood, .but it is certainly misleading. Cleveland knew that Graham was unreliable and that his mendacious conduct continued even after April 30. In assuring the magistrate that Graham had been truthful with the government for a two-month period, Cleveland suppressed that knowledge and created the false impression that Graham was, in fact, reliable.
As Brown’s counsel argues, if the government had disclosed its knowledge concerning the dishonesty and bad character of Graham, the district court may have refused to sign the wiretap order or “required] the applicant to furnish additional testimony or documentary evidence in support of the application.”25 After all, “it is the magistrate who must determine independently whether there is probable cause....”26 “He may question the affi-ant, or summon other persons to give testimony at the warrant proceeding.”27 Much of the information contained in the affidavit, particularly the allegations concerning the genesis of the extortion scheme, was based on the uncorroborated statements of Graham. If the issuing judge gave credence to those statements, he did so in reliance on the false impression that Graham was reliable. Thus, to prevent the affidavit from being misleading, Cleveland should have advised the issuing judge that Patrick Graham was untrustworthy and that the government did not believe his uncorroborated statements. The omission of this information from the affidavit reflects intentional misconduct or, at the very least, a “reckless disregard for the truth.”28
Brown also alleges that Cleveland misrepresented the content of the consensually recorded conversations. There is a substantial showing to this effect with respect to one important segment of the May 8, 1996 conversation between Graham and Brown. In paragraph 30 of the affidavit, Cleveland recites the following from that conversation:
*412GRAHAM: ... Ah, I want EDWIN to be comfortable, okay? I can’t afford anything to go wrong with this deal. All right? So we’ve got to get him, whatever that portion is covered first
BROWN: Yeah.29
This recitation, a product of the government’s calculated editing, presents the excerpt as an acknowledgment by Brown that Edwin Edwards would receive a portion of the payment that Brown was seeking from Graham and his partners. In the actual conversation, however, Brown conveyed a much different message. As indicated by the ellipsis mark, Cleveland omitted the statement and question immediately preceding Brown’s affirmative response:
GRAHAM: ... Ah, I want EDWIN to be comfortable, okay? I can’t afford anything to go wrong on this deal. All right? So we’ve got to get him, whatever that portion is covered first. All I want to do is drag you out and I’m not gonna drag you out more than 90 days on yours. Okay?
BROWN: Yeah.30
Thus, it appears more likely that Brown was responding to the latter question pertaining to a delay in his payment rather than Graham’s first question regarding his (Graham’s) desire to make “EDWIN” comfortable. More importantly, Cleveland did not inform Judge Walter as to the very next words spoken by Brown, which contain a flat denial that any money was going to Edwards:
GRAHAM: I just don’t ... ah, you know, you never have told me what the ... the ... the sharing ratio is.
BROWN: He doesn’t get any. I get it all. I want half right away.31
During the remainder of their conversation that day, Graham made several other attempts to secure Brown’s acknowledgment that Edwards would be receiving a share of the extortion proceeds. In my opinion, Brown’s subsequent inconsistent and ambiguous responses failed to provide an adequate basis for reaching such a conclusion as a matter of probable cause, as opposed to a mere suspicion. Although analyzing the recorded conversations to determine Edwards’s probable role is ultimately unnecessary to a disposition of Brown’s appeal, I conclude that the Cleveland affidavit omitted the facts of Brown’s flat denial of the existence of an Edwards portion and Graham’s other unsuccessful efforts with reckless disregard for the truth and for the omissions’ tendency to mislead the magistrate. By burying this information and offering, in corroboration of Graham’s story, an excerpt that was misleadingly edited and taken out of context, the government tried to make the probable cause determination appear uncomplicated. The government should have afforded Judge Walter the opportunity to interpret and weigh Brown’s denial and his ambiguous statements within the context of the entire conversation rather than misrepresenting a single excerpt in order to compel the court to decide in its favor.
For the foregoing reasons, I conclude that Brown satisfied the first prong of the Franks test by making a substantial preliminary showing that the government intentionally or recklessly omitted facts from the warrant affidavit, causing the information actually reported to be misleading.
Turning to the second prong of Franks, Brown is not constitutionally entitled to a *413hearing unless he shows that the omissions are material.32 “Identifying intentional omissions and misstatements is not enough.33 Our inquiry, then, is whether the reconstructed affidavit establishes probable cause to believe that Brown had committed or was committing a crime.34 We reconstruct the Cleveland affidavit by supplying the omissions and setting aside all of Graham’s allegations that are not independently corroborated.35 Because there remains sufficient content in the corrected affidavit to support a finding of probable cause, the district court’s judgment must be affirmed.
The Hobbs Act makes it a crime for anyone to obstruct, or attempt to obstruct, commerce by extortion.36 “The term ‘extortion’ means the obtaining of [ (or attempting to obtain) ] property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear....”37 “Extortion by wrongful use of fear includes fear of economic harm.”38 The excerpts from and summaries of the consensually recorded conversations that would appear in the corrected affidavit provide independent corroboration for the following aspects of Graham’s story: (1) Cecil Brown was attempting to obtain property (money) from Graham and his associates with their consent;39 (2) Brown threatened Graham and his associates with economic loss; and (3) Graham’s group took the threats seriously, and it was reasonable for them to do so, because of Brown’s close relationship with Edwin Edwards. For example, in a June 7, 1996 conversation, which is recounted in the affidavit, Brown warned Graham that he should be receiving a call from the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Corrections. I agree with Judge Jones that “the import of this threat is clear: The Louisiana Department of Corrections could delay the Jena prison project; and if Graham and his partners wanted their sale to proceed as planned, they should consider increasing the money paid directly to Brown.”40 Moreover, the reconstructed affidavit, taken as a whole, would supply reasonable grounds for believing that Graham and his group feared that Brown would make good on his threats to delay the project if he did not receive a satisfac*414tory amount of money. Put differently, the content remaining in the affidavit would establish probable cause to believe that Brown had committed, was committing, or was about to commit a Hobbs Act violation. Because a valid wiretap order could issue on the basis of the reconstructed affidavit, “no hearing is required” under Franks.41
In conclusion, Brown’s offer of proof convinces me that the government knew Patrick Graham was untrustworthy at the time it applied for the wiretap order. It is also evident that the government carefully crafted its application, omitting its assessment of Graham’s credibility as well as key facts concerning his misdeeds, in an effort to prevent Judge Walter from reaching a similar view on the issue of Graham’s trustworthiness. Furthermore, through intentional or reckless omission, the Cleveland affidavit misrepresented the corroborative strength of at least one excerpt from the recorded conversations. Such conduct falls short of the ethical standards that the government should observe when it seeks authorization to intrude so profoundly on the privacy of its citizens. But these findings are of no benefit to Brown under the Franks standard because he failed to show that the reconstructed affidavit is not sufficient to support a finding of probable cause. Perhaps identifying false statements and deliberate or reckless omissions by an affiant that tend to mislead an issuing judge should be enough to entitle a criminal defendant to an eviden-tiary hearing on a motion to suppress, but the Supreme Court has determined otherwise. Under the rigid test established in Franks, the district court properly denied Brown’s request.

. 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978).

. Id. at 155-56, 98 S.Ct. 2674.

.Id. at 171-72, 98 S.Ct. 2674.

. United States v. Tomblin, 46 F.3d 1369, 1377 (5th Cir.1995) (citing United States v. Stanert, 762 F.2d 775, 781 (9th Cir.1985)).

. Stanert, 762 F.2d at 781.

. United States v. Bankston, 182 F.3d 296, 305 (5th Cir.1999), rev’d in part on other grounds, Cleveland v. United States, 531 U.S. 12, 121 S.Ct. 365, 148 L.Ed.2d 221 (2000).

. See Tomblin, 46 F.3d at 1377.

. Stanert, 762 F.2d at 781. See Franks, 438 U.S. at 171, 98 S.Ct. 2674.

. Hart v. O’Brien, 127 F.3d 424, 448 (5th Cir.1997) (citing United States v. Wapnick, 60 F.3d 948, 956 (2d Cir.1995); United States v. DeLeon, 979 F.2d 761, 764 (9th Cir.1992) ("A deliberate or reckless omission by a government official who is not the affiant can be the basis for a Franks suppression. The Fourth Amendment places restrictions and qualifications on the actions of the government generally, not merely on affiants.”); United States v. Calisto, 838 F.2d 711, 714 (3d Cir.1988); United States v. Pritchard, 745 F.2d 1112, 1118 (7th Cir.1984)), abrogated on other grounds by Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U.S. 118, 118 S.Ct. 502, 139 L.Ed.2d 471 (1997).

. Franks, 438 U.S. at 164 n. 6, 98 S.Ct. 2674.

. Irwin appeared before the bankruptcy court in support of the government's ex parte motion to stay proceedings in a case that involved Michael Graham's wife. Michael Graham, who reached a deal with the government at the same time as his brother Patrick, was scheduled to testify in that case. In *409requesting the stay, the government apparently argued that the bankruptcy proceedings (and Michael Graham's testimony therein) could jeopardize its undercover operations in Louisiana.

.Letten, who was the First Assistant United States Attorney at the time of his deposition, is currently the Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Letten and Irwin were deposed on different dates in November 2000 by a defendant in a federal criminal case entitled United States v. James Anthum Collins and Yank Barry, No. 98-18 (S.D.Tex.). The defendants in that case were the former Executive Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (Collins) and the president of VitaPro Foods, Inc. (Barry). VitaPro sold a high-protein soy product that was used as a meat substitute in penal institutions. The government alleged that Barry paid Collins at least $20,000 to gain approval for a five-year multimillion-dollar contract with the Department of Criminal Justice. Patrick Graham, who solicited business for VitaPro in Louisiana, informed the federal government that the Texas VitaPro deal was a bribe scheme and served as the government's key witness at trial.

. Def.’s Mot. Suppress Ex. 5-B, Cleveland Aff. ¶ 15.

. United States v. Stanert, 762 F.2d 775, 781 (9th Cir.1985).

. Def.'s Mot. Suppress Ex. 27 at 42.

. Blau approached Irwin at a gambling corruption seminar held at the Grand Hotel in Gulfport, Mississippi, on April 19-20, 1996. Irwin was a panelist at the seminar.

. Def.'s Mot. Suppress Ex. 27 at 14.

. Newspaper articles reporting the January 4, 1996 arrest were available in the Lexis/Nexis database shortly thereafter. See, e.g., Christy Hoppe, Prison Developer Accused of Seeking Money to Help Dallas Killer Escape, Dallas Morning News, Jan. 6, 1996, at 1A, available at LEXIS, News, Dallas Morning News File (load date: Jan. 8, 1996). Although Irwin confirmed in his deposition that he knew about the foiled jailbreak plan in April 1996, the wiretap application did not provide Judge Walter with the details of this disturbing crime. Rather, the government advised only that Graham had been indicted by the Grand Jury in Harris County, Texas, for one count of money laundering and one count of theft by sting.

. Def.’s Mot. Suppress Ex. 27 at 47. Shortly after the Grahams began cooperating with federal authorities in Louisiana, AUSAs for the Southern District of Texas warned Irwin to "[b]e careful, because you're reaching into a bad box of snakes.” Id. at 41.

. Def.’s Mot. Suppress Ex. 2, 9/16/96 Hr’g Tr. at 30. Although the bankruptcy-court testimony was given nearly three months after the issuance of the wiretap order, Irwin's November 2000 deposition establishes that the testimony concerning the Grahams’ credibility was not based on fresh information but reflected, instead, conclusions that Irwin reached during his April 1996 background research on the Grahams.

. Def.'s Mot. Suppress Ex. 28 at 85. Use immunity — also termed use/derivative-use immunity — is "[ijmmunity from the use of the compelled testimony (or any information derived from that testimony) in a future prosecution against the witness.” Black’s Law Dictionary 754 (7th ed.1999).

. Transactional immunity is "[ijmmunity from prosecution for any event or transaction described in the compelled testimony. This is the broadest form of immunity.” Black's Law Dictionary 754 (7th ed.1999).

. AUSA Strasser was Irwin’s immediate supervisor and had participated in the initial meetings with Blau and the Grahams. The *411letter appears in Brown's offer of proof as an exhibit to the November 2000 deposition of James B. Letten. See Def.’s Mot. Suppress Ex. 29, Def.’s Ex. 106.

.In his November 2000 deposition, Irwin acknowledged the government’s initial concern that the Grahams would later mischarac-terize the deal: ”[D]id I think the Grahams for one minute would come back, try to — to say the deal was something other than what it was? Absolutely.” Def.’s Mot. Suppress Ex. 27 at 43.

. 18U.S.C. § 2518(2).

. Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 165, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978).

. Id. at 166, 98 S.Ct. 2674.

. Id. at 155, 98 S.Ct. 2674.

. Def.'s Mot. Suppress Ex. 5-B, Cleveland Aff. ¶ 30.

. Def.'s Mot. Suppress Ex. 7, 5/8/96 Tr. at 3.

. Id.

. United States v. Meling, 47 F.3d 1546, 1554 (9th Cir.1995).

. Id.

. United States v. Bankston, 182 F.3d 296, 305-06 (5th Cir.1999), rev’d in part on other grounds, Cleveland v. United States, 531 U.S. 12, 121 S.Ct. 365, 148 L.Ed.2d 221 (2000). See also United States v. Stanert, 162 F.2d 775, 782 (9th Cir.1985) (“Standing alone, [a defendant's] substantial preliminary showing that the affidavit contained reckless or deliberate falsities and omissions is insufficient to warrant a Franks hearing. A defendant challenging an affidavit must also show that the affidavit purged of those falsities and supplemented by the omissions would not be sufficient to support a finding of probable cause.”).

. See Bankston, 182 F.3d at 305; Stanert, 762 F.2d at 782.

. See 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a).

. Id. § 1951(b)(2).

. United States v. Tomblin, 46 F.3d 1369, 1384 (5th Cir.1995).

. Graham was a Texas citizen representing a Texas corporation, Viewpoint Development Corporation, that had an interest in a private prison project in Louisiana; thus, the "effect on interstate commerce” element of the Hobbs Act was undoubtedly satisfied. See United States v. Villafranca, 260 F.3d 374, 377 (5th Cir.2001) (stating that “the Hobbs Act's required effect on interstate commerce is identical with the requirements of federal jurisdiction under the Commerce Clause”).

. Op. at 403-404.

. Franlcs v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 172, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978).