Court Opinion

ID: 9588380
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:33:44.594711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:47.332371
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The standard of review issue presented in this case is a very important — and nuanced — question that has been with us for a good long time. My colleagues on the panel deserve a great deal of credit for addressing the ambiguity that has crept into our case law and for attempting to resolve it. Its resolution may well be correct — or at least the best that any intermediate appellate court can do, given the tension that the panel agrees is inherent in Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996). See id. at 705, 116 S.Ct. 1657 (dissenting opinion of Scalia, J.).
The disagreement among the circuits about the applicable standard of review is attributable to Ornelas’ maintaining, at least in dicta, the distinction between review of a judicial officer’s determination that there is a probable cause to issue a warrant and review of a judicial officer’s post facto determination that law enforcement officers, acting without a warrant, had probable cause to search. Certainly, in terms of the Supreme Court’s desire that appellate courts “maintain control of’ and “clarify” legal principles, id. at 697, 116 S.Ct. 1657, both scenarios would seem to be equally susceptible to the traditional law clarification function of appellate courts. If we can be expected to elucidate principles in one of these situations, we certainly ought to be able to do so in the *580other. The reason for different standards of reviews for each situation is not clear.
If, as the panel maintains, Ornelas truly intended that we review the determination of a judicial officer to issue a warrant with “great deference,” while reviewing de novo a judicial officer’s determination that law enforcement officers had probable cause, but with “due weight” given to the inferences drawn from the facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers, we have our work cut out for us.
Although I can understand the court’s reluctance to spend valuable judicial resources on a question that can be resolved ultimately only by the Supreme Court, I believe that this question is sufficiently important, and the need for guidance for the bench and bar sufficiently acute, that the matter is worth the court’s time. Indeed, a plenary and thoughtful treatment by the entire court might be of significant assistance to the Supreme Court when it deals with this issue. Our Circuit Rule 40(e) procedure plays a salutary role in our work, but it is ill-suited for the thoughtful discussion necessary to deal comprehensively with this issue.
Standards of review count. The panel’s opinion is candid about the difficulties that this issue poses. In the absence of en banc review, I can simply express, respectfully, the hope that other circuits will be more generous with their time and that, eventually, the Supreme Court will resolve the issue definitively.