Court Opinion

ID: 9471833
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:42:05.023978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:35.879382
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This case is before the Court upon the government’s appeal from an order of the district court suppressing evidence seized from the home and car of appellee, Isaac M. Jenkins, pursuant to a “deliberately misleading” search warrant. The government claims that (1) the district court abused its discretion in declining to re-open the suppression hearing after it determined that the search warrant was unlawful and (2) the district court improperly granted Isaac F. Jenkins standing to challenge the warrant. The majority opinion and the concurring opinion reject the standing argument, but accept the U.S. Attorney’s argument that the district court erred in refusing to re-open the suppression hearing. Because I can not agree that the district court erred, much less abused its discretion, in deciding not to reopen the suppression hearing, I must dissent. «
The majority and the concurring opinions hold that the district court committed reversible error in refusing to re-open the hearing to consider evidence which was not on the affidavit, but which might have been within the Magistrate’s personal knowledge. My understanding of the law in this area, however, leads me to believe that the district judge’s refusal to consider such evidence was not only within his discretion, it was required by applicable Federal statutes and constitutional law. The majority opinion, somewhat curiously, states that Rule 41 is “applicable” to this hearing, but never applies that rule to this case. As the concurring opinion astutely points out, “the warrants at issue in this case are federal in nature and must comply with the provisions of Fed.R.Crim.P. 41 as well as with constitutional requirements.”
The text of Rule 41 itself prohibits a Magistrate from considering the kind of evidence which the majority view requires him to consider. Rule 41(c)(1) provides:
*401A warrant ... shall issue only on affidavit or affidavits sworn to before the federal magistrate and establishing the grounds for issuing the warrant.
The only exception to this rule is for “sworn oral testimony” communicated to the Magistrate. In keeping with the plain language of Rule 41(c)(1), this Court in United States v. Hatcher, 473 F.2d 321 (6th Cir.1973), stated that the determination of the legality of a search warrant can be informed “only by the statements of fact contained in the affidavit.” See also, United States v. Vasser, 648 F.2d 507 (9th Cir. 1980); United States v. Melvin, 419 F.2d 136, 140 (4th Cir.1969); United States v. Roth, 391 F.2d 507, 509 (7th Cir. 1967).
The majority somehow conclude that Rule 41 only applies “if [the affidavit] is the only matter presented to the issuing magistrate.” I find absolutely no support for this exception to Rule 41. Indeed the Supreme Court in Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306 (1971), explicitly rejected the reasoning of both the majority and the concurrence. In Whiteley, the government sought to salvage an otherwise insufficient search warrant with evidence already on the record that the affiant had knowledge of facts not contained in the affidavit and communicated them to the Magistrate. The Supreme Court declared:
Under the eases of this Court, an otherwise insufficient affidavit cannot be rehabilitated by testimony concerning information possessed by the affiant when he sought the warrant but not disclosed [on the affidavit]. A contrary rule would, of course, render the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment meaningless.
401 U.S. at 565, 91 S.Ct. at 1035; see also Giordenello v. United States, 357 U.S. 480, 78 S.Ct. 1245, 2 L.Ed.2d 1503 (1958). The majority, by requiring the district court to consider evidence not “sworn to” before the Magistrate establish such a “contrary rule” and render the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement “meaningless.” The language of the Supreme Court, of this Circuit and of Rule 41 clearly precludes the district judge from considering the very evidence for which the majority remand this case. I can not join an opinion which actually finds that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to depart from such established precedent.
In departing from the majority opinion’s reasoning in refusing to apply that precedent, the concurrence suggests three alternative grounds for a remand: (1) to assist in the determination of whether the affiant knowingly and intentionally misled the Magistrate, (2) to determine whether the FBI agents perpetrated a fraud upon the justice system, and (3) to determine whether the errors in this case were “harmless.”
The concurrence correctly concludes that Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), entitles the defendant to a hearing where he can show that a written affidavit contained a “false statement,” which was included “knowingly and intentionally” or with “reckless disregard for the truth.” 438 U.S. at 171, 98 S.Ct. at 2684. More than merely entitling the defendant to a hearing, however, Franks requires that where
the allegation of perjury or reckless disregard is established by the preponderance of evidence, and with the affidavit's false material set to one side, the affidavit’s remaining content is insufficient to establish probable cause, the search warrant must be voided and the fruits of the search excluded, (emphasis added).
438 U.S. at 171, 98 S.Ct. at 2684. Franks could not more clearly state that the questions of knowing falsehood and reckless disregard for the truth are factual ones which the district judge must decide from the affidavit alone. District Judge White scrutinized the affidavit and found as a fact that:
The affidavit on its face was misleading and defective. It contained the statement of Agent Owens in narrative fashion as though Owens had been present at the scene of the crime. A reading of the affidavit and record shows that there is no way that the magistrate could have known that these facts were related by *402Owens to Hamilton. The magistrate would have to infer unless specifically advised that Hamilton had been made aware of these facts by the alleged victims, Wright and Talley ... Where the person who signs the affidavits neither took statements from the alleged victims or participated in the investigation but merely repeats what another agent told him, that fact not being apparent in the affidavit requires the conclusion that the affidavit was willfully misleading.
As a reviewing court, we may only overturn Judge White’s factual finding that the affidavit was “willfully misleading” if we find that it is “clearly erroneous” Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a); see, e.g., Downs v. United States, 522 F.2d 990, 999 (6th Cir.1975).
After painstaking review of those facts which may properly be considered, I am unable to conclude that Judge White’s findings are “clearly erroneous.” In the case at bar, not only was the Magistrate not informed of the essential circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the information before him, but he was deliberately misled about the nature of that information. The district court found that the affidavit was “misleading” because it “contained the statement of Agent Owens in narrative fashion as though Owens had been present at the scene of the crime.” The information supplied in the affidavit, in reality, was derived from statements made to F.B.I. agents by the victims of the crime. Agent Hamilton, who swore to the veracity of that information, only received the facts surrounding the case from brief statements made to him by Agent Owens.
The first paragraph of the affidavit recounts the events surrounding the collection of a debt from Merry Wright, Jr. Nowhere in that paragraph is there any suggestion that the events recorded were not within the personal knowledge of the affiant. The second page of the affidavit, in a similar manner, reports facts revealed through the hearsay statements of Major Talley, Jr. as if they were derived from firsthand knowledge. Further, Talley’s past loan history, his acceptance of loan envelopes from Isaac M. Jenkins and his encounter with Isaac M. Jenkins and Isaac F. Jenkins were all recorded in the affidavit in narrative fashion, as if they had been witnessed by the agents.
This language effectively concealed the hearsay nature of the information. Had the affidavit been sworn to by Owens, the agent to whom the victims actually gave this information, the narrative would have concealed the fact of simple hearsay. But Owens did not sign the affidavit. Instead, Agent Hamilton, whose understanding of these events stemmed only from the hearsay of Owens upon the hearsay of the victims, swore to the veracity of these facts.
Indeed a careful reading of the affidavit, such as the one Judge White performed, indicates that the agents’ clever use of language and sentence structure was designed to give the magistrate the erroneous impression that the agent who “swore to” the reported facts actually had personal knowledge of them. The affidavit’s sentences consistently and artfully leave out the person to whom the information was supplied. The affidavit states that “Major Talley, Jr. and Merry Wright, Jr. advised in independent separate interviews that . ..and reports that “Talley advised that ...and records that “Talley stated that. ... ” The agents employed the only sentence structure which would both make sense and conceal the true identity of the agent to whom the information was given. I agree that we must not hold law enforcement officials to an exacting standard in the “midst and haste of a criminal investigation.” United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 85 S.Ct. 741, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965). The consistent and careful language of the affidavit in this case, however, precludes any possibility that it was prepared in the heat of police work. The affidavit was prepared shrewdly by agents with vast knowledge of and experience with the requirements of criminal justice. They went to great lengths to lead the Magistrate to believe that the affiant had personal knowledge of the facts on the affidavit. They would not have gone to such great lengths to deceive if the Magistrate really did have *403the truth “brought to his attention” in an earlier encounter. I can not avoid the conclusion that the agents in this case “willfully misled” the Magistrate in violation of the Franks requirements. But I need not be so convinced. As a reviewing court, we need only find that Judge White’s findings are not “clearly erroneous.” I do not know how it can be concluded on this record that those findings are “clearly erroneous."
The majority and the concurrence avoid concluding that the district judges’ factual findings were “clearly erroneous” by asserting that such a conclusion can only be made after all the facts are on record. As I have endeavored to make clear, however, the district judge could not have “abused his discretion” in failing to re-open the suppression hearing when to do so would be contrary to all legal precedent. Moreover, the district court explicitly found that Assistant United States Attorney Schuster’s motion to reopen the suppression hearing was not timely. At the close of the hearing, Schus-ter merely blurted out that “evidence not solicited from Special Agent Owen has come to our attention.” Any such evidence must have been known to Agent Owens before that last-minute attempt to re-open the hearing. I am convinced that the district court did not err as a matter of law in declining to consider evidence not “sworn to ” before the magistrate and certainly did not abuse his discretion in refusing to reopen at the tardy urging of the Assistant U.S. Attorney the suppression hearing to consider any such evidence. Accordingly, I can not join that portion of the Court’s opinion which sanctions a remand for the purpose of considering evidence not properly before the Magistrate.
Nor can I join any remand of this cause for a determination of whether a mockery of justice has been performed. The concurrence relies for the proposition that such a remand is necessary upon Judge Keith’s dissent in United States v. Barone, 584 F.2d 118 (6th Cir.1978). I do not understand Judge Keith’s dissent to support the position of the concurrence. Judge Keith stressed that “law enforcement agents, if unchecked, could make a mockery out of a judicial officer’s duty to reach a decision on the issuance of a search warrant.” 584 F.2d at 126. In order to deter such a mockery, this Circuit has gone so far as to disregard the second Franks requirement that the subject of the falsity be “material” to probable cause. In United States v. Luna, 525 F.2d 4 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 965, 96 S.Ct. 1459, 47 L.Ed.2d 732 (1976), this Court held that where agents intend to deceive a neutral magistrate, the evidence seized must be suppressed regardless of its materiality. In order to “prevent fraud upon the judicial process,” the Luna decision holds enforcement agents to a standard more exacting than that established in Franks. Far from sanctioning a remand of this case, therefore, Judge Keith’s opinion in Barone supports the district court’s suppression order where as here the agents intended to deceive a neutral judicial officer. Thus, I am unable to join in an opinion which relies upon Judge Keith’s Barone opinion to invalidate the district court’s suppression order.
Not only does Judge Keith’s opinion wholly support the district court’s suppression order, that opinion effectively refutes the propriety of the concurrence’s call for a remand to apply a harmless error analysis. Judge Keith’s opinion, on which the concurrence relies, reiterates our teaching in Luna. The Luna decision obviates the need to consider the materiality of the falsehood where the agents intend to deceive a judicial officer. The district court found as a fact that the agents willfully misled the Magistrate. Any remand for a consideration of whether the falsity was “harmless,” therefore, is directly contrary to Luna.
Even if the Luna analysis does not apply, however, the district court implicitly found that the Franks materiality requirement had been met. Indeed the falsehood encompassed the entire affidavit, effectively negating any basis for probable cause. The affidavit, from its first paragraph recounting the events surrounding the collection of Wright’s debt to its final paragraph repeating a telephone conversation between Jenkins and Talley, reads like a narrative, giv*404ing the Magistrate the mistaken impression that Agent Hamilton had personal knowledge of all of the evidence. In fact, Hamilton had no personal knowledge of any of the events recounted in the affidavit. When the “material that is the subject of the alleged falsity or reckless disregard is set to one side,” therefore, no evidence remains from which a determination of probable cause can justifiably be made. See Franks, 438 U.S. at 171-72, 98 S.Ct. at 2684.
Moreover, any such remand is directly contrary to this Court’s opinion in United States v. Shorter, 600 F.2d 585 (6th Cir. 1979) (Edwards, J.). That opinion condoned a “harmless error” analysis of an agent’s innocent failure to follow the technical requirements of procuring a “duplicate original warrant.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a) was particularly appropriate to that procedural error. Our opinion in Shorter, however, establishes a clear distinction between a technical procedural error and a substantive defect. The appellant in Shorter also argued that the agents violated Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(c)(2)(D) by failing to “place under oath each person whose testimony forms the basis” for the warrant. In a scholarly opinion, Judge Edwards’ wrote that because “the oath requirement is constitutional in origin,” Rule 41(c)(2)(D) “speaks more of substance than procedure and must be obeyed.” 600 F.2d at 589.
The challenged police activity in the case before us, as well, speaks more of substance than procedure. The government urges the district court to consider evidence not “sworn to” before the Magistrate. The “oath requirement” is therefore at the heart of this case. Like the prohibition at issue in Shorter, the prohibition at issue in this case is “constitutional in origin.” I agree with Judge Edwards’ Shorter opinion that a Rule 52(a) “harmless error” analysis is wholly inappropriate where such substantial rights are involved. Because I believe that Franks, Luna, Shorter and Rule 52(a) provide four independent grounds for prohibiting a “harmless error” analysis in this case, I can not join in a remand for any such analysis.
I am not unaware of the gravity of the crimes charged in this case, nor am I unsympathetic to the needs of police officers in the heat of their work. As the majority opinion makes clear, however, the crimes charged “are not before us on the merits of this appeal.” Furthermore, as I trust my opinion makes clear, the affidavit in this case was not the sloppy product of necessarily hasty police work; rather, as Judge White found, the agents deliberately misled a judicial officer in order to create the impression of probable cause. In light of these circumstances, I am unable to concur in a remand of this case for the consideration of evidence which simply can not, consistently with every available legal precedent in this area, be properly considered. I therefore dissent.