Court Opinion

ID: 9785573
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:13:21.777455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:58.446243
License: Public Domain

COATS, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
The facts of this case are simple. Sarah McLeod and Michael McLeod were friends of the defendant David Koen. They both had been in David Koen’s house and observed that he had child pornography on his computer. Koen had told Michael McLeod that he had been viewing and storing child pornography on his personal computer and that he had been sexually molesting his 13-year-old daughter. He had recorded a video of the molestation when his daughter was 8 year's old.
Trooper Ryan Browning put this information in an affidavit in support of the search warrant. In the affidavit, Trooper Browning-stated that he had reason to believe that evidence of child pornography was located on personal computers and video tapes at the first residence on the left of Greentimbers Drive at Homer, Alaska.
The alleged defect in the warrant is that the warrant does not indicate why Trooper Browning believed that the evidence would be at the Greentimbers Drive address. The United States Supreme Court and the Alaska Supreme Court have both stated that affidavits submitted in support of the search warrant should be read as a whole and tested and interpreted “in a common sense and realistic fashion.”1 Courts are encouraged to review warrants charitably to encourage police officers to obtain a warrant.2 And we are to give the magistrate’s determination that probable cause exists “great deference.” 3
Applying these standards, it is apparent that the Greentimbers Drive address is Koen’s residence where the McLeods saw the child pornography. The McLeods reported that they saw the evidence of the child pornography at Koen’s residence. In the affidavit, Trooper Browning swears that he believes that evidence of child pornography is on personal computers and video tapes at the Greentimbers Drive address. Looking at the warrant in a common sense manner, it is apparent that the trooper is asking to search Koen’s residence where the McLeods reported seeing the child pornography.
The short time Trooper Browning used to obtain the warrant reinforces the inference that the evidence of the child pornography was present at Koen’s residence at Greentim-bers Drive, rather than some other place. Trooper Browning obtained the information about the child pornography on Koen’s computer and obtained the warrant and served it within a few hours on the same day. Sarah McLeod contacted Trooper Browning at 4:47 p.m. on February 27, 2004. The trooper interviewed Michael McLeod at 5:43 p.m. that same day. The magistrate issued the warrant at 6:30 p.m. Trooper Browning served the warrant at Koen’s residence at 7:30 p.m.
The next question is how did Trooper Browning obtain the Greentimbers Drive address. It is obvious that the McLeods were intimately familiar with this residence. They were friends of Koen and had recently been in the residence where they saw the child pornography. It is logical to conclude that Trooper Browning was not going to search the wrong place. He could obtain from the *682McLeods the location of where they had observed the pornography. All of this is apparent from the face of the warrant. These are all reasonable and common sense inferences which the magistrate could make. To refuse to allow the magistrate to make these common sense inferences appears to me to violate the case law which requires us to evaluate warrants in a common sense and reasonable manner.
In reaching a different conclusion, the majority relies on our former case, State v. White.4 But White is easily distinguishable. White was accused of various counts of burglary, robbery, kidnapping, and sexual assault.5 In order to search for evidence of these offenses the police asked for a warrant to search “21-D Kennedy Camp.”6 But the police never set out any reason in the warrant to connect 21-D Kennedy Camp to White or to the offense.
There was evidence, off the record, that one of the police officers had told the magistrate that 21-D Kennedy Camp was White’s address. (There is no indication that the police told the magistrate why they suspected that White lived at that address.) We affirmed the trial judge’s decision invalidating the warrant on several grounds. We upheld the trial judge’s conclusion that the police had made misstatements and omissions on the warrants which were material and intentional. We found that the trial judge’s inference of police misconduct and bad faith made it unnecessary to decide whether to uphold the warrant under the good faith exception set out in United States v. Leon.7 We also noted, with apparent approval, the trial judge’s decision that the information which the police presented in the warrant was insufficient to connect White to the offense.8
The warrant in White was so flawed that it is difficult to compare it to the present case. But White can be cited for the proposition that all of the information necessary to show probable cause to issue a search warrant must be contained within the information officially presented to the magistrate. And, if the process of obtaining the warrant is as flawed as it was in White, we will not apply the Leon good faith test.
But Koen’s case is very different. As I have tried to illustrate, I do not believe that it is necessary to go beyond the actual information which was presented to the magistrate to understand that Trooper Browning was asking to search Koen’s residence where the McLeods had seen the child pornography on the computer. And it was obvious from the face of the affidavit, that he knew the address of Koen’s residence where the evidence was located.
The majority relies on several cases which are distinguishable from Koen’s case.9 In all of these cases, the police had probable cause to believe that the defendant committed a crime. The affidavit then states that the police have reason to believe that evidence of the crime would be found at a particular address. The defect in the affidavit is that it does not establish any connection between the defendant and the place to be searched. Even in these cases, all of the courts except one10 allow the police to establish that they acted in good faith under the doctrine set out in United States v. Leon.11
Koen’s case would be similar to these cases if the police set out probable cause to believe that Koen committed a crime, such as robbery. And the police had asked to search *683the Greentimbers Drive address without stating what the connection was between the address and the crime or Koen. The first weakness in the affidavit would be that it did not set any connection between Koen and the Greentimbers Drive address. The more important defect is that the affidavit would not set out how the police determined that the Greentimbers Drive address was Koen’s residence. In cases where the police have probable cause to believe that a defendant has committed a crime, determining where the defendant resides can be a problem. Many people do not have residences that can easily be determined. And, if the police searched the wrong residence, someone’s right to privacy would be seriously violated. However, none of these factors are present in Koen’s case.
The McLeods knew that Koen possessed child pornography at Koen’s residence because they were in the residence when they saw the evidence. It appears clear to me that the police knew the location of the residence because the McLeods communicated this information to them. They were simply going to search the residence where the McLeods had seen the evidence. Koen’s ease is simply not like the eases relied on by the majority, where the police have probable cause to believe that the defendant committed a crime and then state a particular place that they want to search without making any connection between the defendant and the place to be searched. And even in those eases, where the defects in the warrant appear to be much more egregious, the courts have not suppressed the evidence, but allowed the police to establish that they acted in good faith under United States v. Leon.
I conclude that it was reasonable for the magistrate to determine that the affidavit in support of the search warrant set out probable cause to believe that evidence of child pornography would be found at the Green-timbers Drive residence. I accordingly dissent from the majority decision suppressing the evidence which was seized from Koen’s residence.

. United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 108, 85 S.Ct. 741, 746, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965); State v. Malkin, 722 P.2d 943, 947 n. 10 (Alaska 1986); State v. Davenport, 510 P.2d 78, 82 n. 8 (Alaska 1973); Rosa v. State, 633 P.2d 1027, 1030 (Alaska App.1981).

. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 236, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2331, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983).

. Ventresca, 380 U.S. at 109, 85 S.Ct. at 747.

. 707 P.2d 271 (Alaska App.1985).

. Id. at 273.

. Id. at 277.

. 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984).

. White, 707 P.2d at 277-78.

. United States v. Procopio, 88 F.3d 21 (1st Cir.1996); United States v. Hove, 848 F.2d 137 (9th Cir.1988); People v. Gall, 30 P.3d 145 (Colo.2001); Oesby v. State, 142 Md.App. 144, 788 A.2d 662 (2002); Braxton v. State, 123 Md.App. 599, 720 A.2d 27 (1998); State v. Varnado, 675 So.2d 268 (La.1996).

. United States v. Hove, 848 F.2d 137 (9th Cir.1988).

. 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984).