Court Opinion

ID: 9678792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:32:39.333104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:07.935220
License: Public Domain

Annabelle Clinton Imber, Justice, dissenting. I cannot subscribe to the majority’s application of the good-faith exception announced in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), to the facts in this case. Therefore, I must respectfully dissent. This case is strikingly similar to the situation we recently addressed in Sims v. State, 333 Ark. 405, 969 S.W.2d 657 (1998). I dissented in Sims and I do so now for virtually identical reasons. In Sims, California authorities intercepted a Federal Express package addressed to Sims’s residence. The officer who prepared the affidavit for the search warrant knowingly averred in his affidavit that the package had been delivered and received by Sims, when in fact that package had not been delivered or received. Both the magistrate and the officer knew the package had not been delivered or received, yet a warrant was issued in spite of the fact that both the affidavit and warrant were patently false. The majority in Sims essentially held that an officer may knowingly present a false affidavit and obtain an invalid warrant so long as he discloses to the magistrate what will actually take place. The majority in Sims acknowledged that the officer and the magistrate knew that the affidavit and search warrant contained false statements. Nevertheless, the majority upheld the search under the good-faith exception because the officer and magistrate knew that no search would take place until after delivery. Such an outcome defied logic in Sims and it continues to defy logic in this case. The majority opines that applying the exclusionary rule to this case would serve no useful purpose because no police misconduct occurred, and the judge was not misled by false information. The majority’s conclusion effectively ignores the fact that the amended affidavit was false. There is no doubt that the original affidavit would have established probable cause for a warrant to search Apartment 50. However, the affidavit as amended and initialed by Investigator Hawkins and Judge Hudson contained numerous misrepresentations. Specifically, Investigator Hawkins knowingly averred in the amended affidavit: 1) that Ingrid Brown resided at 3302 Washington Street, Apartment 51; 2) that the package containing the crack cocaine and a .380 caliber semiautomatic handgun had been addressed to Terry Jackson at 3302 Washington Street, Apartment 51; 3) that the package was delivered to Officer Todd Harness who kept it in his possession until he delivered it to 3302 Washington Street, Apartment 51; and 4) that the package was hand-delivered by Officer Harness to an occupant of 3302 Washington Street, Apartment 51. In fact, Investigator Hawkins knew that these averments were false because he knowingly averred in the original affidavit that Ingrid Brown resided at Apartment 50; that the package containing the crack cocaine and a .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun had been addressed to Terry Jackson at Apartment 50; that the package was delivered to Officer Harness who kept it in his possession until he delivered it to Apartment 50; and that the package was hand-delivered by Officer Harness to Apartment 50. All of Investigator Hawkins’s statements in the original affidavit were true, and, in fact, described how the events transpired up until the Appellant and another person picked up the package from Apartment 50 and took it to Apartment 51. Investigator Hawkins testified that he explained this change of circumstances to Judge Hudson. However, no affidavit or recorded testimony was given under oath to that effect, as required by Ark. R. Crim. P. 13.1(b). All we have is Investigator Hawkins’s amended affidavit which he knew was false. Just as I did in Sims, supra, I again find the majority’s reliance on the good-faith exclusion of Leon, supra, to be misplaced. I believe we properly applied the Leon good-faith exclusion in Pyle v. State, 314 Ark. 165, 862 S.W.2d 823 (1993), where we stated that every fact in an affidavit need not necessarily be correct, but “must be truthful in the sense that the information put forth is believed or appropriately accepted by the affiant as true.” Id. (citing Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978)) (emphasis added). It simply cannot be maintained that Hawkins’s amended affidavit was truthful or that he believed it to be truthful. Once again, under the majority’s approach, “an officer may knowingly present a false affidavit and obtain an invalid warrant, but so long as he tells the magistrate what will actually take place he has acted in good-faith when the warrant is eventually executed.” Sims, supra (Imber, J., dissenting). Such an outcome in this case is as illogical, unwise, and contrary to the law as it was in Sims. In attempting to find good faith, the majority in this case essentially reiterates the essence of the majority’s holding in Sims, supra, that a court may completely disregard a false affidavit to find a totally independent basis on which to hinge probable cause for a warrant that is wholly invalid. For the above reasons, I must respectfully dissent. Newberjst, J., joins in this dissent.