Court Opinion

ID: 9475693
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:35:57.077819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:52.862276
License: Public Domain

CARTER, District Judge
(dissenting in part and concurring in part).
I concur in the majority’s conclusion that evidence seized under the warrant issued herein containing no address of the property to be searched need not be suppressed because of the executing officer’s good-faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral, detached magistrate under the doctrine of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). I dissent, however, from the majority’s adoption of the rationale that the first warrant issued was not defective because the officers who executed it possessed in their minds information particular to the premises intended to be searched sufficient to obviate an unreasonable likelihood of a mistaken search of the wrong premises pursuant to the warrant.
It is fundamental fourth amendment law that the protections afforded by the amendment are to be secured by the facial language of the warrant when issued. Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 196, 48 S.Ct. 74, 76, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927); United States v. Johnson, 541 F.2d 1311, 1315 (8th Cir.1976); United States v. Marti, 421 F.2d 1263, 1268 (2d Cir.1970), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 947, 92 S.Ct. 287, 30 L.Ed.2d 264 (1971). The sufficiency of a warrant is to be judged from the warrant and its attachments. E.g., In re Lafayette Academy, Inc., 610 F.2d 1, 4-5 (1st Cir.1979); United States v. Klein, 565 F.2d 183, 186 n. 3 (1st Cir.1977); Johnson, 541 F.2d at 1315; United States v. Womack, 509 F.2d 368, 382 (D.C.Cir.1974), cert. denied, 422 U.S. 1022, 95 S.Ct. 2644, 45 L.Ed.2d 681 (1975); Huffman v. United States, 470 F.2d 386, 393 n. 7 (D.C.Cir.1971), rev’d on reh’g on other ground, 502 F.2d 419 (1974); Moore v. United States, 461 F.2d 1236, 1238 (D.C.Cir.1972). I see no valid analytical reason *870to depart from these principles in measuring the sufficiency of the first warrant to be issued here. If those principles are applied to this warrant, it is apparent that it does not describe the premises authorized to be searched with sufficient particularity, by reason of the total absence of any street or municipal address, to obviate a substantial risk of a mistaken search of the wrong premises in the course of the execution of the warrant. A magistrate’s assumptions, if we may assume that they were in fact made, as to the identity of the officers who will execute a warrant or as to what particular knowledge such officers may have as to the identity of the property intended by the officer applying for the warrant to be searched is not in logic or law an adequate substitute for the safeguard of a facially sufficient warrant. In pragmatic terms, such assumptions before or after the fact of the execution of the warrant are lame and ineffective safeguards.
I am aware that this rationale has been resorted to frequently in the Eighth and Ninth Circuits in an attempt to uphold searches and seizures. United States v. Gitcho, 601 F.2d 369 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 871, 100 S.Ct. 148, 62 L.Ed.2d 96 (1979), and cases cited in the majority opinion at 866. I am unable to find any case, however, in which either the Supreme Court or this court of appeals has upheld a facially insufficient warrant on that rationale. In fact, it appears that we explicitly rejected this rationale in Lafayette Academy, 610 F.2d at 5. I am convinced that this court should continue to abjure a doctrine that is so unwise, unfounded, and ineffective.
Because I believe that the warrant is facially defective, it would seem at first blush that its execution could not be upheld under the doctrine of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). The United States Supreme Court there noted that for the doctrine to apply, officers must have, because of the issuance of the warrant, “an objectively reasonable belief in the existence of probable cause.” Id. at 926, 104 S.Ct. at 3423. The Court further noted: “[Djepending on the circumstances of the particular case, a warrant may be so facially deficient — i.e., in failing to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized — that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.” Id. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3422. Thus, it would seem that because no officer could deduce with reasonable certainty even the state or municipality in which the premises authorized to be searched were located, much less the street therein or the lot number of the premises on such street, this case is precisely that case that the Court excepted from the reach of its holding in Leon. I am, however, constrained to accede to the majority’s conclusion based upon Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 104 S.Ct. 3424, 82 L.Ed.2d 737 (1984), that Leon does in fact validate the execution of the search in this case. The operative facts of this case are nearly identical to those in Sheppard. Here the officer seeking the warrant did present an affidavit setting forth the address of the premises to be searched. Nevertheless, through the magistrate’s inadvertence, the address did not get incorporated into the warrant. The officer then received the warrant as validly executed from the magistrate and proceeded on this record in good faith with its execution. I can perceive no significant factual distinction between the two cases. The exclusionary rule is not to be applied to redress an error of the magistrate, United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. at 921, 104 S.Ct. at 3420, so long as he does not abandon “ ‘his “neutral and detached” function.’ ” Id. at 914, 104 S.Ct. at 3417 (quoting Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 111, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 1512, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964)).
Accordingly, I would uphold the order of the district court denying the motion to suppress on the authority of Leon and Sheppard. I concur in the majority’s resolution of the issues in respect to the scope of the warrant and the need for the executing officers to have the warrant in their possession.