Court Opinion

ID: 9486071
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:37:12.707047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:30.957215
License: Public Domain

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The District Court upheld the searches in this case on the basis of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). The majority concludes that the magistrate lacked probable cause and that the affidavits in support of the search warrant were “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.” Majority Op. at 1115 (quoting Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 610-11, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2265-66, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975)). It reaches this conclusion on the basis that the warrant application “contains no information from which a magistrate could conclude that the informant’s information is reliable or credible,” id., and that there was no information which lended “credence to the informant’s allegations.” Id.
The majority can only reach this conclusion by substituting its judgment of the informant’s credibility for the magistrate and district judge. The majority also appears to hold that the officer should have refused to execute the warrant if he disagreed with the magistrate’s credibility determination. I respectfully dissent.
As the majority points out, the warrant application rested primarily on information from Judith Sawicki, a lawyer and associate with defendant’s law firm, until she was fired on February 21, 1992. She stated in her affidavit that defendant regularly used marijuana; that he smoked it in his office almost every day; and that she had smoked with him at his home. She had also purchased marijuana from him in January or February, 1992. The search warrant was issued March 18, 1992.
The basis of Sawicki’s personal knowledge was clear. She had observed defendant use marijuana on almost a daily basis from January, 1991 to February, 1992. She had seen marijuana paraphernalia in his apartment as well as his office. The affidavit disclosed an established pattern of using marijuana almost daily for over a year. Sawicki admitted her own use with defendant. The affidavit then was contrary to her penal interest and thus, as the Supreme Court pointed out, bears intrinsic evidence of credibility. United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971). Also, Sawicki appeared personally before the magistrate so he was in a position to judge her credibility, which we are not.
We do not have an unidentified informant whose credibility can only be judged by information previously provided. Sawicki was a lawyer. That one is licensed to practice law and relied on by courts, permitted to issue subpoenas and clearly knows the penalties of perjury, surely are factors that a magistrate is entitled to rely on when considering credibility. No less the police officer should be entitled to consider that fact.
The majority states that “[ejvidence in the record also indicates that Tait initially submitted the application to one of the judges of the 74th district who had previously declined to sign the records warrant” (the records warrant refers to a request for a warrant to search for Sawicki’s files, which she sought to retrieve from defendant’s office), and that “the judge again declined to issue a warrant.” Majority Op. at 1115. The majority does not cite to what evidence it relies on. The record of the hearing on the motion to suppress is to the contrary. Tait testified at the suppression hearing as follows:
Q. [Street — defendant’s attorney] Prior to those two affidavits [Tait’s and Saw-icki’s] being presented to Magistrate Boes, did you first present them to District Judge Newcomb?
A. [Tait] No, sir, I did not.
Q. [Street] Did you present them to any other District Judge?
A. [Tait] No sir.
*1120After Tait’s testimony, defendant’s attorney appears to have acknowledged that Tait acted in good faith.
MR. STREET: Your Honor, I do not feel there is any additional testimony on those issues [Tait’s good faith] because I feel, based on his testimony, it is apparent he was deliberately selected by the Bay County Prosecutor’s Office because he did have a clean slate on these issues. He was functioning as their agent in good faith apparently.
The same testimony was given by Tait at trial.1
There is no basis for concluding that- a reasonably trained law enforcement officer, in the place of Michigan State Trooper Tait, should have known the warrant was invalid. Indeed, defendant does not argue in his appellate brief that Tait did not rely on the warrant in good faith. Rather, he argues that Leon does not apply because the magistrate was not impartial.2 Tait’s awareness that there had been hard feelings or disagreements between the Bay County Prosecutor’s Office and defendant, cannot be a basis for holding that Tait did not act in good faith.3 Hard feelings and disagreements between prosecutors, officers and persons accused of a crime are probably the norm rather than the exception. Moreover, there was nothing in the materials submitted to the magistrate that relied upon information from the prosecutor’s office except documentary evidence of earlier search warrant results which would not be affected by the prosecutor’s office’s feelings or disputes.
There was some evidence that supported Sawicki’s statement that defendant regularly used and possessed marijuana. Submitted to the magistrate were three earlier search warrants of defendant’s premises. Each search had uncovered evidence of marijuana possession, although defendant was acquitted in connection with one search.
There was no evidence that Tait was aware that defendant, then county auditor, had 13 years before attempted to have the magistrate fired from his position as Bay County purchasing agent. Tait testified at trial he was not familiar with defendant until the day he was sent by his superior to investigate this charge. He also testified at trial that he was not aware of the previous effort of Saw-icki to get a search warrant of defendant’s office to search for files she claimed were there.
The majority postulates that because the officer knew Sawicki had been fired and had a motive to cause defendant trouble, that she could not be credible. Persons with personal motives are often the source of very reliable information. To hold that a reasonable police officer had to know that Sawicki was lying under oath because she had been fired, would require the rejection of a good deal of evidence relied on daily by courts and juries. If no reasonable police officer can rely on this evidence for a search warrant, no juror would be permitted to do so either.
A. [Tait] I don't know if its fair to characterize them as hard feelings. Apparently there was disagreements.
Q. Disagreements and disputes?
A. [Tait] Disputes would probably be a better word for it.

. Although defendant, in his brief, states that the warrant was presented to Judge Newcomb, he cites no page in the record to support that statement and it is not supported in the record of the suppression hearing. Tait's testimony was that the papers were taken to the magistrate who issued the warrant as soon as they were completed.

. In denying the motion to suppress evidence, the District Court held that defendant could not demonstrate the lack of neutrality of the magistrate by merely showing that 13 years before there had been a dispute between defendant and the magistrate while both were employed by Bay County. I agree that the evidence was too remote to demonstrate partiality on the part of a magistrate.

.Tait testified: