Court Opinion

ID: 9489749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:23:08.559089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:41.571410
License: Public Domain

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
In my view, the anticipatory search warrant in this case was constitutionally defective because it failed to ensure that the marijuana in Sapp’s vehicle was on a “sure course” to Leidner’s residence prior to the government’s intervention. Nevertheless, because the police officers executing the warrant relied on it in good faith, the exception to the exclusionary rule announced in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), is applicable to this case. I therefore concur in the judgment of the Court.
As the majority notes, one of the grounds on which Leidner challenged the warrant was that it failed to ensure that the marijuana was on a “sure course” to Leidner’s residence before the government took control of it. In order for an anticipatory warrant to satisfy the probable cause requirement, it must demonstrate that the contraband in question will be at the designated place at the time set for the search. See, e.g., United States v. Ricciardelli, 998 F.2d 8, 12 (1st Cir.1993); United States v. Domhofer, 859 F.2d 1195, 1198 (4th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1005, 109 S.Ct. 1639, 104 L.Ed.2d 155 (1989). The purpose of this requirement goes to the heart of the warrant requirement itself. Suppose, for example, that the government wished to search the home of Jane Doe, in Chicago, Illinois. DEA agents arrange to have a parcel containing marijuana delivered to her home at 3:00 the next afternoon, and then they go to a magistrate seeking an anticipatory search warrant, stating that they believe marijuana will be found at the house after that time. Their expectation is quite likely to be borne out, because the *1431government itself made sure that the parcel would be there, but if this were enough to support a warrant the warrant requirement itself would become meaningless.
The majority appears to recognize this problem when, at page 1429 ante, it acknowledges that “government-controlled deliveries may be more likely to reach their destination than those deliveries expected within the normal course of a drug organization’s operations,” and further when it admits that Sapp could have named anyone he knew when he was arrested. Once Sapp named Leidner, there was obviously no doubt that the marijuana would end up at Leidner’s home; Sapp made the delivery under the government’s control. But the warrant gave no reason to believe that the shipment was on a “sure course” to Leidner’s home before Sapp made his statement to the agents. No address appeared on the packages; no evidence indicated that Leidner’s address or telephone number was in Sapp’s possession. Execution of the warrant was not contingent upon the establishment of any nexus between the marijuana Sapp was transporting and Leidner. This case is therefore distinguishable from United States v. Bieri, 21 F.3d 811 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 115 S.Ct. 208, 130 L.Ed.2d 138 (1994), on which the majority relies. In Bieri, the informant had made prior deliveries of marijuana to the residence of the Bieris, and Susan Bieri personally paid $300 for the marijuana before the anticipatory warrant was executed. Here, Leidner was not even at home when Sapp made the government-controlled delivery.
The problem of government manipulation is unique to anticipatory warrants, because in the normal situation a warrant will issue only if there is probable cause to believe that contraband is already at the place to be named in the warrant. When the contraband is admittedly not at the place named in the warrant, it should not be enough, for the government itself (or its agent) to transport it to that place and then execute a search. This tactic would effectively transform the anticipatory warrant into an unconstitutional general warrant. See generally James A. Adams, Anticipatory Search Warrants: Constitutionality, Requirements, and Scope, 79 Ky. L.J. 681 (1991) (outlining the requirements that anticipatory search warrants should have in order to remain constitutional). Even though I am confident that the government would not normally target an anticipatory warrant toward a home they wished to search for other reasons, the purpose of the warrant requirement is to ensure that the rare cases of abuse do not occur. I would therefore require, as part of the probable cause showing for an anticipatory warrant, a showing of some pre-existing nexus between the contraband and the place to be searched that is not wholly within the government’s control. See generally Ricciardelli, 998 F.2d at 12-14.
In this case, the police officers executing the warrant had no reason to know that this crucial link was missing. All they knew was that an informant found to be reliable “was in the process of delivering” the marijuana to Leidner,. at his residence, and that the delivery was expected on October 15, 1995. Because the defect did not appear on the face of the warrant, the good-faith exception of Leon requires us to refrain from invoking the exclusionary rule. For this reason, I concur in the judgment of the Court.