Court Opinion

ID: 9525099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:00:00.929028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:12:55.469366
License: Public Domain

KELLEY, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority opinion has stated the applicable test for ascertainment of the validity of a search warrant. State v. Causey, 257 N.W.2d 288 (Minn.1977). The first inquiry by the reviewing court — here, the district court — is to determine whether any misstatements existing in the affidavit in support of the search warrant were material. If material misstatements are found, then the inquiry focuses on whether there were “deliberate or reckless misrepresentations” of fact. I conclude that any misstatements in the affidavit in support of the search warrant were, at best, immaterial. Furthermore, even if they were material there is insufficient evidence to sustain any finding that the misrepresentations were either deliberately or recklessly made.
The Wabasha Book Store in Rochester fronts on Broadway. The second story of the building contains four apartments, all on the north side of a common hallway leading from an interior stairway ascending from Broadway. Apartments 3 and 4 are both on the north side of the second floor. Apartment 4 is east of apartment 3. Along the east side of the second floor is a back porch to which there is direct access from apartment 4 and indirect access from apart*253ment 3. Officer Wegman learned from the manager of the Wabasha Book Store that defendant rented apartment 3 and frequently stayed with a girl friend named Kaye Cady who rented apartment 4. Officers had observed growing marijuana plants in the window of apartment 3. Later they observed what seemed to be the same plants on the porch to the rear of apartment 4. They had further observed the defendant using the back stairway for ingress and egress to the upstairs apartment area. Moreover, officers had observed known drug users coming to the apartments and staying for a short period of time.
In the application to search apartment 4, Officer Wegman stated he had observed the marijuana plants on the porch of apartment 4. The trial court thought this was a misstatement of a material fact because the porch itself ran along the entire east side of the second story. In fact, however, Officer Wegman’s statement was true. The plants had been- observed on the porch just outside (on the northerly portion of the porch) of and immediately adjacent to apartment 4 near an access leading directly from apartment 4 to the porch and away from the common ingress and egress to the porch from the hallway. From that evidence, I conclude Officer Wegman did not misstate the facts in that regard.
Secondly, Officer Wegman stated he had learned from the bookstore manager that defendant frequently stayed with Kaye Cady, a girl friend who rented apartment 4. In fact, defendant did stay at times in that apartment with a girl friend but not Kaye Cady, who had not lived there for a considerable period of time. I find it difficult to find any materiality in the fact that the applicant stated that one Kaye Cady lived in apartment 4. What was material is that the defendant frequently stayed with a girl friend in that apartment.1 The identity of the possessor of the apartment was immaterial. There is no constitutional requirement that a search warrant name the person who occupies the premises. The specificity relates to the place to be searched and the thing to be seized. 1 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.1(b) (1978), quoting United States v. Besase, 521 F.2d 1306 (6th Cir.1975). In my view, the fact that Kaye Cady did not occupy apartment 4 was immaterial so long as defendant was known to occupy it from time to time with a girl friend and so long as facts existed from which the officer could reasonably have concluded that the marijuana plants belonged to one or more of the occupants of apartment 4 because of their location on the porch immediately outside of apartment 4 near an access directly from it to the porch. Accordingly, I would sustain the search warrant because the affidavit with respect to the location of the plants was true and because the statement that Kaye Cady occupied the apartment was immaterial.
Moreover, even if one concludes the statements were neither true nor immaterial, I suggest there is simply no evidence to indicate Officer Wegman deliberately or recklessly misrepresented the facts. As indicated, on observing the location of the marijuana plants under all the circumstances then within his knowledge, Officer Weg-man could reasonably have concluded that the marijuana plants might be found in apartment 4. Furthermore, the most that can be said about his representation that Kaye Cady lived in apartment 4 and that defendant from time to time stayed with her is that he was negligent in not further ascertaining the facts. Again, however, he did not know Kaye Cady nor did he know what she looked like. Mere negligence does not vitiate a warrant. State v. Causey, 257 N.W.2d at 292. See also Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978). In this record, there is simply no evidence of deliberate perjury or reckless disregard of the facts. Accordingly, I *254would reverse the trial court and remand the matter for trial at which the evidence seized in the execution of the search warrant would be admissible.

. Indeed, when the search warrant of apartment 4 was executed defendant and his girl friend, both naked, were found in apartment 4. This, of course, does not relate back to validate a search warrant if otherwise defective. It does, however, it seems to me, clearly demonstrate the immateriality of the statement in the application for the search warrant that defendant was staying with his girl friend, Kaye Cady. The name of the girl friend was immaterial.