Court Opinion

ID: 9680950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:41:31.919949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:31.545037
License: Public Domain

O’CONNOR, Justice,
concurring from denial of en bane.
I write to voice my disagreement with the panel’s opinion, an opinion that I believe to be important to the jurisprudence of the State.
The panel opinion struggles to compare two lines of authority and ultimately relies on a Fifth Circuit opinion to hold that the affi-ant-officer’s testimony should be allowed to explain the error in the description of the house in the affidavit.
There is a shorter route to the same conclusion, and it starts with U.S. v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). In Leon, the Supreme Court modified the exclusionary rule to permit the government to introduce evidence in its case in chief that was seized by officers who acted in “objectively reasonable reliance” on a search warrant that ultimately is found to be unsup*187ported by probable cause. Id., 468 U.S. at 922, 104 S.Ct. at 3420. The Court referred to this as the “good-faith exception.” Id., 468 U.S. at 924, 104 S.Ct. at 3421.
The Texas Legislature codified part of the holding of Leon by adding section (b) to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 38.23. article 38.23 provides:
(a) No evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or of the Constitution or laws of the United States of America, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the trial of any criminal case....
(b) It is an exception to the provisions of Subsection (a) of this Article that the evidence was obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause.
Tex.Code CRIM.P. art. 38.23 (1997) (emphasis added).1
Evidence obtained by a police officer acting in good faith reliance upon a warrant based upon a magistrate’s determination of probable cause is not rendered inadmissible because of a defect found in the warrant after its execution. Dunn v. State, 951 S.W.2d 478, 479 (Tex.Crim.App.1997) (after warrant executed, officers realized warrant had not been signed by magistrate, even though magistrate meant to sign all 21 warrants); Jones v. State, 914 S.W.2d 675, 677 (Tex.App.—Amarillo 1996, no pet.) (after warrant executed, the affiant-officer who executed the warrant realized the apartment number was not number 104, but number 204); Rios v. State, 901 S.W.2d 704, 707 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1995, no pet.) (after warrant executed, officers realized the warrant described the place to be searched as a vehicle when it should have been a house, a typographical error).
When errors in the warrant are those that fall under the “good faith” exception, they can be explained at the hearing on the motion to suppress. In Dunn, the Court of Criminal Appeals considered evidence explaining how the magistrate overlooked signing the arrest warrant; in Jones, the Amarillo Court of Appeals considered the officer’s testimony that the informant pointed out the apartment but gave him the wrong apartment number; in Rios, the San Antonio Court of Appeals considered evidence explaining how the typographical error was made. Dunn, 951 S.W.2d at 479; Jones, 914 S.W.2d at 677; Rios, 901 S.W.2d at 707.
In this case, the officer who executed an affidavit was the same officer who executed the search warrant. The affidavit provided probable cause to search; the only error was in the description of the place to be searched. The magistrate issued the warrant based on probable cause, which is not challenged by the appellant. The officer testified at the suppression hearing, and explained he erroneously described the address to be searched because he thought the house faced Brooks Street, when actually it faced New Orleans Street. There was no evidence received at the hearing to suggest anything but objective good faith on the part of the officer. Excluding the evidence seized from the house at 2417 New Orleans Street would not promote the purposes of the Fourth Amendment.
Under article 38.23(b), the affiant-officer who executed the warrant may explain defects in the affidavit at the hearing on the motion to suppress. See Dunn, 951 S.W.2d at 479; Jones, 914 S.W.2d at 677; Rios, 901 S.W.2d at 707; cf. U.S. v. Gordon, 901 F.2d 48, 50 (5th Cir.1990) (officer who executed affidavit and was present when warrant was *188executed testified at suppression hearing regarding mistake in street name). Under the circumstances of this case, an error in the warrant description may be cured by facts known by the affiant-officer who is also the executing officer. 2 Wayne R. LaFave. SEARCH AND SEIZURE § 4.5(a), at 525 (3d ed.1996); see, e.g., Jones, 914 S.W.2d at 677; Bios, 901 S.W.2d at 707; Gordon, 901 F.2d at 50.
The panel should affirm based on Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 38.23(b). For these reasons I write to concur in the judgment.
NUCHIA, J., joins in this concurring opinion.

. Article 38.23(b) did not codify the entire holding in Leon. The distinction between article 38.23 and Leon is that Leon applies the "objective good-faith” exception to defects in the description of probable cause and (presumably) other less important defects. Leon, 468 U.S. at 922, 104 S.Ct. at 3420. By comparison, article 38.23(b) applies the "objective good faith” exception to defects other than those in the probable cause. Article 38.23(b) still requires the warrant to be issued “by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause." Article 38.23(b) does not permit the introduction of evidence seized under a warrant that ultimately is found to be unsupported by probable cause, as does Leon. See Curry v. State, 808 S.W.2d 481, 482 (Tex.Crim.App.1991); Gordon v. State, 801 S.W.2d 899, 912-13 (Tex.Crim.App.1990). The error in this case in the description of the place to be searched is the very type of error which the Legislature expected to be cured by the "objective good faith” exception in article 38.23(b).