Court Opinion

ID: 9677511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:54:00.842621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:56.457583
License: Public Domain

Rc r obert L. Brown, Justice, dissenting. At 12:45 in the r stice, Michaels gave sworn testimony to a district judge about why the child pornography in Kelley’s home was in danger of imminent destruction. This testimony supplemented the Sergeant’s affidavit and provided specific reasons why a nighttime search was warranted. The district judge then issued the search warrant. These facts are undisputed by the parties and underscore why Sergeant Michaels’s actions in executing the warrant were objectively reasonable and in good faith under the standard set out in United States v. Leon, 48 U.S. 897 (1984), and adopted and applied to nighttime searches by this court, Richardson v. State, 314 Ark. 512, 863 S.W.2d 572 (1993). Indeed, the circuit court found that Sergeant Michaels had given this sworn testimony and that was the reason the district judge issued the search warrant. The majority also does not dispute these facts but contends that since Sergeant Michaels’s statements to the district judge, though under oath, were not recorded, they cannot be considered in a good-faith analysis. In reaching this conclusion, the majority relies on cases that predate our decision in Moya v. State, 335 Ark. 193, 981 S.W.2d 521 (1998). The Moya decision specifically allowed unrecorded oral testimony to be considered in deciding whether a search warrant was executed in good faith for a daytime search. There is no legitimate reason to distinguish between daytime or nighttime searches on the issue of whether unrecorded, sworn testimony can be considered by this court in deciding the issue of good faith. This is particularly true when it is undisputed that the police officer swore under oath that the facts were true. To the extent cases prior to Moya required that all sworn statements for nighttime searches be recorded, I would overrule those cases on the basis of our Moya decision. Stated simply, Moya has changed the law. What the majority holds is that Sergeant William Michaels operated in bad faith when he swore to the district judge the reasons why he believed a nighttime search was needed. The majority concludes, ironically, that this bad faith existed even while not contesting the sergeant’s reasons for the search. The result is that law enforcement officers will now be hamstrung in their ability to move expeditiously at night, even when the protection is in place against an unreasonable search because the police officer has made his case before a judge under oath and believes he is operating in good faith. The fact that the majority concludes that all sworn facts must either be in the affidavit or recorded unnecessarily restricts law enforcement and completely undercuts the notion that a search will pass muster if the law enforcement officer operates in objective, good faith. See United-States v. Leon, 48 U.S. 897 (1984). What follows is the information that the district judge had at his disposal to justify a nighttime search warrant: • A sworn affidavit which contained these facts: - Kelley was a fugitive from Texas who had been previously charged with a sex offense against children and who was currently suspected of having sexual relations with an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy. - Kelley had a minor boy, age twelve, in his car at the time of arrest who told the detective that Kelley had performed oral sex on him ten to twenty times and taken nude pictures of him. Kelley also showed the boy pornographic tapes. The boy matched the description of the boy with whom Kelley was alleged to be having sexual relations. - Kelley lied about the identity of his passenger and said he was his “nephew.” - Kelley kept these photographs in his home and the boy believed he stored the photographs on his computer. - Kelley had been arrested. - The information at the home was in danger of imminent removal. • Sergeant Michaels’s sworn testimony that Kelley was “very, very adamant” about telephoning his sister from jail following his arrest, and Sergeant Michaels feared that the sister would remove or destroy the pornographic evidence. Following a suppression hearing after Kelley was charged with rape of the twelve-year-old boy and incarcerated, the circuit judge denied suppression and made the following ruling. So, you have a judge in the middle of the night who has been given information that there are photographs that, in this residence that could be imminently destroyed or removed. He listens, he reads that, and then at 12:45 a.m. says that he, he authorizes them to go day or night due to the fact that they could be imminendy removed. And, I think that lends credence to the judge signed this warrant thinking that those items would be imminendy removed. And, I also think it leads to the, to a good faith basis by the officers. If they have a judge at 12:45 in the morning who reads this information and says these things are to be seized because of the danger of imminent removal to go get them, I think the officers can rely on that officer. So, I’m going to deny the motion to suppress. The information that the sergeant possessed made his actions entirely reasonable. Moreover, this court has recognized that law enforcement must act quickly at night in certain circumstances. See, e.g., Cummings v. State, 353 Ark. 618, 635-36, 110 S.W.3d 272, 282-83 (2003) (holding that an affidavit stating that the officer feared that the suspect would destroy child pornography because he knew he was under investigation was sufficient to support a nighttime warrant, where the child pornography was kept in electronic form and could easily be destroyed); Langford v. State, 332 Ark. 54, 64, 962 S.W.2d 358, 364 (1998) (upholding a nighttime warrant based partly on a statement in the affidavit that drugs were “packaged and maintained in a manner that their destruction or removal can be easily accomplished”); Owens v. State, 325 Ark. 110, 117, 926 S.W.2d 650, 654 (1996) (upholding a nighttime search based in part on a statement in the affidavit that the drugs to be seized could be easily flushed down the toilet). Using an objective standard, Sergeant Michaels was executing a search warrant issued by a district judge to whom he had submitted a sworn affidavit and sworn testimony. As a well-informed police officer, he undoubtedly was aware of the Cummings case, in which this court emphasized that when an accused knows he is under suspicion for possession of child pornography, the danger of imminent removal is sufficient to justify a nighttime search under Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 13.2(c). 353 Ark. at 635-36, 110 S.W.3d at 283. The majority hinges its decision on the fact that Sergeant Michaels’s sworn testimony was unrecorded and, therefore, could not be considered in determihing objective good faith. In 1990 and again in 1991, this court declined to look further than the affidavit in deciding whether the good-faith exception applied to nighttime searches. See Garner v. State, 307 Ark. 353, 359-60, 820 S.W.2d 446, 450 (1991); Hall, 302 Ark. at 343-45, 789 S.W.2d at 458-59. These cases, however, were decided before this court decided Sims v. State, in which we said that” [although we may not look to facts outside of an affidavit to determine probable cause, when assessing good faith, we can and must look to the totality of the circumstances, including what the affiant knew, but did not include in his affidavit.” 333 Ark. 405, 410, 969 S.W.2d 657, 660 (1998). The same year as our Sims decision, this court specifically held that unrecorded oral testimony is to be considered when determining whether the good-faith exception applies: Where ... there is a written affidavit in support of a search warrant that is later ruled deficient, this court will go beyond the four corners of the affidavit and consider unrecorded oral testimony to determine whether the officers executing the search warrant did so in objective good faith reliance on the judge’s having found probable cause to issue the search warrant. Moreover, this court may also consider information known to the executing officers that may or may not have been communicated to the issuing judge. Moya v. State, 335 Ark. 193, 202, 981 S.W.2d 521, 525-26 (1998). In so holding, this court applied the standard for determining good faith announced by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Martin, in which that court said that “when assessing good faith we can and must look to the totality of the circumstances including what [the affiant officer] knew but did not include in his affidavit.” 833 F.2d 752, 756 (8th Cir. 1987). The Eighth Circuit was, in turn, relying on a United States Supreme Court decision, which found that “the determination whether it was objectively legally reasonable to conclude that a given search was supported by probable cause or exigent circumstances will often require examination of the information possessed by the searching officials.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641 (1987). Nor does Rule 13.1(c) of the Rules of Criminal Procedure dictate a different result. Rule 13.1 (c) states that a judge hearing an application for a search warrant is to “keep a fair written summary of the proceedings and the testimony taken before him, except that if sworn testimony alone is offered in support of the application, such testimony shall be recorded.” Ark. R. Crim. Pro. 13.1(c) (2007) (emphasis added). In the situation at hand, there was an affidavit supporting the warrant application. Therefore, it was not only sworn testimony that was offered in support of the search warrant. Because this court specifically held that unrecorded, oral testimony is acceptable in a good-faith analysis by this court for daytime searches in Moya v. State, supra, in 1998, it is illogical not to apply the same standard to nighttime searches. I would, accordingly, overrule Garner and Richardson to the extent those cases require sworn testimony before a judge at night to be recorded if it is to be considered in determining whether an officer relied in objective good faith on a defective nighttime search warrant. To determine objective reasonableness under Leon, the first thing to be examined is the affidavit in support of the warrant. If the affidavit is “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable,” then the good-faith exception does not apply. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 923 (1984). The affidavit in the instant case provided some basis for a nighttime search, although, admittedly, more was needed. The affidavit stated that Kelley was a fugitive from justice, had pending sex charges against children against him, was living under an assumed name, and had been arrested earlier the same evening traveling in a car with a minor who stated that Kelley had performed oral sex on him on multiple occasions. The affidavit also stated that the child traveling with Kelley told police officers that nude pictures of him were stored in Kelley’s apartment in various electronic forms. The affidavit, as a final point, contained the statement that “the objects to be seized are in danger of imminent removal.” Hence, the fault of the affidavit was not that it failed to contain facts that could support a nighttime search or that it failed to allege that the objects were in danger of removal but that it failed to explicitly link the facts to the opportunity for imminent removal. While this failure is enough to make the affidavit, standing alone, insufficient, it is not so great as to “render official belief in [the existence of probable cause] entirely unreasonable.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 923 (1984). Having concluded that the affidavit was not so deficient as to make good-faith reliance on it unreasonable, the next issue to be examined are facts known to the affiant but not included in the affidavit. Here, the sergeant testified under oath before the district judge that Kelley had been extremely insistent that he be allowed to call his sister, who he said would go to his apartment and pick up medication for him. Because of this, police officers were rightly concerned that his sister would remove the computer, camera, or other readily portable evidence. These facts relayed to the district judge by Sergeant Michaels, when considered in conjunction with the facts contained in the affidavit and the fact that the warrant itself purported to authorize a nighttime search, were more than sufficient to support the police’s good-faith reliance on the defective nighttime warrant. This case is readily distinguishable from the cases cited by the majority. In Garner v. State, State v. Martinez, and Hall v. State, the affidavits supporting the nighttime warrants stated only that illegal drugs were being kept at and sold from the premises. Garner, 307 Ark. 353, 354-55, 820 S.W.2d 446, 447-48 (1991)1; Martinez, 306 Ark. 353, 357, 811 S.W.2d 319, 321 (1991); Hall, 302 Ark. at 344, 789 S.W.2d at 458. Likewise, in Fouse v. State, the only fact listed in the affidavit was that the smell of ether was coming from the home. 337 Ark. 13, 21-22, 989 S.W.2d 146, 149-50 (1999). In Fouse, the only other portions of the affidavit that could be relevant in justifying a nighttime search were statements regarding the amount of time it takes to manufacture methamphetamine, the danger of explosion, and a bare conclusion that the items to be seized might be imminently removed. Id. Unlike the case at hand, in none of these cases did the affidavit mention the fact that the suspect knew he was under suspicion, which this court considered all important in Cummings. In Richardson v. State, which is also cited by the majority, the affidavit, like the one in the case at hand, contained conclusory language that the items to be seized were in danger of being removed or destroyed, but, unlike the case at hand, there was no indication of additional sworn statements by the police officer to supplement the affidavit. 314 Ark. 512, 518-19, 863 S.W.2d 572, 576 (1993). Finally, the case of Davis v. State is inapposite to the instant case because in that case no good-faith analysis was performed by this court. 369 Ark. 330, 254 S.W.3d. 729 (2006).2  To summarize, in the case at bar: (1) there were assertions in the affidavit that supported the need for a nighttime search; (2) extrinsic facts known to the police sergeant and imparted to the issuing judge under oath supported the need for a nighttime search due to Kelley’s sister and the potential for imminent destruction; and (3) the affidavit requested, and the warrant granted, permission to conduct the search at night. Taken together, these facts manifestly support the objective reasonableness of Sergeant Michaels’s actions in executing the search warrant. I would not decide this case merely on the basis that the detective’s sworn statements to the district judge were unrecorded, especially where, under Moya, we do not require this for daytime search warrants. My fear is that the majority’s narrow interpretation of the law virtually eliminates the application of the good-faith exception to nighttime searches. I would not suppress the evidence found in Kelley’s apartment for the reasons set out in this opinion. For those reasons, I respectfully dissent. Gunter, J., joins this dissent.   In Gamer, it is also not clear that additional oral statements made to the judge were under oath.    State v. Broadway, which is also cited by the majority, was decided before the United States Supreme Court announced the good-faith exception in Leon and is, therefore, inapplicable to whether the good-faith exception applies to the present case. 269 Ark. 215, 599 S.W.2d 721 (1980).