Court Opinion

ID: 9488534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:48:10.304643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:56.776543
License: Public Domain

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I believe that the warrant lacked sufficient indicia of probable cause to make reliance on it objectively reasonable. Consequently, I would vacate the conviction.1
Hyppolite relies primarily on the third Leon2 exception — the warrant affidavit is so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render reliance on it objectively unreasonable. He cites the district court’s3 findings after a hearing on the motion to suppress that the affidavit established only “speculation” or a “hunch” that evidence would be found at 1914 Countrywood and that
[t]he primary difficulty with this warrant then is the undeniable fact that Toth’s belief that the premises contained contraband, was based entirely on Hyppolite’s refusal to answer questions concerning his sources of income, his statement that he would not “incriminate himself,” his request for his lawyer, and his refusal of consent to search, (emphasis added)
The district court then held that consideration of such factors is of course impermissible, discussing, among others, our opinion in United States v. Wilson, 953 F.2d 116 (4th Cir.1991):
It is incongruous to suggest that when a person attempts to invoke the [4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments], ... he thereby provides police with the key to his front door. Furthermore, as in Wilson, courts and judicial officers should be reluctant to sanction any conduct that rests on the premise that only the guilty wish to protect their homes from police searches.
Notwithstanding these findings and holdings, the district court held that Toth and the other officers had no duty to “second-guess” the magistrate’s probable cause determination. But of course they do; otherwise, Leon would not have any exceptions at all.
It bears reiterating that the district court found — and the government does not dispute — that Toth’s belief that drugs were in the house “was based entirely ” on the assertion of Hyppolite’s constitutional rights. A reasonable officer should know that a person’s refusal to surrender his rights is not evidence of wrongdoing. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 437, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2387-88, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991) (reviewing the Court’s “consistent” holdings to that effect). Toth wrote the affidavit and led the team that executed the warrant. He has the rank of Commander in the Jacksonville Police Department and heads two divisions of that department. This case is hardly the paradigm that prompted Leon — officers of low or middling rank, with some, though insufficient, cause to believe contraband will be discovered, relying on the wise judgment of the magistrate. Instead, this case is the paradigm of the third Leon exception — a high-ranking officer, with a hunch but no valid cause, seeking to exploit the remarkably inept judgment of the magistrate.
The majority pins its decision on a premise that it ultimately rejects — that Hyppolite’s pugnacious manner of asserting his rights might provide probable cause. Because we did not rule out this premise for all time and all contexts in Wilson, the majority concludes that a reasonable officer might have thought it valid.
*1161All that we did in Wilson was decide a case or controversy, which is all we ever do, and all we are doing today. Wilson neither held that the suspect’s manner of asserting his rights in that case provided probable cause nor suggested a hypothetical scenario in which it would. Similarly, the majority concludes here that the manner in which Hyp-polite asserted his rights did not establish probable cause, but that there may be some case somewhere in which it might play a proper role.
Our reluctance to rule out the existence of an oddball ease is an awfully thin ground on which to label these officers’ conduct reasonable. I cannot rule out the existence of little green men watching me from a distant planet; if I arranged my affairs as if they did, would I be acting reasonably?
I am skeptical that we will ever find our oddball case. The government is the creation of the people, and the rights retained by the people may be exercised vigorously, distastefully, or contemptuously. There are no rules of etiquette. See, e.g., Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989).
I have no sympathy for Hyppolite. He has been in this country illegally for years and has been in trouble with the law more or less constantly. The tattered old Fourth Amendment takes a beating when its shield is raised by such a man. But it ought not be breached.
It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have often been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes of the Fourth Amendment.
United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69, 70 S.Ct. 430, 436, 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
In sum, then, I think that it was objectively unreasonable for the officers to rely on the search warrant affidavit for 1914 Country-wood, because the affidavit lacked sufficient indicia of probable cause. Accordingly, I would vacate the conviction and remand with instructions to suppress the evidence.
I respectfully dissent.

.The government has not alleged that denial of the motion to suppress could be harmless error; thus, I take it as conceded that the conviction must stand or fall on this issue.

. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 923, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3420-21, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984).

. I refer to the federal magistrate as the "district court” in order to avoid confusing him with the state magistrate who issued the warrant, and because his recommendations were adopted by the district court.