Court Opinion

ID: 9486468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:48:36.114288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:43.973213
License: Public Domain

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree the evidence falls short of demonstrating that the officers’ seizure of O’Neal’s bag was supported by an objectively reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. I also agree the denial of the suppression motion must be affirmed on the ground that, once O’Neal admitted the bag contained cocaine, probable cause existed for the issuance of the search warrant.
I depart from the opinion of the Court, however, insofar as it suggests in footnote 6 that the denial of the suppression motion could not be sustained under the good-faith exception of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). The Court holds that the warrant to search O’Neal’s bag was supported by adequate probable cause, and that the constitutionality of O’Neal’s admission, which supports the finding of probable cause, is not before us. Since the search warrant was supported by probable cause, the Court’s discussion of the application of Leon to the hypothetical case assumed in footnote 6 is an exercise in obiter dicta. The fact is the officers did not search the bag without a warrant or with a warrant unsupported by probable cause. Notwithstanding the government’s suggestion that a Leon analysis is appropriate here (a direct result of its failure to recognize the actual source of probable cause for the warrant), the Court’s finding of probable cause to support the warrant renders the good faith of the executing officers irrelevant. The Court’s Leon discussion, therefore, is not only unnecessary but also is a gratuitous and totally undeserved attack on the officers who executed the warrant (the same officers who went to the trouble of getting a search warrant when they did not even need one, see ante at 244 n. 9), especially when we already *245have taken them to task for the seizure of the bag. I therefore decline to join that portion of the Court’s opinion.