Court Opinion

ID: 9491896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:26:46.463308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:00.003497
License: Public Domain

GILMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Holding that the affidavit at issue in this ease was “bare bones” and unsupported by any-independent police investigation, the majority has invalidated the search warrant in question. The majority bases its conclusion on United States v. Weaver, 99 F.3d 1372 (6th Cir.1996), which discusses the requirements for affidavits underlying search warrants. It further concludes that no reasonable officer would have believed the search to be legal.
I believe that Weaver represents a change in the law from that previously expressed by this court in United States v. Pelham, 801 F.2d 875 (6th Cir.1986), and United States v. Finch, 998 F.2d 349 (6th Cir.1993). Although I agree with the majority that the affidavit in this case does not pass constitutional muster, I reach that conclusion for different reasons than those emphasized in the majority opinion. I dissent, however, because the majority has failed to apply the “good faith exception” as articulated in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). In my opinion, the officer’s reliance on the affidavit to establish probable cause for issuing the search warrant was “not entirely unreasonable,” and was therefore constitutional. See id. at 915, 104 S.Ct. 3405. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
A. Pelham, Finch, and Weaver
The majority in this case has the unenviable task of attempting to find coherence in this court’s prior decisions regarding search warrants based solely on uncorroborated information received from an informant. Despite the majority’s conclusion that all three of the cases in question “engaged in the appropriate analysis,” I must respectfully disagree. I particularly disagree with the following portion of the majority opinion:
The fact that different results may have been reached under similar factual situations does not indicate a departure from the proper standards that a reviewing court must employ in determining proba*305ble cause; nor does it indicate that a single case which may appear to have been decided dissimilarly constitutes an aberration. Rather, the varied results reached by reviewing courts are a product of the dynamic analytical process in which a reviewing court must engage in determining the “fluid concept” of probable cause ...
Contrary to the majority’s logic, I find it quite disturbing that “different results may have been reached under similar factual situations ...” The rule of law demands that the same results should be reached under similar factual circumstances. Otherwise, neither the police nor the public are given any guidance as to what the law requires in order to obtain a valid search warrant. If it all boils down to simply “a product of the dynamic analytical process in which a reviewing court must engage in determining the ‘fluid concept’ of probable cause,” the results will be as arbitrary as the random mix of panel members that draw the case on appeal.
This is exactly what appears to have happened in Pelham, Finch, Weaver, and the present case. Both Pelham and Finch sustained search warrants based on an informant’s direct observation of the incriminating evidence at the premises to be searched, without any corroborating investigation by the police. In neither case did the officer’s affidavit contain any significant details beyond a terse recitation of the informant’s personal observations and that the informant had previously proved rehable. Furthermore, there is no question that the Pelham and Finch courts carefully considered the issue at hand. The Pelham court, in fact, specifically disagreed with the conclusion reached by both the magistrate judge and the district judge that the affidavit did not contain sufficient detail to establish probable cause. See Pelham, 801 F.2d at 878.
The facts in Weaverare virtually identical to Pelham and Finch,yet Weaverre&ched the opposite result by declaring the affidavit insufficient to establish probable cause. While Weaver cites Pelham several times for general legal propositions, it never discusses the facts in Pelham,much less tries to distinguish the case. As for Finch, the court in Weaver at least makes mention of the Fincht’acts in a footnote, but then states that “the Finchc-ourt did not address whether corroboration was necessary ...” Weaver, 99 F.3d at 1379 n. 5. Although the statement is technically correct that the Finch court did not explicitly discuss the absence of corroboration, the court in Finch clearly considered corroboration unnecessary where the informant directly observed the illegal drugs on the defendant’s premises and the affidavit contained a statement concerning the prior reliability of the informant. See Finch, 998 F.2d at 352 (holding that the uncorroborated affidavit was sufficient when it “provide[d] a statement of the affiants’ reasons for their belief as to the existence of probable cause.”). In light of the above, I agree with the comment of the district court in United States v. Bryant, 951 F.Supp. 674, 678 (E.D.Mich.1997), that “Weauerappears to represent a departure from the less exacting review of Finch&nd the adoption of a stricter approach to the governing law.”
Even under Pelham and Finch, however, I find that the affidavit in this case was insufficient to support a finding of probable cause. The affidavits in both Pelham and Finch explicitly state that the informant observed the suspect “storing and selling” narcotics. See Pelham, 801 F.2d at 878; Finch, 998 F.2d at 352. For that matter, the affidavit in Weaver contained similar language. See Weaver, 99 F.3d at 1375-76 (stating that the affiant had “personally observed (Gary Weaver) having personal possession ... of (marijuana) being held expressly for the purpose of unlawful distribution- Consequently, affiant believes that all or some portion of the said (marijuana) still remains on the above described premises.”) (substitutions in original). Such information provided probable cause to believe that the drugs would still be on the premises when "the search occurred.
In contrast, the affidavit in this case simply stated that “[defendant] ... unlawfully has in his possession on said premises legend and/or narcotic drugs including Cocaine ...” and that the informant “while there saw Cocaine in possession of the said [defendant] ...” No information was provided as to quantity, storing, or selling. Thus, under the *306totality of the circumstances, there was no reasonable basis to believe that a search of Allen’s residence would uncover any illegal drugs. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 230, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (adopting the “totality of the circumstances” test as the controlling standard in determining probable cause for search warrants). I therefore agree with the majority’s conclusion that there was no probable cause to support the issuance of the search warrant in question. See Zurcher v. The Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547, 557, 98 S.Ct. 1970, 56 L.Ed.2d 525 (1978) (holding that “search warrants may be issued only by a neutral and detached judicial officer, upon a showing of probable cause — that is, reasonable grounds to believe — that criminally related objects are in the place which the warrant authorizes to be searched, at the time when the search is authorized to be conducted.”); see also Finch, 998 F.2d at 352 (“Probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant is defined in terms of whether the affidavit sets out facts and circumstances which indicate a fair probability that evidence of a crime will be located on the premises of the proposed seareh.”(citations and internal quotation marks omitted)).
Finally, my acknowledgment of Gates’s “totality of the circumstances” test should serve as a clear indication that I am not, as the majority claims, either slighting Supreme Court precedent or suggesting that Gates should be overruled. I agree with Gates’s statement that “probable cause is a fluid concept,” 462 U.S. at 232, 103 S.Ct. 2317, but disagree with the majority’s use of that phrase to permit fluctuating results based on “different factual shadings” that are so subtle as to amount to distinctions without a difference. I believe that the statement that “probable cause is a fluid concept” is best understood to mean that materially different factual situations should produce different results, not that similar factual situations may do so. Here is where the majority and I part company, because I believe that similar factual situations have indeed produced different results in Pelham, Finch, and Weaver.
B. The Good Faith Exception
Although I agree with the majority that the search warrant was in fact defective, I cannot agree with its conclusion that Detective Lomineck lacked a good faith basis to rely on the warrant. As the majority properly states, United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 905, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), held that the exclusionary rule does not “bar the admission of evidence seized in reasonable, good-faith reliance on a search warrant that is subsequently held to be defective.” In this regard, the majority opinion sets forth four scenarios “where the good faith exception was inappropriate.” Scenario three, the one at issue in this case, is described as “(3) if the affidavit was so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable, or where the warrant application was supported by nothing more than a bare bones affidavit.” The majority then cites Leon at pages 914-15, 923, 104 S.Ct. 3405 as the source of these scenarios. A review of the cited pages, however, does not support the majority’s articulation of the third scenario. At page 915, 104 S.Ct. 3405, Leon reads: “Third, reviewing courts will not defer to a warrant based on an affidavit that does not provide the magistrate with a substantial basis for determining the existence of probable cause.”
The second half of the majority’s scenario, i.e., “where the warrant application was supported by nothing more than a bare bones affidavit,” is not found in Leon at all, but instead comes from Weaker, 99 F.3d at 1380. Although Weaver purports to quote Leon, the quotation is in fact cobbled together from wholly different sentences on the same page of Leon. The full quotation reads as follows:
Third, reviewing courts will not defer to a warrant based on an affidavit that does not provide the magistrate with a substantial basis for determining probable cause. Sufficient information must be presented to the magistrate to allow that official to determine probable cause; his actions can not be a mere ratification of the bare conclusions of others. Even if the warrant application was supported by more than a “bare bones” affidavit, a reviewing court *307may properly conclude that, notwithstanding the deference magistrates deserve, the warrant was invalid because the magistrate’s probable-cause determination reflected an improper analysis of the totality of the circumstances or because the form of the warrant was improper in some respect.
Leon, 468 U.S. at 915, 104 S.Ct. 3405.
The language of Weauergives the impression that the Supreme Court has held that the proper question is whether the affidavit was “bare bones” or not. To the contrary, I read Lem to say that an affidavit must simply have a “substantial basis,” a term the Court did not define. In this context, “bare-bones” seems to refer to a totally conclusory statement without any supporting detail. See Finch, 998 F.2d at 352. I believe the correct interpretation of Leon’s “third scenario” is that the totality of the circumstances must support the magistrate’s finding that a substantial basis exists to conclude that a search will uncover evidence of wrongdoing. See Pelham, 801 F.2d at 878. The focus should thus be on the magistrate’s finding of “substantial basis,” not on whether the affidavit was “bare bones.”
This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Supreme Court in Leon held that the police were entitled to rely on a defective warrant that was issued on the basis of an affidavit by an unproven informer .who had witnessed a drug transaction some five months earlier. See Leon, 468 U.S. at 901, 104 S.Ct. 3405. In comparison, the affidavit in the present case is stronger than the one at issue in Leon, based as it was on recent information from a reliable informant. I fear that the majority’s approach so broadens Lem’s “third scenario” that it will effectively nullify the good faith exception.
Based on the facts in this case, I cannot conclude that the affidavit was “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 915, 104 S.Ct. 3405. Detective Lomineck’s actions were not “entirely unreasonable.” Quite to the contrary, I believe that reasonable people could disagree as to whether the affidavit was supported by probable cause. Lomineck presented a neutral magistrate with an affidavit stating that he had information about the presence of illegal drugs at a specific location from a reliable informant that was based on recent, personal observation. Furthermore, the warrant was applied for and issued prior to this court’s decision in Weaver, making it all the more reasonable for Lomineck to have a good faith belief that the uncorroborated information supplied by the informant was sufficient under the authority Pelham and Finch. I believe that the majority’s opinion is contrary to the very essence of Leon, which provides that when reasonable people could disagree as to the support for a magistrate’s warrant, an officer may rely on it. See Leon, 468 U.S. at 922-23, 104 S.Ct. 3405.
Finally, I do not share the majority’s critical emphasis on so-called “boilerplate.” Police officers should not be expected to be skilled legal draftsman. Standard forms are a useful tool to provide officers a skeleton from which to work, and actually serve in many cases to perpetually alert officers to the legal requirements that they must meet. Although standard language in affidavits would be problematic if it purported to set forth the probable cause itself in a perfunctory manner, such is not the situation here. As discussed above, Detective Lomineck went beyond boilerplate and set out specific reasons for his belief that probable cause for the search warrant existed in this case.
In sum, I conclude that even though the affidavit in this case did not provide sufficient detail to establish probable cause, it was sufficient to meet the “good faith” exception of Leon. I further conclude that this court’s decision in Weaver in effect purports to overrule our prior decisions in Pelham and Finchby eschewing “bare bones” and “boilerplate” language in warrant affidavits and by requiring independent corroboration of an informant’s statements. This raises a serious problem in light of our court’s policy that “[one] panel of this Court cannot overrule the decision of another panel. The prior decision remains controlling authority unless an inconsistent decision of the United States Supreme Court requires modification or this Court sitting en banc overrules the prior decision.” Salmi v. Secretary of Health & *308Human Services, 774 F.2d 685, 689 (6th Cir.1985). I would therefore suggest that an en banc review of this case would be appropriate in order to clarify the law in this circuit regarding the necessary requirements for the issuance of a search warrant based on uncorroborated information from an informant.
For all of the reasons set forth above, I respectfully dissent.