Court Opinion

ID: 9465249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:40:25.720166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:03.811215
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
The opinion of the Court is thoughtful and clear, but considerations of federalism lead me in a different direction. I would hold that Rule 41 is not applicable to the state magistrate or the federal officer in this case.
Here a state magistrate issued a state search warrant to investigate a state crime. The search warrant runs in the name of the “Commonwealth of Kentucky.” A state search warrant is very different from a federal search warrant. The power to issue the warrant comes from a different sovereign.
Rule 41 is designed to give federal and state magistrates the power to issue federal search warrants for federal crimes, a power they do not have in the absence of statute. See United States v. New York Tel. Co., 434 U.S. 159, 175 n. 23, 179, 98 S.Ct. 364, 54 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977); United States v. Finazzo, 583 F.2d 837, 842-845 (6th Cir. 1977). Rule 41 is also designed to give directions to the magistrate in issuing the federal warrant and to give directions to the federal officer in the execution of the federal warrant. The Rule is not designed to give directions to a state magistrate in the issuance of a state warrant. It does not prohibit a state magistrate from issuing a *1126state search warrant to an officer or citizen who is investigating a state crime, including a federal officer. Nor does it purport to regulate the conduct of officers, federal or state, in the execution of state search warrants.
There is no reason for us to say that a federal officer is acting unlawfully under Rule 41 when he executes a state search warrant, valid under state law and the Fourth Amendment, in a manner which is proper under state law and the Fourth Amendment. A federal officer is also a citizen of a state, and when he is acting under its laws, he is acting lawfully. He may execute state search warrants if state law permits. No federal law prohibits it.
Similarly, a state judge should not be held to act unlawfully when he issues a state search warrant which does not comply with Rule 41 but does comply with state law and the Fourth Amendment. I see nothing in Rule 41 to suggest that it was intended to preempt state law, as the majority opinion suggests, when a state judge issues a state search warrant for a state crime to a federal officer. We should hesitate to interfere with valid state rules of civil and criminal procedure. See Wilson v. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, 584 F.2d 137 (6th Cir. 1978).
On the other hand, if I thought that Rule 41 were applicable and the nighttime search in this case violated the Rule, I would not hesitate to apply the exclusionary rule. The integrity of the federal judiciary requires it, as does the need to hold federal officers to the dictates of the Rule when it governs. The Rule itself expressly requires suppression when it says “a person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure” is entitled to get his property back “and it shall not be admissible in evidence at any hearing or trial.”
I agree with the Court that this nighttime search does not violate the Fourth Amendment, though the issue is troublesome. Exigent circumstances existed here which justified a nighttime search, and the Fourth Amendment has never been held to require absolutely that the search warrant itself deal with this question in advance. Although the nighttime search provision of Rule 41 probably states the better practice, I do not believe the Constitution condemns the procedures of Kentucky and other states that do not require advance clearance by a magistrate for nighttime searches. The reasonableness of a nighttime search may be reliably judged after the fact, as in any case where exigent circumstances are claimed to justify a departure from preferred search and seizure practice. There is, of course, always a danger that federal officers may resort to state warrants whenever it is more convenient or less burdensome than compliance with Rule 41. But there is not even a hint of purposeful evasion in this case, and I therefore fail to see any basis for criticizing the decision of the FBI to join state officers in their application for a state warrant from a state judicial officer in this fast-breaking investigation of a serious crime.
For these reasons, I concur in the result reached by the Court.