Campbell v. Commonwealth, Record No. 1404-15-3.

CourtCourt of Appeals of Virginia
Citation791 S.E.2d 351,66 Va.App. 677
Docket NumberRecord No. 1404-15-3.
Parties James Willis Campbell, Sr. v. Commonwealth of Virginia.
Decision Date25 October 2016

Robert C. Goad, III, Amherst (Shrader Law Office, on brief), for appellant.

Katherine Quinlan Adelfio, Assistant Attorney General (Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.

Present: HUMPHREYS, ATLEE, JJ., and CLEMENTS, Senior Judge.

CLEMENTS

, Judge.

An Amherst County grand jury indicted James Willis Campbell, Sr. (appellant) for manufacturing or possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute it. See Code § 18.2–248

. Appellant moved to suppress the evidence seized when the police entered his property and searched it on August 6, 2014 pursuant to a search warrant. The trial court found that the affidavit upon which the warrant was based was not filed as required by Code § 19.2–54, Virginia's statute prohibiting general warrants and detailing the procedures for filing warrants and affidavits. Nonetheless, the trial court found that probable cause and exigent circumstances existed to justify a search without a warrant, and denied the motion to suppress the evidence. On appeal, appellant argues the trial court erred in denying the motion to suppress. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the trial court's ruling and remand the matter to the trial court.

BACKGROUND

“When reviewing a trial court's denial of a defendant's motion to suppress, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, according it the benefit of all reasonable inferences fairly deducible from the evidence.” Anderson v. Commonwealth , 279 Va. 85, 90, 688 S.E.2d 605, 607 (2010)

.

At about 10:30 p.m. on August 6, 2014, a magistrate issued a search warrant for premises owned by appellant and located in Amherst County. The warrant authorized a search for items related to the manufacture of methamphetamine. Investigator James Begley appeared before the magistrate and executed the affidavit in support of the search warrant. The affidavit included information Begley had received from an informant regarding the existence of a methamphetamine lab on appellant's property. The informant had advised Begley that a “meth cook” was planned for later that evening.

Begley left the magistrate's office with two signed copies of the warrant and the underlying affidavit. He gave one copy to the Virginia State Police. Begley and officers with the Virginia State Police tactical team executed the warrant at 11:52 p.m. on August 6, 2014. The officers seized evidence related to the manufacture of methamphetamine. They arrested appellant and others.

The magistrate retained one copy of the search warrant and affidavit, which contained handwritten additions to indicate appellant's property was located in Madison Heights, a community within Amherst County. Documents relating to the warrant subsequently were faxed from the magistrate's office to the clerk of the circuit court for Amherst County, and were filed there on August 7, 2014. However, only the first page of the affidavit and the search warrant were received and filed. The second page of the affidavit, containing the facts constituting probable cause, was not received or filed.

Appellant was indicted for the offense on February 10, 2015. Appellant filed a motion to suppress the evidence on March 26, 2015 and an amended motion to suppress on April 2, 2015. He alleged that the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant should be suppressed because the complete affidavit supporting the warrant had not been filed as required by Code § 19.2–54

. Although initially finding the violation of the filing requirement was a procedural matter, the trial court ultimately concluded that the failure to file the complete affidavit required suppression of the evidence.

The Commonwealth moved for reconsideration of the trial court's decision. It also argued that, notwithstanding any violation of the statutory filing requirement, the good faith exception to the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule applied. The Commonwealth also contended probable cause and exigent circumstances existed to justify a warrantless search of appellant's property.

At an evidentiary hearing on the motion to reconsider, the Commonwealth was unable to produce the original copy of the second page of the search warrant affidavit. Placed before the trial court, and made a part of the record, was the copy of the affidavit Begley had retained. Begley's copy of the affidavit differed from the document faxed to the circuit court clerk in that Begley's copy did not contain the handwritten notations that appellant's property was in Madison Heights. The trial court declined to disturb its prior ruling suppressing the evidence due to the violation of Code § 19.2–54

. The trial court took under advisement the Commonwealth's contention that probable cause and exigent circumstances existed to justify a warrantless search of the property.

The trial court then proceeded to hear evidence of the substantive offense, including evidence obtained from the search on August 6, 2014. At the conclusion of the Commonwealth's evidence, the trial court found that probable cause and exigent circumstances justified a warrantless search of appellant's property and that the prosecution's evidence was admissible. Appellant presented no evidence, and the trial court found him guilty of the charged offense.

DISCUSSION

Code § 19.2–54

provides, in pertinent part:

No search warrant shall be issued until there is filed with the officer authorized to issue the same an affidavit of some person reasonably describing the place, thing, or person to be searched, the things or persons to be searched for thereunder, alleging briefly material facts, constituting the probable cause for the issuance of such warrant and alleging substantially the offense in relation to which such search is to be made and that the object, thing, or person searched for constitutes evidence of the commission of such offense. The affidavit may be filed by electronically transmitted (i) facsimile process or (ii) electronic record as defined in § 59.1–480. Such affidavit shall be certified by the officer who issues such warrant and delivered in person; mailed by certified mail, return receipt requested; or delivered by electronically transmitted facsimile process or by use of filing and security procedures as defined in the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (§ 59.1–479 et seq.) for transmitting signed documents, by such officer or his designee or agent, to the clerk of the circuit court of the county or city wherein the search is made, with a copy of the affidavit also being delivered to the clerk of the circuit court of the county or city where the warrant is issued, if in a different county or city, within seven days after the issuance of such warrant and shall by such clerks be preserved as a record and shall at all times be subject to inspection by the public after the warrant that is the subject of the affidavit has been executed or 15 days after issuance of the warrant, whichever is earlier.... Each such clerk shall maintain an index of all such affidavits filed in his office in order to facilitate inspection. No such warrant shall be issued on an affidavit omitting such essentials, and no general warrant for the search of a house, place, compartment, vehicle or baggage shall be issued. The term “affidavit” as used in this section, means statements made under oath or affirmation and preserved verbatim.
Failure of the officer issuing such warrant to file the required affidavit shall not invalidate any search made under the warrant unless such failure shall continue for a period of 30 days. If the affidavit is filed prior to the expiration of the 30–day period, nevertheless, evidence obtained in any such search shall not be admissible until a reasonable time after the filing of the required affidavit.

(Emphasis added).

The statutory framework set forth in Code § 19.2–54

requires that the search warrant affidavit be filed in the circuit court clerk's office within a relatively brief period of time after the search warrant is issued or executed. “Affidavit” means the statements made under oath by the affiant when he sought the search warrant. See

id.

See

also

Quintana v. Commonwealth , 224 Va. 127, 136, 295 S.E.2d 643, 646 (1982) (under Code § 19.2–54, ‘the required affidavit’ means the affidavit required to support issuance of a search warrant”).

In this case, only one page of the affidavit for the search warrant was filed with the clerk of the Circuit Court of Amherst County. The single page that was filed did not contain Begley's sworn statements of material facts constituting probable cause. It is clear, and the parties do not dispute, that the affidavit filing requirement of Code § 19.2–54

was not satisfied in this instance. Thus, we must determine whether, and under what circumstances, a violation of the filing requirement of Code § 19.2–54 mandates suppression of evidence seized pursuant to a warrant.

At the outset, it is important to distinguish the potential remedy of exclusion of evidence pursuant to

Code § 19.2–54

from the exclusionary rule recognized to redress violations of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the police, but “is silent about how this right is to be enforced. To supplement the bare text, [the United States Supreme Court] created the exclusionary rule, a deterrent sanction that bars the prosecution from introducing evidence obtained by way of a Fourth Amendment violation.” Davis v. United States , 564 U.S. 229, 231–32, 131 S.Ct. 2419, 2423, 180 L.Ed.2d 285 (2011). This exclusionary rule applies only to constitutional violations, not to alleged violations of state laws governing police encounters with members of the public. See

Virginia v. Moore , 553 U.S. 164, 178, 128 S.Ct. 1598, 1608, 170 L.Ed.2d 559 (2008).

“Absent an...

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5 cases
  • Campbell v. Commonwealth
    • United States
    • Virginia Court of Appeals
    • August 21, 2018
    ...court’s ruling to admit evidence obtained pursuant to the search warrant and reversed Campbell’s conviction. See Campbell v. Commonwealth, 66 Va. App. 677, 791 S.E.2d 351 (2016). The Commonwealth appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia. The Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the Court o......
  • Commonwealth v. Campbell
    • United States
    • Virginia Supreme Court
    • December 14, 2017
    ...that Code § 19.2-54 rendered the fruits of the search categorically inadmissible as a matter of state law. Campbell v. Commonwealth, 66 Va. App. 677, 791 S.E.2d 351 (2016). The Court rejected the Commonwealth's alternative arguments on the basis that the admissibility of the search under th......
  • Daniels v. Commonwealth
    • United States
    • Virginia Court of Appeals
    • November 6, 2018
    ...good faith exception to the warrant requirement could not apply in this case because of this Court’s decision in Campbell v. Commonwealth, 66 Va. App. 677, 791 S.E.2d 351 (2016), and because Code § 19.2-54 provides for a statutory remedy.During the hearing, the Commonwealth called Investiga......
  • Campbell v. Brown
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia
    • October 24, 2019
    ...page of the search warrant affidavit as required by Virginia Code § 19.2-54 required suppression of the evidence. Campbell v. Commonwealth, 791 S.E.2d 351 (Va. Ct. App. 2016), rev'd, 807 S.E.2d 735 (Va. 2017), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 421 (2018), reh'g denied, 139 S. Ct. 1244 (2019). Holdin......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

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