Caudle v. State, No. 49A02-0008-CR-546.

• Docket Nº: No. 49A02-0008-CR-546.
• Citation: 754 N.E.2d 33
• Case Date: August 21, 2001
• Court: Court of Appeals of Indiana

754 N.E.2d 33

Willie O. CAUDLE, Appellant-Defendant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff

No. 49A02-0008-CR-546.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

August 21, 2001.

754 N.E.2d 34

Hilary Bowe Ricks, Indianapolis, IN, Attorney for Appellant

Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Grant H. Carlton, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.

OPINION ON REHEARING

SHARPNACK, Chief Judge.

In his petition for rehearing, Caudle alleges that we erred in holding that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule permitted the admission of evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant that had allegedly become stale. We grant rehearing for the limited purpose of explaining why, despite the fact that probable cause had allegedly dissipated before the warrant was executed, we appropriately relied on the good faith exception to affirm the trial court's denial of Caudle's motion to suppress evidence in our previously published opinion in this case, Caudle v. State, 749 N.E.2d 616, 622 (Ind.Ct.App. 2001).

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

To generally deter police from violating people's Fourth Amendment rights, the Supreme Court created the exclusionary rule, which prohibits the admission of evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 10, 115 S.Ct. 1185, 1191, 131 L.Ed.2d 34 (1995). However, in 1984, the Supreme Court created an exception to the exclusionary rule, which allows evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment to be admitted in criminal proceedings if the police officers who seized the evidence acted in good faith. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984).

In Leon, the Supreme Court outlined four situations to which the good faith exception would not apply. Id. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3421. First, the good faith exception would not apply "if the magistrate or judge in issuing a warrant was misled by information in an affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard of the truth." Id. Second, the exception does not apply if the "issuing magistrate wholly abandoned his judicial role" as a neutral and detached determiner of probable cause. Id. Third, if an officer relied "on a warrant based on an affidavit `so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable,'" then that officer's actions were not in reasonable good faith such that the exception would apply. Id. (quoting Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 610-611, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2265-2266, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975)). Finally, if a warrant is "so facially deficient—i.e., in failing to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized—that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid," then the good faith exception will not apply. Id.

In his petition for rehearing, Caudle points out that, since Leon, federal circuit courts...