State v. Rounsville

• Citation: 42 P.3d 100,136 Idaho 869
• Decision Date: 13 February 2002
• Docket Number: No. 25842.,25842.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Idaho
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Jeff Walter ROUNSVILLE, Defendant-Appellant.

42 P.3d 100

136 Idaho 869

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Jeff Walter ROUNSVILLE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 25842.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

February 13, 2002.

Molly J. Huskey, Interim State Appellate Public Defender; Paul S. Sonenberg, Deputy Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for appellant. Molly J. Huskey argued.

Hon. Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; Karen A. Hudelson, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Karen A. Hudelson argued.

LANSING, Judge.

Jeff Walter Rounsville was convicted of possession of methamphetamine after the drug was found during a search of his home. The warrant for the search was based on information obtained through a known informant who claimed to have purchased methamphetamine from Rounsville. Motions by Rounsville to suppress evidence found in the search and statements he made to the police were denied, as was a later motion by Rounsville to withdraw his guilty plea. On appeal, Rounsville challenges the rulings on these motions, the denial of a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, and the length of his sentence.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Bonner County Sheriff's deputies obtained a warrant for the search of Rounsville's home based upon information obtained from an informant named Campbell. Campbell had been arrested for possession of methamphetamine and was questioned by deputies about his source for the drug. It is a matter of dispute as to whether Campbell initially named Rounsville or a man named Johnson as his source, but it is clear that Campbell eventually told the deputies that he had acquired methamphetamine from Rounsville. Based on this information, the deputies applied for a warrant to search Rounsville's home, outbuildings and vehicles. In support of the warrant application, Campbell personally appeared before the magistrate and testified that he had purchased methamphetamine from Rounsville. Based on Campbell's testimony, the magistrate issued the warrant. The resulting search turned up baggies of methamphetamine and evidence of methamphetamine manufacturing. Rounsville was charged with possession of methamphetamine, Idaho Code § 37-2732(c)(1).

Rounsville filed a suppression motion challenging the validity of the warrant for the search of his property. He requested a hearing pursuant to Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), to show that the deputies who obtained the warrant withheld material exculpatory information from the magistrate. After conducting a Franks hearing at which the deputies and Campbell testified, the district court found that the deputies had not withheld material information, and the court denied the suppression motion. Rounsville also moved to suppress two statements he made to police during the search of his home. The district court suppressed a statement given by Rounsville before he had been advised of his Miranda rights,¹ but denied the motion as to Rounsville's further comments made after the Miranda warnings.

Rounsville thereafter entered a guilty plea, reserving his right to appeal the district court's rulings on his suppression motions. Before sentencing, Rounsville moved to withdraw his guilty plea. The district court denied this motion and sentenced Rounsville to a unified term of six years with three years determinate. A subsequent motion to reduce the sentence was denied.

On appeal, Rounsville challenges the denial of his suppression motions and his motion to withdraw his guilty plea, and he contends that the district court abused its discretion in imposing sentence and in denying Rounsville's motion to reduce the sentence.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Scope of Franks Hearing

Rounsville's first issue on appeal is whether the district court improperly limited the scope of his Franks hearing by precluding Rounsville from cross-examining the deputies about whether they had reason to believe that Campbell "was a liar" when they arrested him. The district court held that this attempted cross-examination went beyond the subject matter of the requested Franks hearing because Rounsville's request for a hearing had been based solely upon a contention that the deputies had concealed from the magistrate the fact that Campbell initially named a man other than Rounsville as the source of his methamphetamine. On appeal, Rounsville contends that this limitation on his cross-examination was improper.

In Franks, the United States Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant is entitled to an evidentiary hearing to challenge the veracity of evidence used by officers to obtain a search warrant if the defendant makes a substantial preliminary showing that the evidence included an intentionally false statement or a statement made with reckless disregard for the truth. The Franks doctrine applies not only to affirmative falsehoods in a warrant application but also to a deliberate or reckless omission of material exculpatory information. State v. Guzman, 122 Idaho 981, 983-84, 842 P.2d 660, 662-63 (1992); State v. Peterson, 133 Idaho 44, 47, 981 P.2d 1154, 1157 (Ct.App. 1999); State v. Kay, 129 Idaho 507, 511, 927 P.2d 897, 901 (Ct.App.1996); State v. Beaty, 118 Idaho 20, 24-26, 794 P.2d 290, 294-96 (Ct.App.1990).

The United States Supreme Court made it clear that a Franks evidentiary hearing is not to be lightly granted but may be allowed only "where the defendant makes a `substantial preliminary showing'" of an intentional or reckless falsehood. Franks, 438 U.S. at 155, 98 S.Ct. at 2676, 57 L.Ed.2d at 672. The nature of the defendant's burden to make this preliminary showing was further described as follows:

To mandate an evidentiary hearing, the challenger's attack must be more than conclusory and must be supported by more than a mere desire to cross examine. There must be allegations of deliberate falsehood or of reckless disregard for the truth, and those allegations must be accompanied by an offer of proof. They should point out specifically the portion of the warrant affidavit that is claimed to be false; and they should be accompanied by a statement of supporting reasons. Affidavits or sworn or otherwise reliable statements of witnesses should be furnished, or their absence satisfactorily explained. Allegations of negligence or innocent mistake are insufficient.

Id. at 171, 98 S.Ct. at 2684, 57 L.Ed.2d at 682.

Rounsville supported his request for a Franks evidentiary hearing with an affidavit from the informant, Campbell. In the affidavit, Campbell stated that when officers initially asked him where he obtained the methamphetamine found in his possession, he told the officers that he got it from a man named Johnson. According to the affidavit, when Campbell was later asked by another deputy where he got the methamphetamine, and Campbell responded that he got it from Johnson, the deputy said that he did not believe Campbell and asked if the drug really came from Rounsville. Campbell's affidavit continued with an assertion that Campbell then named Rounsville because, from the deputy's reaction when he named Johnson, "It was obvious to me that [the deputy] wanted me to name Rounsville." The affidavit further stated that in testifying before the magistrate, Campbell falsely testified that he had purchased his methamphetamine from Rounsville. It was on the basis of this evidentiary showing, that the district court granted a Franks hearing to give Rounsville an opportunity to show that the deputies misled the magistrate who issued the search warrant by failing to disclose that Campbell had first named Johnson, rather than Rounsville, as his source for the methamphetamine.

At the Franks evidentiary hearing, Campbell's live testimony gave far less support to Rounsville's motion than might have been expected because Campbell repeatedly contradicted himself on the question of whether he procured his methamphetamine from Johnson or Rounsville and what he had told the officers in that regard. During the Franks hearing, Rounsville also attempted to support his claim that the officers who obtained the search warrant had withheld material exculpatory information by cross-examining one deputy about whether, at the time of Campbell's arrest, the deputy had "reason to believe that Mr. Campbell was a liar." On the State's objection, the district court disallowed this cross-examination because it went "outside of those factors which you presented in order to make the threshold showing" for a Franks hearing. It is this ruling that Rounsville challenges on appeal, contending that the district court unduly limited the scope of the Franks hearing.

We find no error. In its Franks decision, the United States Supreme Court stressed that a defendant's entitlement to an evidentiary hearing depends upon a preliminary showing, through an offer of proof, of specific dishonesty, either reckless or intentional, in the evidence presented in support of the warrant application. Franks, 438 U.S. at 171,98 S.Ct. at 2684,57 L.Ed.2d at 682. The Court was explicit in noting that it would be a "misuse" of the evidentiary hearing if it were employed for purposes of discovery or obstruction, and that this misuse was prevented by the requirement of "a substantial preliminary showing." Id. at 155, 98 S.Ct. at 2676, 57 L.Ed.2d at 672. Here, Rounsville's offer of proof upon which he predicated his request for a Franks hearing was limited to Campbell's affidavit in which he swore that he originally implicated Johnson as his source of methamphetamine and later named Rounsville only under pressure from law enforcement officers; Rounsville offered no evidence that officers were aware of any other incidents of falsehood by Campbell or that Campbell had a general propensity to lie. The district court correctly confined Rounsville's Franks hearing to the particular omission of exculpatory information that was alleged in his offer of proof.

B. Probable Cause for Search Warrant

Rounsville next argues that the evidence presented in...