United States v. Leon

Police in Burbank, California received a tip of unproven reliability in 1981 that named Patsy Stewart and Armando Sanchez as drug dealers who kept drugs both in their house and at another location. Police kept their residence under surveillance and discovered car belonging to Ricardo Del Castillo. Del Castillo’s history of drug possession and probation records connected him to a known drug dealer, Alberto Leon. Further surveillance on both locations and information from a second informant led police to request a warrant to search several locations, which was issued. The searches uncovered large quantities of drugs, which were used as evidence in the trial. The Supreme Court ruled that the evidence acquired because of the warrant was permissible in court.

Justice White argues in the opinion of the Court that “evidence seized by officers reasonably relying on a warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate…should be admissible.” He puts limits on this statement to hold judges and officers accountable. White argues that evidence should be suppressed only if the “judge was misled by information in an affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard for the truth.” If a judge was lied to, if a judge knowingly issues a warrant on false information, or if an officer cannot reasonably believe that the judge then the evidence should be suppressed. White thinks that excluding evidence is a hindrance to justice and neither deters judges from making mistakes in issuing warrants nor officers from applying for a warrant without probable cause, which is why he does not support excluding evidence except in very specific situations.

Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall dissent, arguing that the cost and benefit analysis of excluding evidence pursuant to an invalid warrant done by the majority exaggerates the true cost of excluding evidence and neglects to protect the “indispensable freedoms” promised to citizens in the Fourth Amendment. Justices Brennan and Marshall worry that, without the proper safeguards against illegally obtaining evidence, “we may be lured by the temptations of expediency” and the rights and liberties of citizens will be left unprotected in favor of fast-moving, if not reliable, investigations and trials.

I do not agree with the majority in this decision. Near the beginning of Justice White’s opinion he writes that whether or not it is appropriate to exclude evidence in this case is a separate question from whether or not Leon’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated. I disagree. If there is a search pursuant to an invalid warrant, then whoever was searched has had their Fourth Amendment rights violated and the evidence acquired in that search should be inadmissible in court, just as a statement given by a person in custodial interrogation who has not been read their Miranda rights should be inadmissible in court. While law enforcement may attempt to get around obtaining a warrant and having probable cause before a search in the same way that officers have tried to find ways around Miranda, the greater wrong would be to do nothing about the violation of the rights of citizens.

2 Responses to "United States v. Leon"

Natalie Dowzicky says:

March 21, 2017 at 7:20 pm

I agree with your last paragraph completely. I would actually take it one step further and say that Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall had the better argument. I thought this case to be rather similar to U.S. v. Jones and I thought that Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall used that rationale of “illegal” warrant. In both scenarios the warrants obtained could have been seen as illegal or unwarranted, but both were handled very differently by the Court. In Jones, obviously they decided that the police conducted a warrantless search because they did not follow the ramifications of the warrant and in Leon they were trying to say that the warrant was illegally obtained because the tip that led them to gather all of the information was not justified. So, in my eyes it seems as though both warrants had the possibility of being illegal and an illegal warrant, whether obtained illegally or acted on illegally are both violation of our Fourth Amendment right.

I thought it was interesting towards the end of the dissent that Justice Marshall was using the slippery slope argument meaning that since the Court justified this line of thinking they would successfully dismantle the protections of the Fourth Amendment. He even went further to say, “There is hope, however, that in time this or some later Court will restore these precious freedoms to their rightful place as a primary protection for our citizens against overreaching officialdom”. I actually found a pretty relevant case to this from 2016 that would cause Justice Brennan to turn over in his grave.

Basically, in June of 2016 the Court decided that evidence found by police officers after illegal stops may be used in court if the officers conducted their searches after learning that the defendants had outstanding arrest warrants even if the evidence they found had nothing to do with the arrest. I found that extremely relevant to our current class discussion.

Here is the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/us/supreme-court-says-police-may-use-evidence-found-after-illegal-stops.html?_r=0
Ethan Wiley says:

March 26, 2017 at 10:27 pm

I find your comparison to cases involving Miranda warnings to be a very interesting point. While you are correct in your comparison that when US v Leon was decided unmiranized confession were inadmissible, looking forward Justice Breyers concurring opinion in the Missouri v. Seibert case reflects the courts movement in a direction in which the intentions of the officer were considered in the courts determination of admissibility. If an officer was seen to be acting in “good faith” and not intentionally attempting to deceive a suspect to circumvent their constitutional right to Miranda then their confessions, even unmirandized, would not necessarily by inadmissible within court. This “good faith” exemption described in this opinion mirrors the majority opinion of US v. Leon, and demonstrates an expansion of “good faith” practicing beyond simply the “exclusionary rule.”
Personally, I disagree with your stance and agree with the majority opinion, however I do disagree with the basis on which their opinion is made, specifically the majority opinions stance on the role of the exclusionary rule.
Justice Breyer expresses that the exclusionary rule was simply a judicial tool to protect against fourth amendment violations and the exclusionary rule is not actually a constitutional right. Breyer then bases his exceptions to the exclusionary rule on this fundamental point. However, I disagree with this because looking at the fourth amendment itself, it grants citizens from unwarranted intrusions by the government into their person and property. The fourth amendment search and seizure clause, and really all the amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights, are meant to protect individuals from governmental overreaches. The fourth amendment search and seizure clause specifically protects individuals from violations of privacy and rights without oversight in determining whether their action is warranted. The fourth amendment does not apply to citizens because they are not capable of such overreach but rather this restriction is limited to the government and extensions of the government such as the police. Fourth amendment violations are applicable to police officers because they are a mechanism of enforcement for the government and thereby a tool in which the government could use to overreach their constitutional limits. In this way, in agreement with the Supreme Court’s opinion of Mapp v Ohio, I believe that the exclusionary rule is a fundamental embodiment of the fourth amendment rights. The actions of police officers during search and seizures are directly related to their attempts to build a case against an individual in court and because of this the only protections against fourth amendment violations are protecting individuals from the use of illegally obtained evidence in court. In this way, the exclusionary rule is not simply a protection from abuse of the 4th amendment but fundamental to its implementation.
However, I do agree with the courts final ruling. I believe that there should be an application of good faith exceptions to the exclusionary rule. As Justice White states “evidence seized by officers reasonably relying on a warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate…should be admissible.” Additionally, White states that the limitations to this are if the judge or officer intentionally act in a deceitful or biased manner. As stated above, I believe the fourth amendment was meant to protect against intentional governmental overreaches. In this case, I believe there was no fourth amendment violation because governmental overreach was not intended but rather it was just a side effect of the mistakes of a fallible system; i.e. the officer’s ability to write an affidavit or the judges determination of probable cause. When balancing the needs of the public and the rights of the private citizen it is important that excluding evidence for unintentional errors does not restrict the performance of the courts in determining cases. Police and justices are fallible but if they have good intentions we should not allow small procedural errors to derail the courts ability to see justice occur. In this case, and the cases of which this ruling applies, the officers did not intentionally deceive the Judge who granted the warrant, and the Judge did not make his decision based upon a biased position. When considering the goal of the 4th amendment to protect from governmental overreach, as long as the officers and judges are working in good faith not to overreach their granted rights, the evidence obtained should be admissible.

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