AL SWs must be executed only by the officers to whom they are directed

Search warrants in Alabama have to be executed only by the officers to whom they are directed. Here, the warrant was to the Sheriff of Mobile County, but an officer of the Mobile PD executed it. This was invalid execution. In light of the clear statutory mandate, despite the past practice of doing just that in the past, the good faith exception does not apply. Anderson v. State, 2016 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 107 (April 29, 2016):

We agree with the analysis performed by Justice Lyons in his opinion concurring in the result in Property at 2018 Rainbow Drive. Section 15-5-7 requires that a search warrant be executed by the officers to whom it is directed, and it is undisputed that the search warrant in the present case was directed to the sheriff of Mobile County, not to the Mobile Police Department or to “any law-enforcement officer.” The testimony at trial established that Officers Bailey and Walton, who are both officers of the Mobile City Police Department, executed the search warrant without assistance from the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office. Furthermore, Officer Bailey admitted that he was not deputized by the sheriff. Thus, we agree with Anderson that the search warrant was not properly executed.

The State argues that, even if the search warrant was not properly executed, no ground for reversal exists because of the “good-faith exception.” That exception prevents the exclusion of evidence gathered during a defective search when the officers executing the search reasonably relied on a warrant later held to be invalid. Rivers v. State, 695 So. 2d 260, 262 (Ala. Crim. App. 1997) (citing United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1984)). The Court of Criminal Appeals has explained that “[t]he good faith exception provides that when officers acting in good faith, that is, in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant issued by a neutral, detached magistrate, conduct a search and the warrant is found to be invalid, the evidence need not be excluded.” Rivers, 695 So. 2d at 262.

However, in the present case, it is not the search warrant that is invalid. Instead, our conclusion is that Officer Bailey improperly executed the search warrant in violation of the established law set out in § 15-5-7. We cannot agree that the good-faith exception applies to permit a municipal officer to execute a search warrant directed to a county sheriff in violation of § 15-5-7. Officer Bailey’s reliance on what appears to be an illegal practice of the Mobile City Police Department is not reasonable in light of the statutory directive of § 15-5-7 that a search warrant be executed by the officer to whom it is directed or at his or her direction and in his or her presence.