D.N.J.: “The goal is a difficult one to achieve because Franks is narrow in its scope and miserly in the relief it offers.”

After four days of suppression hearing on a Franks issue, the court doesn’t find the discrepancy to be deliberately false. “Put more directly: West doesn’t have the argument of reasonable doubt as to what the police said or did so as to weaken the government’s proofs. Here West has the burden; West has to prove by a preponderance his version of what happened in order to topple the legitimacy of the search. The goal is a difficult one to achieve because Franks is narrow in its scope and miserly in the relief it offers.” United States v. West, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 218851 (D.N.J. Nov. 23, 2020).*