PA: Considering extrinsic evidence outside of “four corners rule” violates Fourth Amendment and state law

The suppression court had the discretion to revisit the grant of the suppression order within thirty days, but it violated state law when it considered extrinsic evidence outside of the “four corners rule” to validate the search. Here, the unanswered question was where was a bag of trash: inside the garage or outside? The affidavit did not answer that. Commonwealth v. James, 2010 PA Super 203, 12 A.3d 388 (2010):

We find that the trial court violated the four corners rule by considering extrinsic evidence that was not contained in the affidavit of probable cause to determine the validity of the search warrant. Appellant was not challenging the trash pull itself, but rather the existence of probable cause on the face of the affidavit. Thus, the question for the trial court was whether sufficient probable cause existed within the four corners of the affidavit to support the magistrate’s decision to issue the search warrant. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 203(D); Coleman, supra. Pa.R.Crim.P. 203(D) prohibits a reviewing court from hearing supplemental testimony on what it deems to be a “second constitutional issue,” (N.T., 10/22/08, at 4), and then using that evidence to determine whether sufficient probable existed for a magistrate to issue a search warrant. Indeed, this Court has specifically rejected the use of extrinsic evidence in order to salvage a deficient warrant, see Commonwealth v. Vaughan, 2001 PA Super 374, 789 A.2d 261, 266 (Pa. Super. 2001) (“While … extrinsic evidence might be relevant to our analysis, we must defer to our Supreme Court to so state unequivocally and will not open the door to this method of salvaging a deficient warrant without that Court’s explicit guidance.”).

Accordingly, we find that the trial court violated Pa.R.Crim.P. 203(D) at the October 22, 2008 suppression hearing by soliciting and considering testimony outside the four corners of the affidavit of probable cause in the course of deciding whether the search warrant should have been issued. Accordingly, we vacate the order denying Appellant’s motion to suppress and the judgment of sentence and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.