CA5: ME’s alleged false autopsy didn’t state a Franks claim

A medical examiner’s alleged false autopsy report didn’t state a Franks violation because he wasn’t the affiant in any warrant. Dean v. Phatak, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 33645 (5th Cir. Dec. 23, 2025):

We begin by rejecting Dean’s Fourth Amendment fabrication theory.

The Warrant Clause—”[t]he bulwark of Fourth Amendment protection” provides that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation.” “[N]ot merely a probable-cause guarantee,” the Clause is also “a guarantee that a warrant will not issue unless a neutral and disinterested magistrate independently decides that probable cause exists.” In Franks, the Supreme Court recognized that the Warrant Clause “would be reduced to a nullity if a police officer was able to use deliberately falsified allegations to demonstrate probable cause.” Thus, it held that an officer who includes a “false statement” in a warrant affidavit “knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth” violates the Fourth Amendment if the “false statement is necessary to the finding of probable cause.”

Franks addressed only “[t]he deliberate falsity or reckless disregard … of the affiant.” But in Hart v. O’Brien, we extended Franks, holding that “[a] governmental official violates the Fourth Amendment when he deliberately or recklessly provides false, material information for use in an affidavit in support of a search warrant, regardless of whether he signs the affidavit.” In Melton v. Phillips, our en banc court further explained that “an officer who has provided information for the purpose of its being included in a warrant application” may be held liable under Franks, “but an officer who has not provided information for the purpose of its being included in a warrant application may be liable only if he signed or presented the application.” Under Hart and Melton, therefore, an official may be held liable under Franks only if he (1) signed or presented the application, or (2) provided information for the purpose of its inclusion in a warrant application.

Dean has never claimed that Dr. Phatak signed or presented the application, or that he wrote his autopsy report with the purpose of including it in a warrant application. He did not allege as much in his complaint, did not argue it in response to Dr. Phatak’s motion for summary judgment, and did not file a brief making that assertion on remand from the previous appeal. For its part, the district court never suggested that Dr. Phatak signed or presented the application or wrote the autopsy report for use in a warrant application. Thus, as explained above, we may treat it as undisputed that he did not. Under Hart and Melton, that is fatal to Dean’s Fourth Amendment theory.