W.D.N.Y.: Where PC was a close call, good faith exception applied

Where the question of PC was a close call and could have gone either way, the affidavit was “not so lacking” in probable cause that it could not be still relied on in good faith under Leon. Therefore, the product of the search warrant would not be suppressed. United States v. Anderson, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114528 (W.D. N.Y. April 19, 2012)*:

During oral argument, the Government acknowledged that had the same facts been presented to this Court it would be a reasonable judicial response to say “there’s not enough here” to connect the 2978 Upton Road residence to the murders being investigated. That I might agree with the Government is not the litmus test in my analysis. For I also conclude that in the present case there is no evidence that the issuing judge abandoned his independent role as a neutral and detached finder of probable cause or that the judge issued the warrant in reliance on a deliberately or recklessly false affidavit. Nor do I find that the warrant was based on an affidavit so lacking in facts amounting to “probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.” United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. at 923. It would be easy for this Court to second guess whether these facts amounted to only “mere suspicion” that evidence of the Rochester murders would be present in Anderson’s residence in Columbus or whether these facts rose to the level of probable cause. But the bottom line is that such an inquiry is not necessary. The court’s “good-faith inquiry is confined to the objectively ascertainable question whether a reasonably well trained officer would have known that the search was illegal in light of ‘all of the circumstances.'” Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 129 S. Ct. 695, 172 L. Ed. 2d 496 (quoting United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. at 922 n.23) (internal quotation mark omitted). Based on the totality of the record before me, I conclude that neither the affiant or the officers executing the search would have any objective reason to question the issuing judge’s determination that probable cause existed. Accordingly, I find that the “good faith” exception applies to this case.