United States v. John C. Mueller

902 F.2d 336, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 8344, 1990 WL 66485
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMay 22, 1990
Docket89-1589
StatusPublished
Cited by138 cases

This text of 902 F.2d 336 (United States v. John C. Mueller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. John C. Mueller, 902 F.2d 336, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 8344, 1990 WL 66485 (5th Cir. 1990).

Opinion

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

On September 10, 1988, Texas state law enforcement officers conducted a search of the premises and vehicles at 4905 Hudson Bend Road, Travis County, Texas, pursuant to a warrant authorizing the officers to search for controlled substances. The affidavit upon which the search warrant was based stated as follows:

... on or about the 10th day of September A.D., 1988, Your affiant received a call in reference to a chemical odor in the area of the Dry Dock Pub located at 4919 Hudson Bend Road, Travis County, Texas, your affiant then who has been a peace officer for over ten years and who is trained and knowledge-able of those chemicals commonly used in the manufacture of Methamphetamine which is a controlled substance, went to Dry Dock Pub located at 4919 Hudson Bend Road, Travis County, Texas. Your affiant then detected a strong chemical odor of those chemicals commonly used in the manufacture of Methamphetamine which is a controlled substance at that location. Your affiant was then able to locate that the chemical odor of those chemicals commonly used in the manufacture of Methamphetamine was coming from the residence, building, out buildings, and or vehicles located at 4905 Hudson Bend Road, Travis County, Texas. As your affiant was checking the above location an unknown White male who lived directly across the fence from 4905 Hudson Bend Road, informed this affiant that the odor the affiant was smelling was that of Methamphetamine and that it was coming from across the fence from 4905 Hudson Bend Road, Travis County, Texas.

The searching officers seized a methamphetamine laboratory in full operation and various weapons on the premises and arrested Joe Segler, Donna M. Sirois, and appellant John C. Mueller. All three were subsequently indicted for manufacture of methamphetamine and various other charges.

The district court denied Mueller’s motion to suppress. In accordance with Fed. R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2), and pursuant to a plea bargain agreement, Mueller pleaded guilty to the manufacture of methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), conditioned on his ability to appeal the denial of his suppression motion. On June 15, 1989, following his filing of various objections to the presentence investigation report (PSI), Mueller was sentenced, at a lengthy hearing, to 240 months’ imprisonment, three years’ supervised release, a $25,000 fine, and a $50 special assessment.

I.

Mueller argues that much of the evidence used against him was obtained in an illegal search or seizure in violation of his constitutional rights and thus that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress such evidence. In particular, he asserts that the warrant under which the officers searched his residence lacked probable cause, that the officers did not act in good faith in following the warrant, and that he was improperly denied an evidentia-ry hearing pursuant to Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978).

All of Mueller’s contentions revolve around three allegations of factual deficiencies in the affidavit supporting the warrant: first, that the naming of the addresses of the residence and of the Dry Dock Pub were not sufficiently specific; second, that Officer Hinkel, upon whose affidavit the warrant was issued, did not sufficiently establish his ability and expertise to identify by smell the methamphetamine that he reported having detected; third, that any odor smelled by the officer could not have been connected with the residence searched. In support of this third contention, Mueller presented the trial court with the affidavit of an associate professor of meteorology. Based upon data from the National Weather Service and an inspection of the area around the house searched by the officers, the professor concluded that a person standing at the Dry Dock Pub *340 (where the officer had stated he was when he first detected the odor) “would be very unlikely to detect any odor emitting from 4905 Hudson Road” (the address of the house searched).

A.

Mueller contends, based upon the affidavit’s failure to explain how the officer had the expertise and ability to recognize the methamphetamine smell and upon the meteorologist’s subsequent affidavit, that the magistrate lacked probable cause to issue the warrant. However,

[principles of judicial restraint and precedent dictate that, in most cases, we should not reach the probable cause issue if a decision on the admissibility of the evidence under the good-faith exception of [United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984),] will resolve the matter.
In Leon, the Court held that evidence obtained by law enforcement officials acting in objectively reasonable good-faith reliance upon a search warrant is admissible in the prosecution’s case-in-chief, even though the affidavit on which the warrant was based was insufficient to establish probable cause. Issuance of a warrant by a magistrate normally suffices to establish good faith on the part of law enforcement officers who conduct a search pursuant to the warrant.... [T]he Court set forth four exceptions to this rule.

United States v. Craig, 861 F.2d 818, 820-21 (5th Cir.1988) (citations omitted).

These exceptions from Leon are as follows:

(1) if the magistrate or judge in issuing a warrant was misled by information in an affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard of the truth.
(2) where the issuing magistrate wholly abandoned his judicial role in the manner condemned in Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U.S. 319, 99 S.Ct. 2319, 60 L.Ed.2d 920 (1979);
(3) [where the] warrant [is] based on an affidavit ‘so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.’
(4) [where the warrant is] so facially deficient — i.e., in failing to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized — that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid.

468 U.S. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3421.

The first exception is discussed in part I.B., infra. As to the second, Mueller presents no evidence that the judge abandoned his judicial role. In fact, apart from his assertion that the affidavit did not provide probable cause (which is directed at the third exception), Mueller presents no evidence of any error on the judge’s part. Nothing suggests that the magistrate had any bias or interest in issuing the warrant, or that he dispensed with his neutral and detached position to become involved in the evidence-gathering related to issuance of the warrant as did the town justice in

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Bluebook (online)
902 F.2d 336, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 8344, 1990 WL 66485, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-john-c-mueller-ca5-1990.