United States v. Steve Earl Langford

312 F. App'x 259
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedFebruary 17, 2009
Docket08-11447
StatusUnpublished

This text of 312 F. App'x 259 (United States v. Steve Earl Langford) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh 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. Steve Earl Langford, 312 F. App'x 259 (11th Cir. 2009).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Steve Earl Langford was convicted of seven drug possession and trafficking offenses and two firearm offenses. Lang-ford contends that the district court erred when it applied the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule and denied his motion to suppress evidence. That is the only issue he raises in this appeal.

At the suppression hearing a magistrate judge heard testimony from Agent Mike Leftwich, who became involved in the investigation of Langford in 1999. During the investigation, Leftwich had made controlled buys of cocaine from some of Lang-ford’s regular customers. Leftwich worked with a female informant who made controlled buys directly from Langford at his house until December 2003. The 2004 search warrant affidavit stated that a confidential informant had made controlled purchases of drugs at Langford’s house at 210 Victory Lane and that the informant had seen handguns, large sums of money, and drug packaging materials inside that house. It also stated that Langford had a prior drug offense conviction and that his house was surrounded by fences.

Based on that affidavit, City of Huntsville warrant magistrate Scott Rogers signed a search warrant on September 27, 2004. No search was conducted. Left-wich later testified that there was a delay because his supervisors in the police department believed that Langford was too dangerous for the warrant to be executed until Langford was in custody. An arrest warrant for Langford was also issued at about the samé time as the search warrant based on allegations of drug sales to a confidential informant.

Agent Leftwich testified that law enforcement spent the next year trying to arrest Langford outside of his home. They finally got the chance in September 2005. During a traffic stop, one passenger ran from the car and evaded police officers. Another man in the car identified himself as “John Langford,” an alias that Steve Earl Langford used. He gave his address as 219 Victory Lane, which the officers knew was false. After Langford was arrested, Leftwich contacted Warrant Magistrate Rogers, who issued a new search warrant for Langford’s house.

The affidavit in support of the new search warrant contained all of the same information as the 2004 warrant along with new information about the traffic stop. It referred to ongoing drug trafficking activities, Langford’s gang affiliation, and his history as a drug offender. Leftwich took the affidavit and a warrant to Magistrate Rogers, who had signed the 2004 search warrant. Under oath, he discussed the Langford investigation with Rogers and told him about the traffic stop. Leftwich inadvertently had left the 2004 date on the warrant, and Rogers scratched through it *261 and wrote in the correct date of September 1, 2005. Rogers signed the warrant, and Leftwich executed it.

After a grand jury indicted Langford on gun and drug charges, he moved to the evidence found during the search of his house pursuant to the warrant, that the information on which the warrant was based was stale. After the suppression hearing, the magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation that there were some “obvious with the search warrant affidavit. Specifically, it lacked the details necessary to establish that its information contained was not stale and that the confidential informants who had made the controlled drug buys were reliable.

The magistrate judge’s report found that Agent Leftwich had acted in good faith and that Leftwich believed he had sufficiently updated the warrant with new information about Langford’s involvement in drug trafficking. It also found no .that anything in the warrant was false or that Leftwich had tiled to mislead the warrant magistrate. Based on the of the circumstances, the magistrate judge concluded that the warrant affidavit was not so lacking in probable cause that belief in its existence was entirely The magistrate judge concluded that the affidavit failed to establish probable cause for the warrant but that the good faith exception established by United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3420, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), applied. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation.

review de novo the legal issue as to whether the Leon good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies.... ” United States v. Martin, 297 F.3d 1308, 1312 (11th Cir.2002). However, Langford did not to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, so we review the fact findings in that report only for “plain error or manifest injustice.” See United States v. Warren, 687 F.2d 347, 348 (11th Cir.1982).

Leon “stands for the principle that courts generally should not render inadmissible evidence obtained by police officers acting in reasonable reliance upon a search warrant that is ultimately found to be unsupported by probable cause.” Martin, 297 F.3d at 1313. We have explained the Leon good faith exception as follows:

The Leon good faith exception applies in all but four limited sets of circumstances. The four sets of circumstances are as follows: (1) “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 affidavit supporting the warrant is “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable”; and (4) where, depending upon the circumstances of the particular case, a warrant is “so facially deficient&emdash;ie., in failing to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized&emdash; that the executing officers cannot rea' ' presume it to be valid.”

Id. (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 923, 104 S.Ct. 3405). Langford contends that the first and third sets of circumstances apply here and make the Leon good faith exception inapplicable.

As to the first Langford argues that Agent Leftwich misled the warrant magistrate by failing to inform him that all but the last paragraph of the affidavit was based on information obtained nearly two *262 years earlier. He asserts that the omitted information was crucial because the would not have issued a search based only on stale information and the automobile stop.

The record no information provided in the affidavit was false or that Agent Leftwich tried to the warrant magistrate. Magistrate Rogers had signed the 2004 warrant and was already familiar with the case. The record shows that he placed Agent under oath, and they discussed the entire investigation. Rogers then the warrant and affidavit and the date on the warrant before signing.

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Related

United States v. Corey Martin
297 F.3d 1308 (Eleventh Circuit, 2002)
Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York
442 U.S. 319 (Supreme Court, 1979)
United States v. Leon
468 U.S. 897 (Supreme Court, 1984)
United States v. Charles Earl Warren
687 F.2d 347 (Eleventh Circuit, 1982)
United States v. Hooshang Hooshmand
931 F.2d 725 (Eleventh Circuit, 1991)
United States v. Harris
20 F.3d 445 (Eleventh Circuit, 1994)

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Bluebook (online)
312 F. App'x 259, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-steve-earl-langford-ca11-2009.