McClintock, Bradley Ray
McClintock, Bradley Ray
Opinion
Yeary, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which Keller, P.J., and Keasler, Hervey, Richardson, Keel and Walker, JJ., joined.
This case involves the proper construction of Article 38.23(b) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, the statutory good-faith exception to our statutory exclusionary rule. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 38.23(b). We have reviewed this case once before on discretionary review.
McClintock v. State
,
BACKGROUND
We gave a detailed recital of the facts in our first opinion in this case.
McClintock
,
While the case was pending on appeal, the United States Supreme Court decided
Florida v. Jardines
,
On remand, the justices in the court of appeals disputed the proper scope of Article 38.23(b)'s good-faith exception to our statutory exclusionary rule.
3
The majority held that the language of the exception plainly limits its application to "evidence obtained" by virtue of "reliance upon" a "warrant" that is "based on probable cause."
McClintock
,
The dissenting justice disagreed.
We granted the State's second petition for discretionary review in order to resolve this dispute and clarify the reach of Article 38.23(b). Boiled down, the question is this: How should Article 38.23(b) apply, if at all, when the warrant affidavit supplies probable cause but that probable cause appears to be tainted by a prior illegality?
ANALYSIS
Statutory Construction
Prior to the advent of Article 38.23, this Court had recognized no state exclusionary remedy in Texas.
Welchek v. State
,
The Supreme Court's decision in
Davis
dealt with the good-faith exception to the federal, court-made exclusionary rule. The question in
Davis
was whether to apply the federal exclusionary rule "when police conduct a search in compliance with binding precedent that is later overruled."
When we construe Article 38.23, as with any statute, "[i]n divining legislative intent, we look first to the language of the statute[,]" and "[w]hen the meaning is plain, we look no further."
Daugherty
,
Far less plain from the face of the statute is what the legislative intent may have been with respect to what may permissibly go into the assessment of "probable cause."
5
Did the Legislature mean to incorporate
*68
nothing more than the common-place definition of that term, namely, that "under the totality of circumstances presented to the magistrate, there is at least a 'fair probability' or 'substantial chance' that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found at the specified location"?
Flores v. State
,
How do we fill the statutory gap? Our approach in the past, at least when confronting the language of Article 38.23(a), has been to assume that the Legislature intended to incorporate any exception to the federal exclusionary rule from the Fourth Amendment case law that we have found to be "consistent with" the statutory language, even if not expressly spelled out there.
Baker
,
The Good Faith Doctrine and Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
The United States Supreme Court has already provided clear guidance when it comes to exclusionary-rule issues such as attenuation of taint,
8
independent source,
9
and inevitable discovery.
10
It is a relatively straightforward task for this Court to decide whether Article 38.23 can accommodate those doctrines as definitively articulated by the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court has yet to address the question of how the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine should interact with the good-faith exception established by
United States v. Leon
,
The Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have taken a hard line. They seem to have held that Leon 's good-faith exception should not apply at all to permit the admissibility of evidence obtained pursuant to a search warrant if the information proffered to the magistrate to supply probable cause was itself obtained, and hence tainted, by some prior illegality. 12 On the *70 other hand, the Second Circuit has ventured to the opposite extreme as the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits, seeming to hold that a prior illegality will always be excused so long as a neutral magistrate ultimately determines there is probable cause. 13 These cases were decided relatively early, however, and it remains to be seen whether these circuits will eventually moderate their views in light of the attitude other circuits have since taken that seem to have carved out various middle grounds.
In a progression of opinions, the Eighth Circuit has held that the good-faith exception may apply to allow admissibility of evidence deriving from a search warrant that was tainted by a prior illegality-but only if the prior illegality was itself the product of a good-faith mistake on the part of the police, such that the deterrent purpose of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule would not efficaciously be served. 14 The First Circuit has held similarly, also noting that the circumstances of the prior illegality were set forth in the *71 warrant affidavit so that the magistrate could judge the legality of the prior warrantless search. 15
More recently, the Sixth and Fifth Circuits have weighed in. The Sixth Circuit for the first time explicitly framed the issue as one of how to "reconcile the 'good faith' exception established in
Leon
... with the 'fruit of the poisonous tree' doctrine[.]"
United States v. McClain
,
After canvassing the preceding case law, and drawing heavily on McCl ain , the Fifth Circuit recently distilled the interplay between the Leon good-faith doctrine and the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine in this way:
We adopt the following reasoning ... as our understanding of the interaction of the doctrine of fruit of the poisonous tree with Leon 's good faith exception, as each appl[ies] to evidence obtained as the result of the execution of a search warrant. Two separate requirements must be met for evidence to be admissible: (1) the prior law enforcement conduct that uncovered evidence used in the affidavit for the warrant must be 'close enough to the line of validity' that an objectively reasonable officer preparing the affidavit or executing the warrant would believe that the information supporting the warranted was not tainted *72 by unconstitutional conduct, and (2) the resulting search warrant must have been sought and executed by a law enforcement officer in good faith as prescribed by Leon .
United States v. Massi
,
The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies here where the search warrant, though ultimately obtained as a result of an illegal detention in violation of the Fourth Amendment, was obtained and executed by a law enforcement officer in good faith and under an objectively reasonable belief that it was valid and relied upon appropriately obtained evidence.
Two years later, after the court of appeals issued its opinion in this case, the Fifth Circuit reiterated the holding in
Massi
, applying it to facts strikingly similar to those in this case to uphold the admissibility of evidence under the good-faith exception. In
United States v. Holley
,
Article 38.23(b)
Article 38.23(a)'s exclusionary rule does not apply when the challenged "evidence was obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause." TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 38.23(b). An officer who has included information in a search warrant affidavit that he knows-or should know-to be illegally obtained cannot be said, we think, to have acted in good-faith reliance upon any warrant that may issue that depends for its probable cause upon that tainted information. Thus, the language of the statutory exception is broad enough to embrace the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine. It is also broad enough, we conclude, to accommodate a corollary: An officer who reasonably believes that
*73
the information he submitted in a probable cause affidavit was legally obtained has no reason to believe the resulting warrant was tainted. In executing the warrant, that officer "act[s] in objective good faith reliance upon" the warrant, as long as the warrant is facially valid. Thus understood, the language of Article 38.23(b) is "consistent with" application of good-faith principles to excuse a prior illegality, and thus render an officer's reliance on a neutral magistrate's assessment of probable cause objectively reasonable.
Baker
,
Accordingly, we hold that the good-faith exception of Article 38.23(b) will apply when "the prior law enforcement conduct that uncovered evidence used in the affidavit for the warrant [was] 'close enough to the line of validity' that an objectively reasonable officer preparing the affidavit or executing the warrant would believe that the information supporting the warrant was not tainted by unconstitutional conduct[.]"
Massi
,
The Canine Drug Sniff
Consistent with
Jardines
, the dog sniff that was conducted without a warrant in this case unquestionably violated the Fourth Amendment. To the extent that
Jardines
adopted a new constitutional rule, that new rule would apply retroactively to any case pending on direct appeal at the time of its decision, as this case was.
Griffith v. Kentucky
,
In short, there can be little question at this juncture that the drug sniff in this case, occurring at the door of Appellant's single-dwelling upstairs apartment, was perpetrated through an unconstitutional invasion of the curtilage of his home.
17
To the extent that the drug dog's positive alert for drugs was incorporated into the search warrant in this case, the warrant affidavit was unquestionably tainted with a prior illegality. Moreover, we have already held that, absent the information gained from the illegal drug-dog sniff, the warrant affidavit failed to establish probable cause.
McClintock
,
With that information included, however, the warrant affidavit amply supports a determination by a neutral magistrate that there was probable cause to search the apartment for contraband. So the question under Article 38.23(b), as we have construed it, becomes: Did the officers have an objective good-faith basis to believe that their use of a drug dog would not adversely affect the validity of the warrant? The answer depends upon how "close to the line of validity" their use of the trained drug dog was. In the instant case, we think it was close enough to declare that the officers acted in good-faith reliance on the warrant.
*74
It is true that there was no binding precedent prior to
Jardines
that held that a canine drug sniff conducted on the curtilage of a home was constitutional. Thus,
Jardines
did not overrule anything, as was the situation in
Davis
.
18
Nevertheless, even after
Jardines
was decided, binding precedent continues to hold that-at least in the abstract-the use of a trained canine to detect the presence or absence of illicit narcotics does not constitute a "search" for Fourth Amendment purposes.
Illinois v. Caballes
,
At the time the officers in this case used the trained canine to sniff for drugs at the door of Appellant's apartment, the constitutionality of that conduct remained "close enough to the line of validity" for us to conclude that an objectively reasonable officer preparing a warrant affidavit would have believed that the information supporting the warrant application was not tainted by unconstitutional conduct. Because the language of Article 38.23(b) accommodates the Massi good-faith standard, we hold that the officer's subsequent search of the apartment was executed "in objective good faith reliance" on the warrant. The fruit of that search is therefore excepted from Article 38.23(a)'s exclusionary rule. Ultimately, the trial court did not err to overrule Appellant's motion to suppress. 20
CONCLUSION
The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed and the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Alcala, J., filed a dissenting opinion. Newell, J., did not participate.
*75 DISSENTING OPINION
Alcala, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
Because rules of statutory construction require this Court to apply a statute in accordance with its plain language, I would affirm the court of appeals's holding that the evidence obtained against Bradley Ray McClintock, appellant, must be suppressed under Article 38.23 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
See
TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 38.23. I agree with the court of appeals's determination that, under the plain language of the statute, the general rule in Article 38.23(a) requires the exclusion of the evidence because the Texas good faith exception in Article 38.23(b) does not apply to this case.
See
I. Analysis
Under the rules of statutory construction, this Court must apply the plain language of a statute as it is written, and we may not consider extra-textual sources to interpret the statute unless its meaning is ambiguous or its plain language would lead to absurd results.
Boykin v. State
,
(a) No evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or of the Constitution or laws of the United States of America, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the trial of any criminal case.
* * *
(b) It is an exception to the provisions of Subsection (a) of this Article that the evidence was obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a *76 neutral magistrate based upon probable cause.
TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 38.23.
The exception in Subsection (b) of Article 38.23 plainly requires that the evidence was obtained pursuant to "a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause."
See
That the application of Article 38.23(b) requires a valid warrant based on probable cause is well established under longstanding precedent in this Court.
See
Curry v. State
,
Because the statutory language plainly and rationally requires a warrant "based on probable cause," it is inappropriate to consider extra-textual sources to change the meaning of the statute.
See
Boykin
,
The majority opinion suggests that, if there was probable cause under the law as it existed when the magistrate issued the warrant, then that triggers the consideration of the good faith exception in Article 38.23(b). But that interpretation of the statute does violence to its plain language that requires that it be "based on probable cause" under the correct application of the law. If, as the majority opinion suggests, some incorrect former view of probable cause will suffice to meet the statutory requirement of a warrant based on probable cause, then all of this Court's precedent, as described above, that has stated otherwise must be abandoned. This Court's new interpretation of this statute will mean that, when a magistrate and search warrant affiant believe that the warrant is being issued based upon probable cause under the existing law, but they are reasonably wrong about the existing law due to this Court's mistaken statements about the law, then the evidence need not be suppressed. This is a novel interpretation of Article 38.23 that is inconsistent *77 with all of this Court's former descriptions of the plain language of this statute. I conclude that this interpretation stretches the statute far beyond its plain language that requires a warrant "based on probable cause." Because the warrant in this case was issued in the absence of valid probable cause, Article 38.23(b) is inapplicable, and the results of the search must be suppressed under the general rule in Article 38.23(a). See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 38.23.
II. Conclusion
I would apply the plain language of this State's statutory law that requires the exclusion of the evidence obtained by a search warrant that was issued in the absence of probable cause. I, therefore, would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
On similar facts, this Court recently held the same.
See
State v. Rendon
,
Subsection (a) of Article 38.23 reads:
(a) No evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or of the Constitution or laws of the United States of America, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the trial of any criminal case.
In any case where the legal evidence raises an issue hereunder, the jury shall be instructed that if it believes, or has a reasonable doubt, that the evidence was obtained in violation of the provisions of this Article, then and in such event, the jury shall disregard any such evidence so obtained.
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.23(a).
Subsection (b) of Article 38.23 reads:
(b) It is an exception to the provisions of Subsection (a) of this Article that the evidence was obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issue by a neutral magistrate based on probable cause.
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.23(b).
Moreover, it seems plain enough that Article 38.23(b) does not provide a good faith exception for an illegal warrantless search or seizure perpetrated by the police, or for any illegal search or seizure perpetrated by an "other person" for purposes of Article 38.23(a).
See
Yazdchi v. State
,
We have said that, as a principle of Fourth Amendment law, "[a] search warrant may not be procured lawfully by the use of illegally obtained information."
State v. Cuong Phu Le
,
For a discussion of the conflicting federal case law with respect to whether to extend the good-faith exception to cases involving an illegal predicate search,
see
Andrew Z. Lipson,
Note:
The Good Faith Exception as Applied to Illegal Predicate Searches: A Free Pass to Institutional Ignorance
,
Brown v. Illinois
,
Segura v. United States
,
Nix v. Williams
,
See
Janine L. Hockberg,
Note:
Dining in Good Faith on Poisonous Fruit?
,
United States v. Vasey
,
In a case strikingly similar to this one, police took a drug-sniffing dog onto the curtilage of the defendant's apartment.
United States v. Thomas
,
In
United States v. White
,
Considering all circumstances, we agree with the district court that the officers had an objectively reasonable belief that they possessed a reasonable suspicion as would support the valid detention of Fletcher's bag as well as an objectively reasonable belief that the warrant issued was valid. * * * The purpose of the exclusionary rule, deterrence of police misconduct, will not be served by its application to this case.
The prior illegality in
United States v. Diehl
,
The Fifth Circuit rejected
McClain
's suggestion that the officer executing the warrant necessarily ought to be different than the officer who committed the prior illegality.
Massi
,
[w]hat is important is that the officer presenting the information to a magistrate be objectively reasonable in concluding that the information being used to support the warrant was not tainted. It is not awareness of the existence of the conduct that later is found to be improper that is important, but awareness at the time of presenting the affidavit that the conduct violated constitutional rights that would affect the application of the good faith exception.
In this respect, the trial court erred to conclude that the canine drug sniff did not constitute a search for Fourth Amendment purposes.
In
Davis
, officers had conducted a search of an automobile pursuant to the arrest of the driver, even though he had been removed from the car and secured in the back of a squad car-as they were unequivocally authorized at the time to do under
New York v. Belton
,
See
Rendon
,
An appellate court should uphold the trial court's denial of a motion to suppress so long as its ruling is correct on any legal theory applicable to the case.
Furr v. State
,
Reference
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- Bradley Ray MCCLINTOCK, Appellant v. the STATE of Texas
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