rejecting the presumption of deference when warrant affidavit included reckless and material misrepresentations
How later courts described this case
- rejecting the presumption of deference when warrant affidavit included reckless and material misrepresentations
- noting that “the analytical concepts of materiality and recklessness are often bound together”
- failure of applicants to obtain a formal, expert opinion caused statement that instruments were “classified as securities” to be found to have been made with reckless disregard for the truth
- “The affidavit’s statement is no less a misrepresentation because it manipulates the facts subtly.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, GEE and GARWOOD, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The Petition for Rehearing, 680 F.2d 1088 , on behalf of the United States obviously misses the thrust of our opinion in asserting that we questioned the integrity of Assistant United States Attorney Pauline Hardin. This is incorrect.
*1099 The crucial phrase in the affidavit in issue characterized Deputy Securities Commissioner Stansbury’s ad hoc, oral opinion as a “classification.” We held that this was an improper characterization of Stansbury’s comments, which was so vitally material to the substance of the affidavit that misrepresentation would amount to reckless disregard for truth. In the alternative, we held that if the characterization was intended to convey no more than Stansbury’s informal feelings about the security status of loan commitments, the affidavit was legally insufficient to support the warrant. Thus, it can be seen that we did not decide which characterization had been intended since neither would carry the point.
The court writes further solely to make clear that Ms. Hardin’s integrity was not necessarily implicated in our decision cast, as it was, in the alternative. Certainly her integrity was not impugned.