Deliberately misleading judge means no good faith

Rand Simmons won in State v. Widener, No. 110,139 (Kan. App. May 2, 2014), obtaining a suppression order in a Lyon County forgery prosecution.  The district court had suppressed evidence obtained in a companion case due to an insufficient affidavit is support of a search warrant and rejected application of the good faith exception because the judge found the officer had deliberately misled him.  Another district judge agreed that the affidavit was insufficient in the instant case, but held that the officer could have been a mere oversight, and therefore did not suppress.  The COA cited and agreed with the opinion in the companion case (affirming suppression):

We agree with the Gohring panel's conclusion—that is to say, Detective Davis deliberately omitted material facts regarding the veracity of Adams' statements.

Nevertheless, the State argues Judge Larson correctly concluded the omissions were not deliberate because Detective Davis did not have firsthand knowledge of such information, i.e., Detective Davis was not present at the interrogations and had relied on the information provided to him by Sergeant Heller and Detective Holmes. Actually, the State is arguing the panel's conclusion in Gohring that Detective Davis should be charged with the same knowledge as Sergeant Heller and Detective Holmes is erroneous. We agree with that panel's conclusion.

As a result, the COA reversed and remanded with directions to suppress.

 

[Update: the state did not file a PR and the mandate issued on June 5, 2014.]