United States v. Barnes, No. 16-30203 (9th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The panel held that the district court did not err by denying defendant's motion to suppress where, although the underlying warrant for defendant's arrest was the product of judicial abandonment, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule was applicable. In this case, the officers executing the infirm warrant were unaware, and had no reason to be, of any judicial misconduct. The panel also held that the district court properly barred defendant's necessity defense because he failed to adequately demonstrate that he took possession of the gun in response to an imminent threat of death or bodily injury.
Court Description: Criminal Law The panel affirmed a conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm, in a case in which the defendant argued that the district court erred (1) by denying his motion to suppress evidence based on an allegedly invalid arrest warrant and (2) by precluding the defendant from presenting a necessity defense. The panel held that the district court’s finding that the municipal judge who signed the defendant’s arrest warrant must have reviewed the underlying citation as part of her “ordinary course of business” was clearly erroneous, where there is no record evidence that the municipal court judge either received or read a copy of the citation prior to her finding of probable cause. The panel therefore concluded that the warrant for the defendant’s arrest for the underlying trip permit violation was inexcusably infirm and that the defendant therefore satisfied his burden of showing judicial abandonment by a preponderance of the evidence. The panel held that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies unless a defendant can show that the issuing judge abandoned his or her role and that the law enforcement officer knew or should have known of such abandonment. The panel concluded that although the defendant met his burden of showing judicial abandonment, the evidence cannot be suppressed because the officers
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