Search & seizure; Probable cause; U.S. Const. amend. IV; People v. Slaughter; People v. Darwich; People v. Kazmierczak; The exclusionary rule; People v. Hawkins; People v. Hellstrom; People v. Goldston; Good-faith exception; United States v. Leon; Challenge to a search warrant based on a typographical error; People v. Hampton; United States v. Walker (2d. Cir.); Velardi v. Walsh (2d. Cir.); United States v. White (8th Cir.)

The court held that the trial court erred by granting defendant’s motion to quash the search warrant and suppress the evidence obtained from it, and by dismissing the charges against him. He was charged with possession with intent to deliver less than five kilograms of marijuana, but the trial court granted his motion to quash and suppress. On appeal, the prosecution argued that the trial court erred by granting defendant’s motion to quash the search warrant and suppress the evidence, and by dismissing the case. The court agreed with the prosecution that “the incorrect date on the search warrant and affidavit did not render the search warrant invalid.” It noted that “the search warrant and affidavit in the present case contained information from which one could easily establish the correct date that the warrant was signed.” This “objective evidence eliminated the possibility that the magistrate judge had signed the warrant more than a year before [the officer] conducted surveillance and received the necessary approvals for the warrant, and supported the officer’s testimony that the incorrect date was merely a typographical error.” Further, even if the search warrant was invalid, the trial court erred "by applying the exclusionary rule to suppress the evidence obtained with the warrant.” Given the officer’s “experience with and knowledge of drug transactions, it was entirely reasonable for him to believe that he would find ‘contraband or evidence of a crime’ at the surveilled location and, thus, to rely upon the validity of the search warrant and the magistrate’s determination of probable cause.” Finally, the “warrant was not so facially deficient that [the officer] could not reasonably presume it to be valid.” Because it “was supported by probable cause and not so facially deficient that the executing officers could not have reasonably relied on its validity, even if the warrant had been invalid, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule would have applied to allow admittance of the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant.” Reversed and remanded.