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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 285 Filed 05/20/21 Page 26 of 34
reports were replete with misrepresentations and outright lies about the conversations he had
with, and information provided by, a confidential informant. /d. at 1212-13. The Court of
Appeals affirmed the district court’s order suppressing the evidence obtained from the search
conducted under the warrant. /d. at 1213. “This search,” said the Court, “never should have taken
place.” Id.
The Court offered two bases for its decision. It first invoked the Franks analysis to affirm
the district court’s conclusion that Agent Brown intentionally or recklessly misrepresented
material information in Agent Stewart’s affidavit. Jd. But the Court went further, concluding that
suppression was independently required as a matter of inherent authority. /d. at 1214-17.
Because Agent Brown lied in the affidavit (in addition to lying at the Franks hearing), “[t]he call
for the court’s supervisory power under the[] circumstances is at its strongest and most
defensible.” /d. at 1214.
The Court recognized that the inherent authority doctrine is not a free pass for courts to
suppress evidence or “merely [to] disagree with the method|[s] of law enforcement.” /d. “[T]he
federal supervisory power does not give ‘the federal judiciary a ‘chancellor’s foot’ veto over law
enforcement practices of which it (does) not approve.’” /d. (quoting United States v. Russell, 411
US. 423, 435 (1973)). Even so, inherent authority is properly invoked to “prevent[] the court
from condoning a fraud perpetrated upon it.” Jd. Suppression serves both to deter unlawful
governmental conduct and to protect judicial integrity. /d. (weighing “the deterrent values of
preventing the incrimination of those whose rights the police have violated . . . and the need to
protect the integrity of the federal courts against the cost to society of excluding ‘probative but
tainted evidence’”).
2]
DOJ-OGR-00004161
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Dates
Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00004161.jpg |
| File Size | 666.0 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 93.3% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 1,950 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 16:44:49.453980 |