United States v. Gabriel Werdene
883 F.3d 204 (2018)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies to evidence obtained from a search authorized by a warrant that is void ab initio because it was issued by a magistrate judge who lacked the territorial jurisdiction to do so under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(b).
Facts:
- Playpen was a child pornography website operating on the Tor network, which anonymized users' locations and IP addresses.
- In December 2014, the FBI located Playpen's server in North Carolina, arrested its administrator, and seized the server.
- The FBI moved the server to a government facility in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) and took administrative control of the website.
- To identify users, the FBI created a 'Network Investigative Technique' (NIT), a form of malware that would be downloaded when a user logged into the FBI-controlled site.
- Once downloaded, the NIT searched the user's computer for identifying information, including the real IP address, and transmitted this data back to an FBI computer in EDVA.
- In February 2015, the FBI obtained a single search warrant from a magistrate judge in EDVA authorizing the deployment of the NIT to any computer that logged into Playpen, 'wherever located'.
- Gabriel Werdene, a resident of Pennsylvania, logged into Playpen, causing the NIT to deploy on his computer and reveal his IP address.
- Based on the NIT data, the FBI obtained a separate, valid warrant to search Werdene's home in Pennsylvania, where agents found child pornography.
Procedural Posture:
- Gabriel Werdene was charged with possession of child pornography in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (a federal trial court).
- Werdene filed a motion to suppress all evidence derived from the NIT, arguing the warrant from the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) was invalid because it exceeded the magistrate judge's territorial jurisdiction under Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(b).
- The District Court denied the suppression motion, holding that the warrant violated Rule 41(b), but that the NIT deployment was not a 'search' under the Fourth Amendment, making the violation merely 'technical.'
- Werdene entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion.
- Werdene (appellant) appealed the District Court's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, with the United States (appellee) opposing the appeal.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule apply to evidence obtained from a search authorized by a warrant that is void ab initio because it was issued by a magistrate judge who lacked territorial jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(b)?
Opinions:
Majority - Greenaway, Jr.
Yes. The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies, and precludes suppression of the evidence, even when a warrant is void ab initio for being issued outside the magistrate judge's territorial jurisdiction. The warrant violated the then-existing version of Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(b) because the NIT was a search tool, not a tracking device, and no other exception to the rule's territorial limits applied. This jurisdictional defect rendered the warrant void ab initio and constituted a Fourth Amendment violation, as common law at the time of the framing treated a warrant issued beyond a magistrate's territorial jurisdiction as 'no warrant at all.' However, the exclusionary rule's purpose is to deter police misconduct, not to remedy judicial errors. The inquiry is whether officers acted with an objectively reasonable good-faith belief that their conduct was lawful. Here, the FBI agents reasonably relied on a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate that was not facially deficient. The error was the magistrate's, not the agents', and suppressing the evidence would not deter future police misconduct, especially since Rule 41 has since been amended to authorize such warrants.
Concurring - Nygaard
Yes. While joining the majority's opinion in full, this concurrence highlights a procedural issue regarding waiver. In the district court, the Government conceded that none of Rule 41(b)'s exceptions authorized the NIT warrant. On appeal, the Government reversed course and argued that the 'tracking device' exception did apply. A party, including the Government, should be bound by legal concessions made in a lower court and should not be permitted to argue a contrary position on appeal. An appellate court's prerogative to affirm on any basis supported by the record does not extend to an issue that the prevailing party expressly conceded below.
Analysis:
This decision establishes that a fundamental jurisdictional defect in a warrant does not automatically compel the suppression of evidence. By extending the good-faith exception to warrants that are void ab initio, the court prioritizes the exclusionary rule's deterrence rationale over the warrant's formal validity. The ruling provides law enforcement with significant protection when relying on judicial approval for novel investigative techniques, particularly in digital cases where jurisdictional lines are blurred. This precedent signals that as long as officers obtain a warrant that is not facially deficient and rely on it reasonably, evidence is unlikely to be suppressed due to a judge's jurisdictional error.
