DISCLAIMER: Any unofficial case summaries below are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
173261P.pdf 11/26/2018 United States v. Juan Lopez-Zuniga
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 17-3261
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Sioux City
[PUBLISHED] [Arnold, Author, with Wollman and Benton, Circuit Judges]
Criminal case - Criminal law. The government appeals an order granting a
motion to suppress evidence from tracking devices placed on defendant's
car. Held, the district court did not err in suppressing the evidence
seized under the first two warrants; the first warrant application was so
lacking in indicia of probable cause that belief in its existence would
have been entirely unreasonable, and the search is not saved by the
good-faith exception; the second warrant application contained additional
admissible information, but it was still insufficient to save the search;
however, the district court erred in suppressing the fruits of the third
and fourth warrant applications as those warrant applications were
supported by information regarding controlled sales to a confidential
informant; in any event, the good-faith exception saves the evidence from
suppression as it would not be unreasonable for an officer to believe that
there was a connection between the drugs and the car to be tracked.