United States v. Lattin

This opinion is subject to revision before publication.
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ARMED FORCES
_______________
UNITED STATES
Appellee
v.
Liam C. LATTIN, First Lieutenant
United States Air Force, Appellant
No. 22-0211
Crim. App. No. 39859
Argued December 6, 2022—Decided March 31, 2023
Military Judge: Bryan D. Watson
For Appellant: Elizabeth A. Harvey, Esq. (argued);
Major Spencer R. Nelson and Bethany L. Payton-
O’Brien, Esq. (on brief).
For Appellee: Major Jay S. Peer (argued); Colonel
Naomi P. Dennis, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew J.
Neil, and Mary Ellen Payne, Esq. (on brief); Lieuten-
ant Colonel Thomas J. Alford.
Judge MAGGS delivered the opinion of the Court, in
which Judge SPARKS and Senior Judge
CRAWFORD joined. Chief Judge OHLSON filed a
dissenting opinion, in which Judge HARDY joined.
_______________
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
Judge MAGGS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Military Rule of Evidence (M.R.E.) 311(a) (2019 ed.)
makes evidence obtained from an unlawful search and sei-
zure inadmissible only when certain conditions are met.
One of these conditions is that “exclusion of the evidence
results in appreciable deterrence of future unlawful
searches or seizures and the benefits of such deterrence
outweigh the costs to the justice system.” M.R.E. 311(a)(3).
By imposing this condition, M.R.E. 311(a) implements the
United States Supreme Court’s holding that the Fourth
Amendment of the United States Constitution requires ex-
clusion of unlawfully obtained evidence only when “the
benefits of deterrence . . . outweigh the costs.” Herring v.
United States, 555 U.S. 135, 141 (2009); see Manual for
Courts-Martial, United States, Analysis of the Military
Rules of Evidence app. 22 at A22-20 (2016 ed.) [hereinafter
Drafters’ Analysis] (explaining that M.R.E. 311(a)(3) im-
plements the Herring decision).
In this case, the United States Air Force Court of Crim-
inal Appeals (AFCCA) agreed with Appellant that a search
of his cell phone violated the Fourth Amendment because
the search authorization was overbroad. United States v.
Lattin, No. ACM 39859, 2022 CCA LEXIS 226, at *36-37,
2022 WL 1186023, at *13 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. Apr. 20,
2022) (unpublished). The AFCCA nonetheless concluded
that the military judge had not abused his discretion by
declining to exclude evidence obtained and derived from
the search. Id. at *49-57, 2022 WL 1186023, at *18-20. The
AFCCA rested its conclusion on the military judge’s ruling
under M.R.E. 311(a)(3) that exclusion of the evidence
would not result in appreciable deterrence of future unlaw-
ful searches or seizures and that even if it did, the benefits
of such deterrence would not outweigh the costs to the jus-
tice system. Id. at *49-57, 2022 WL 1186023, at *18-20.
We granted review of two assigned issues:
I. Whether the lower court erred when it did not
apply the exclusionary rule.
2
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
II. Whether the lower court erred when it failed to
address a search authorization’s stated expiration
date.
For reasons that we provide below, we answer both ques-
tions in the negative.
I. Background
In January 2019, Cadet A.W. of the Air Force Reserve
Officer Training Corps was visiting Luke Air Force Base
with her unit. During the visit, Appellant drove Cadet A.W.
to his apartment. After they went inside, Appellant force-
fully kissed her, bit one of her nipples, penetrated her
vagina with his fingers, and engaged in other unwanted
sexual conduct. Cadet A.W. subsequently underwent a fo-
rensic examination which produced DNA samples.
As part of an ensuing investigation, Special Agent L.B.
of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations applied to
Appellant’s commander for authorization for “a search of
the . . . person of” Appellant and authorization for the “sei-
zure, copying and analysis of the following specified prop-
erty[:] SUBECT’s DNA [and] SUBJECT’s mobile device
with biometric access.” Special Agent L.B. attached an af-
fidavit to her application. In the affidavit, Special Agent
L.B. stated that during the alleged assault, Cadet A.W. had
sent texts to her boyfriend and that Cadet AW’s boyfriend
had sent texts to Appellant. Special Agent L.B. further ex-
plained that the Chief of Military Justice at Luke Air Force
Base had advised her to seek authorization to obtain a sam-
ple of Appellant’s DNA and to seize Appellant’s cell phone.
The Commander approved the search authorization re-
quest without placing any limits on how Special Agent L.B.
was to search the phone. The search authorization speci-
fied that the authority to search would expire on February
16, 2019.
Pursuant to the authorization to seize Appellant’s DNA,
Special Agent L.B. obtained swab samples from Appellant.
These samples subsequently matched DNA that was pre-
sent on Cadet AW’s left nipple, inside her bra, and on the
inside front panel of her leggings. Pursuant to the
3
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
authority to seize Appellant’s phone, Special Agent L.B.
asked Appellant to turn over his phone and he complied.
In her search of the phone, Special Agent L.B. discov-
ered texts between Cadet A.W. and Appellant and between
Cadet A.W.’s boyfriend and Appellant. Special Agent L.B.,
however, also found texts on Appellant’s phone that were
unrelated to what she had mentioned in her affidavit. In
the words of the AFCCA, Special Agent L.B. decided to
“rummage [through the phone] for anything that might be
interesting for [the Air Force Office of Special Investiga-
tion’s] investigation into Appellant.” Lattin, 2022 CCA
LEXIS 226, at *52, 2022 WL 1186023, at *19. For example,
she searched for texts that mentioned “OSI,” the abbrevia-
tion of the Office of Special Investigation. She also looked
at the texts of individuals who were identified only by their
phone numbers rather than their names, “just to see who
it was or what they were talking about.” Her examination
of the phone continued beyond February 16, 2019, the date
on which the search authorization expired.
During her search, Special Agent L.B. found texts sug-
gesting that Appellant might have witnessed an unrelated
sexual assault in September 2018. Concerned about the in-
formation in these texts, Special Agent L.B. contacted First
Lieutenant K.A., the victim of this other sexual assault.
First Lieutenant K.A. initially had no recollection of the in-
cident in question because she had been intoxicated when
it happened. But she did provide information to Special
Agent L.B. that, when combined with information in the
texts that Appellant had sent, indicated that Appellant
might have sexually assaulted her.
Appellant was subsequently charged with sexual as-
saults of both Cadet A.W. and First Lieutenant K.A. and
abusive sexual contact of Cadet A.W. in violation of Article
120, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 10 U.S.C.
§ 920 (2018). Before trial, Appellant moved to suppress the
evidence resulting from the search of his phone. He argued
that the search of his phone was unlawful primarily be-
cause the search authorization was overbroad and because
the Government improperly continued to search the phone
4
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
after the search authorization had expired. He asked the
military judge to exclude “[t]he evidence discovered on [his]
phone,” which consisted mostly of text messages. He fur-
ther asked the military judge to exclude any evidence sup-
porting the charges pertaining to First Lieutenant K.A. be-
cause those charges “stem[med] from text message[]
conversations that occurred in September 2018, none of
which would have been located on [Appellant’s] phone but
for the [G]overnment’s . . . illegal search of his entire
phone.”
At a hearing on the motion, Special Agent L.B. testified
about how she had applied for the search authorization and
how she had searched the phone. On cross-examination,
she explained that her standard practice was to search all
information on any phone that comes into the Govern-
ment’s possession because of her understanding that
“when there’s probable cause for anything on the phone,
you can search everything on the phone.” She further ex-
plained that she learned this practice at a Federal Law En-
forcement Training Center. Special Agent L.B. also testi-
fied that she believed that she could continue to search the
phone after February 16, 2019, because she had seized the
phone before that date.
The military judge denied Appellant’s motion to exclude
the evidence. In a written opinion, the military judge
reached the following conclusions: (1) the search authori-
zation was not overbroad, and Special Agent L.B.’s
searches of the phone were within the scope of the search
authorization; (2) the search of the phone was timely be-
cause Special Agent L.B. initiated the search before Febru-
ary 16, 2019; (3) even if Special Agent L.B. had exceeded
the scope of the search authorization, the inevitable discov-
ery and good faith exceptions prevented exclusion; and (4)
even if the search was unlawful, the exclusionary rule
should not apply based on M.R.E. 311(a)(3).
The military judge’s fourth conclusion, and the reason-
ing behind it, stand at the center of this appeal. Accord-
ingly, these matters require special attention. As men-
tioned above, M.R.E. 311(a)(3) makes the exclusionary rule
5
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
inapplicable unless “exclusion of the evidence results in ap-
preciable deterrence of future unlawful searches or sei-
zures and the benefits of such deterrence outweigh the
costs to the justice system.” Under M.R.E. 311(d)(5)(A), as
explained in more depth below, the Government has the
burden of proof on this issue. Addressing these require-
ments, the military judge stated:
Assuming arguendo that [Special Agent L.B.]’s
searches of the accused’s phone were unlawful
and no exceptions applied, the [G]overnment
could still meet their M.R.E. 311(d)(5)(A) burden
through demonstration, by a preponderance of the
evidence, that the deterrence of future unlawful
searches or seizures is not appreciable, or such de-
terrence does not out-weigh the costs to the justice
system of excluding the evidence. A preponder-
ance of the evidence suggests that they can and
have.
(Emphasis added.)
The military judge supported his conclusion by assert-
ing that “[i]f an error exists in this case, the error rests with
the issuing commander, who signed the [search authoriza-
tion form] without it indicating a more narrow scope.” Ad-
dressing Special Agent L.B.’s conduct, he asserted that
“[a]ny wrong done to the accused’s rights was by accident,
not design” and that “[t]here is little public good to be had
in excluding evidence that was obtained from what must
surely be a mistake, if even a mistake at all was made.”
Focusing on evidence derived from the text messages found
on the phone, the military judge added: “To exclude [First
Lieutenant K.A.’s] testimony in perpetuity does not result
in appreciable deterrence to [Special Agent L.B.] and, even
if it did, such deterrence does not out-weigh the costs to the
justice system of excluding the live testimony of this par-
ticular witness.”
A general court-martial comprised of officer members,
subsequently tried Appellant. At trial, the Government in-
troduced texts from Appellant’s phone. The Government
also called as witnesses both A.W. (who by then had been
promoted from Cadet to Second Lieutenant) and First
6
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
Lieutenant K.A. An expert witness testified that DNA sam-
ples taken during Cadet A.W.’s forensic examination
matched Appellant’s DNA profile.
The court-martial found Appellant guilty, contrary to
his pleas, of two specifications of sexual assault and one
specification of abusive sexual contact. 1
On appeal, the AFCCA decided that the search author-
ization violated the Fourth Amendment because it was
overbroad. Lattin, 2022 CCA LEXIS 226, at *36-37, 2022
WL 1186023, at *13 (citing Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551,
557 (2004)). The AFCCA reasoned that the search authori-
zation “failed to identify the data contained on the device
for which the Government had probable cause to seize, i.e.,
text messages related to [Cadet] AW’s allegation of sexual
assault.” Id. at *36-37, 2022 WL 1186023, at *13. The
AFCCA further decided that the good faith, inevitable dis-
covery, and plain view exceptions to the Fourth Amend-
ment’s exclusionary rule did not apply. Id. at *37-45, 2022
WL 1186023, at *13-16. The AFCCA did not address Ap-
pellant’s argument that the search also was unlawful be-
cause Special Agent L.B. did not complete it before the ex-
piration date stated in the fourth paragraph of the search
authorization. See id. at *34-35, 2022 WL 1186023, at *12.
The AFCCA, however, affirmed the military judge’s de-
cision not to apply the exclusionary rule to either the text
messages on Appellant’s phone or First Lieutenant K.A.’s
testimony. Id. at *56-57, 2022 WL 1186023, at *20. The
AFCCA held that the military judge had not abused his
discretion by concluding that exclusion of the evidence
would not “result[] in appreciable deterrence of future un-
lawful searches” and that the benefits of future deterrence
would not “outweigh the costs to the justice system” under
1 The court-martial found Appellant not guilty of two other
specifications not at issue here.
7
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
M.R.E. 311(a)(3). Id. at *56-57, 2022 WL 1186023, at *20
(citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). 2
II. Lawfulness of the Search
An initial question is whether this Court must rule on
the lawfulness of the search of Appellant’s phone. At trial,
as explained above, Appellant argued that the search was
unlawful both because the search authorization was over-
broad and because Special Agent L.B. continued to search
the phone after the expiration date specified in the search
authorization. The military judge held that the search was
not unlawful for either of these reasons but alternatively
held that even if the search was unlawful, the exclusionary
rule did not apply. The AFCCA, in contrast, held that the
search was unlawful because the search authorization was
overbroad and did not reach the question of whether the
search was also unlawful because the search authorization
had expired. The AFCCA, however, upheld the military
judge’s determination that the exclusionary rule did not
apply.
In this context, we can resolve the appeal without de-
ciding whether the search was unlawful. Instead, we will
simply assume that the search was unlawful and proceed
directly to the question whether the military judge abused
his discretion by not applying the exclusionary rule. Be-
cause we ultimately conclude that the military judge did
not abuse his discretion, our assumption that the search
was unlawful will not prejudice the Government. 3
2 One judge disagreed. Id. at *102, 2022 WL 1186023, at *34
(Cadotte, J., dissenting in part and in the result). The dissenting
judge would not have applied the exclusionary rule to First Lieu-
tenant K.A.’s testimony but would have applied it to the text
messages and other derivative evidence. Id. at *103-04, 2022 WL
1186023, at *37.
3 The Government asserts in its brief that the issue of
whether the search authorization was overbroad “is a close call.”
The Government, however, recognizes that the scope of the
search authorization is not a granted issue in this case, and it
8
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
This approach also leads us to answer the second as-
signed issue in the negative. As quoted above, the second
assigned issue asks whether the lower court erred when it
failed to address the search authorization’s stated expira-
tion date. We hold that the answer is no because the
AFCCA held—and we assume without deciding—that the
search authorization was unlawful regardless of the expi-
ration date. Accordingly, the AFCCA could proceed, as we
also do, directly to the question whether the exclusionary
rule should apply.
III. Application of the Exclusionary Rule
A. Governing Law and Standard of Review
Although the Fourth Amendment “contains no provi-
sion expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in
violation of its commands,” Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1,
10 (1995), the Supreme Court long ago created an exclu-
sionary rule that forbids the use of improperly obtained ev-
idence at trial. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 398
(1914). The Supreme Court has explained that this exclu-
sionary rule is “designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment
rights generally through its deterrent effect.” United States
v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348 (1974). In other words, if
the government cannot use evidence that the police ob-
tained by violating the Fourth Amendment, the police will
have an incentive not to violate the Fourth Amendment.
The exclusionary rule, however, does not apply every
time law enforcement officials violate the Fourth Amend-
ment. For example, the Supreme Court has recognized a
good faith exception to the rule for when police obtain evi-
dence “in objectively reasonable reliance on a subsequently
invalidated search warrant.” United States v. Leon, 468
U.S. 897, 922 (1984). More recently, the Supreme Court
has articulated a general principle concerning the applica-
tion of the exclusionary rule. In Herring, the Supreme
Court held that for the exclusionary rule to apply “the
focuses its argument on whether the exclusionary rule should
apply.
9
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
deterrent effect of suppression must be substantial and
outweigh any harm to the justice system.” 555 U.S. at 147.
The President has codified the exclusionary rule, as it
pertains to courts-martial, in M.R.E. 311(a), which
provides:
(a) Evidence obtained as a result of an unlaw-
ful search or seizure made by a person acting in a
governmental capacity is inadmissible against the
accused if:
(1) the accused makes a timely motion to sup-
press or an objection to the evidence under this
rule;
(2) the accused had a reasonable expectation
of privacy in the person, place, or property
searched; the accused had a legitimate interest in
the property or evidence seized when challenging
a seizure; or the accused would otherwise have
grounds to object to the search or seizure under
the Constitution of the United States as applied to
members of the Armed Forces; and
(3) exclusion of the evidence results in appre-
ciable deterrence of future unlawful searches or
seizures and the benefits of such deterrence out-
weigh the costs to the justice system.
(Emphasis added.) M.R.E. 311(a)(3), the provision primar-
ily at issue in this case, strives to incorporate the balancing
test that the Supreme Court described in its Herring deci-
sion. See Drafters’ Analysis app. 22 at A22-20.
Another part of the rule, M.R.E. 311(d)(5)(A), addresses
the burden of proof with respect to M.R.E. 311(a)(3),
stating:
[T]he prosecution has the burden of proving by a
preponderance of the evidence . . . that the deter-
rence of future unlawful searches or seizures is
not appreciable or such deterrence does not out-
weigh the costs to the justice system of excluding
the evidence.
Parsing this provision reveals that the exclusionary rule
does not apply if the Government either proves that “the
10
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
deterrence of future unlawful searches or seizures is not
appreciable” or proves that “such deterrence does not out-
weigh the costs to the justice system of excluding the evi-
dence.” For convenience, in the discussion below, we will
refer to these two possible showings as the “appreciable de-
terrence test” and the “balancing test.”
This Court reviews a military judge’s ruling on a motion
to suppress evidence under M.R.E. 311(a) for an abuse of
discretion. 4 United States v. Dease, 71 M.J. 116, 120
(C.A.A.F. 2012). We recently explained this standard as
follows:
A military judge abuses his or her discretion
when: (1) the military judge predicates a ruling on
findings of fact that are not supported by the evi-
dence of record, United States v. Ellis, 68 M.J. 341,
344 (C.A.A.F. 2010); (2) the military judge uses in-
correct legal principles, id.; (3) the military judge
applies correct legal principles to the facts in a
way that is clearly unreasonable, id.; or (4) the
military judge fails to consider important facts.
See United States v. Solomon, 72 M.J. 176, 180-81
(C.A.A.F. 2013).
United States v. Rudometkin, 82 M.J. 396, 401 (C.A.A.F.
2022).
One issue in applying the abuse of discretion standard
of review in this case is deciding how to characterize a mil-
itary judge’s determinations, under M.R.E. 311(d)(5)(A),
that “the deterrence of future unlawful searches or seizures
is not appreciable” or that “such deterrence does not out-
weigh the costs to the justice system of excluding the evi-
dence.” Are these determinations findings of fact that must
be upheld unless they are “clearly erroneous”? Or are they
something else?
One might argue that these determinations should be
treated as findings of fact because M.R.E. 311(d)(5)(A) re-
quires proof of these matters “by a preponderance of the
4 Appellant and the Government agree that the abuse of dis-
cretion standard of review applies.
11
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
evidence,” which is typical for matters that are findings of
fact. But a counterargument is that these matters are not
exactly “facts” in the traditional sense. The magnitude of
deterrence of “future unlawful searches and seizures” is
more of a prediction of what is likely to happen in the fu-
ture rather than an assessment of something that has al-
ready happened. And weighing the benefits of deterrence
against the costs to society is more a question of judgment
than an issue of fact. 5
We think that the counterargument is stronger. Accord-
ingly, we will not review the military judge’s determina-
tions with respect to the appreciable deterrence test or bal-
ancing test merely for clear error. Instead, we think that a
less deferential standard should apply and that the ques-
tion is whether the military judge’s assessment of these
matters was a “clearly unreasonable” exercise of discre-
tion. 6 Rudometkin, 82 M.J. at 401.
B. Discussion
In this case, as explained above, the military judge
ruled that, even if the search was unlawful, the Govern-
ment had satisfied its burden under M.R.E. 311(d)(5)(A) for
showing that the exclusionary rule should not apply to ei-
ther the text messages or to First Lieutenant K.A.’s testi-
mony. The military judge specifically concluded that the
Government had met its burden under the appreciable de-
terrence test by proving by a preponderance of the evidence
that “the deterrence of future unlawful searches or seizures
is not appreciable.” The military judge also concluded that
the Government had met its burden under the balancing
test by proving that, even if excluding the evidence would
5 By way of analogy, this Court reviews a military judge’s
balancing of relevance against prejudice under M.R.E. 403 for
an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Ruppel, 49 M.J. 247,
251 (C.A.A.F. 1998).
6 The parties have not argued that we should review the mil-
itary judge’s assessment of these tests de novo.
12
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
result in appreciable deterrence, “such deterrence does not
out-weigh the costs to the justice system.”
The Government makes little effort to defend the mili-
tary judge’s holding with respect to the appreciable deter-
rence test. Although the military judge concluded that
there would be no appreciable deterrence to Special Agent
L.B., the Government admits in its brief that “one individ-
ual in this case will be deterred by exclusion: [Special
Agent L.B.].” For this reason, we will focus our discussion
on the “balancing test.” Under the applicable standard of
review, as discussed above, the question for us is whether
the military judge abused his discretion by making a
clearly unreasonable determination that “deterrence
[would] not outweigh the costs to the justice system.”
M.R.E. 311(d)(5)(A).
Both parties address this question at length in their
briefs. Appellant acknowledges that excluding First Lieu-
tenant K.A.’s testimony would likely result in setting aside
the finding that Appellant is guilty of sexually assaulting
her. “However,” Appellant argues, “this cost does not out-
weigh the deterrent effect that exclusion of such evidence
will provide. Only the loss of a conviction such as this will
resonate within the military law enforcement community.”
Appellant asserts that the loss of the evidence would have
the benefit of ensuring (1) the proper instruction of special
agents; (2) the proper practice by special agents in general;
and (3) the proper practice by Special Agent L.B. in the fu-
ture. In sum, Appellant concludes: “The cost to the justice
system may be high, but the deterrent effect would be
greater.”
The Government responds that the costs of exclusion
are “particularly high” in this case. The Government
identifies these costs as: (1) disabling First Lieutenant K.A.
from testifying permanently, even though she is an
eyewitness and her testimony is relevant and material;
(2) requiring the Court to ignore reliable and trustworthy
text messages; and (3) shortening the duration of
Appellant’s incapacitation from committing future
offenses. The Government also disagrees about the extent
13
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
of the deterrence. Quoting Herring, 555 U.S. at 144, the
Government explains that a violation of the Fourth
Amendment must be “ ‘sufficiently deliberate that
exclusion can meaningfully deter it.’ ” The Government
stresses that even if Special Agent L.B.’s search was
unlawful, the military judge properly found that she
attempted to respect Appellant’s rights. The Government
supports this assertion by noting that Special Agent L.B.
applied for a search authorization, she had an attorney
review her application, and she searched the phone in
accordance with what she understood the search
authorization to allow. Although Special Agent L.B.
testified that she had been taught that she could search the
entire contents of any phone in the Government’s
possession, the military judge could have interpreted
Special Agent L.B.’s belief “as a misunderstanding of what
she learned about the plain view doctrine” at a Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center. The military judge made no
finding that instructors are incorrectly instructing military
law enforcement agents. And the record does not
demonstrate that other members of the military law
enforcement community are making the same kinds of
mistakes that the AFCCA determined that Special Agent
L.B. made in this case.
Counsel for both parties have greatly aided this Court
with their careful articulation of their views on the costs to
society and the benefits of deterrence that could flow from
excluding the evidence. These factors are essential parts of
the balancing test in M.R.E. 311(a)(3). But as explained
above, the costs to society and the benefits of future deter-
rence are not historical facts that are either true or false
but instead are matters that depend on judgment. As the
parties’ arguments show, the issue in this case is not one-
sided. Regardless of whether we would agree with the mil-
itary judge’s balancing of the costs and benefits on de novo
review, we cannot say that the military judge’s decision
was clearly unreasonable. The high costs of excluding the
evidence are undisputed, and while exclusion of the evi-
dence may produce some future deterrence, the degree of
14
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Opinion of the Court
this future deterrence is subject to reasonable disagree-
ment. We therefore conclude the military judge did not
abuse his discretion in denying Appellant’s motion to sup-
press the evidence obtained from his phone under M.R.E.
311(a).
IV. Conclusion
The decision of the United States Air Force Court of
Criminal Appeals is affirmed.
15
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
Chief Judge OHLSON, with whom Judge HARDY joins,
dissenting.
This case does not involve complex and cutting-edge
search techniques for smartphones or computers, nor does
it involve search and seizure issues unique to the military
and its mission. Rather, we are presented here with a clas-
sic and straightforward example of a blatantly unconstitu-
tional fishing expedition by law enforcement. As the Su-
preme Court has noted, it is precisely this type of “wide-
ranging exploratory search[ which] the Framers intended
to prohibit.” Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 84 (1987).
And yet here, the majority fails to enforce the constitu-
tional rights of Appellant through the invocation of the ex-
clusionary rule, despite the fact that such exclusion is nec-
essary and warranted in order to deter future unlawful
searches, and despite the fact that such deterrence out-
weighs the costs to the justice system. For these reasons, I
respectfully dissent.
The Relevant Facts
The facts of this case are key. Simply stated, Special
Agent L.B. impermissibly and indiscriminately rummaged
through Appellant’s personal cell phone, opening and
reading communications that were patently unrelated to
the isolated incident that gave rise to the search
authorization. The narrow purpose of the search
authorization was to confirm that communications
regarding an alleged sexual assault occurring during the
early morning hours of January 26, 2019, actually came
from Appellant’s phone. Further, based on the information
provided to her, Special Agent L.B. reasonably knew that
Appellant and the victim had never met nor communicated
before that date. But rather than limiting her search for
communications from on or after January 25, 2019—the
day the victim met Appellant for the first time—Special
Agent L.B. searched through Appellant’s personal cell
phone and read immaterial communications from months
before that date involving individuals unrelated to the
January 26th incident. What is more, Special Agent L.B.
testified that she read these random conversations “just to
see who it was or what they were talking about.” (Emphasis
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
added.) This admission by Special Agent L.B. about the
voyeuristic nature of her search is quite extraordinary, and
it is absolutely alarming in the context of whether the
privacy rights of our servicemembers are being adequately
protected by military law enforcement officers.
During the suppression hearing, Special Agent L.B.
further affirmed her belief that “she could search
[Appellant’s] whole phone” because “when there’s probable
cause for anything on the phone, [law enforcement] can
search everything on the phone.” (Emphasis added.)
Moreover, Special Agent L.B. stated that she had
conducted cell phone searches in this manner for the last
two years, and she testified that she was taught to search
this way at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
(FLETC). These are sure signs of both recurring and
systemic negligence—or worse. And when Special Agent
L.B.’s rummaging eventually uncovered ambiguous
evidence of another potential crime, she failed to seek a
new search authorization, blithely asserting that “there
was no need to get an expanded scope.”
As can be seen then, the facts of this case present us
with a glaring and systemic contravention of Appellant’s
constitutional rights that must not be tolerated in the mil-
itary justice system. Accordingly, I write to express my firm
belief that the majority should have applied the exclusion-
ary rule here to not only ensure that this particular appel-
lant’s rights were vindicated but also to incentivize mili-
tary law enforcement officials not to similarly violate other
servicemembers’ Fourth Amendment rights in the future.
The Search Authorization Was Unlawful
Both parties agree that the search in this case was un-
lawful. I commend the Government for making this conces-
sion upfront. Oral Argument at 34:30–34:35, United States
v. Lattin, No. 22-0211 (C.A.A.F. Dec. 6, 2022). Further, the
majority assumes that the search authorization was un-
lawful for purposes of its analysis. Indeed, the search au-
thorization was facially deficient because it was not reason-
able for the commander to authorize a search of Appellant’s
phone without any parameters about what information or
2
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
applications could be searched, seized, and analyzed in Ap-
pellant’s phone. 1
Because the search authorization was unlawful, any
search stemming from that authorization was unlawful as
well. And importantly, the lower court held that good faith,
inevitable discovery, and the plain view doctrine—excep-
tions to the exclusionary rule that otherwise might have
supported the admission of the evidence obtained from
Special Agent L.B.’s unlawful search—do not apply here.
The Government does not directly challenge the lower
court’s holding on these points. Consequently, the key issue
before us is whether the exclusionary rule should apply.
The Exclusionary Rule Should Apply Here
Because Special Agent L.B.’s unlawful search was
reckless or grossly negligent, and because her unlawful
conduct was evidence of recurring and systemic negligence,
the exclusionary rule should have been applied here. The
military judge’s determination that Special Agent L.B.
acted reasonably, and that this case did not involve
recurring or systemic negligence on the part of law
enforcement, was clearly erroneous and failed to consider
important facts. Thus, the military judge abused his
discretion in denying Appellant’s motion to suppress the
unlawfully obtained evidence.
The Supreme Court has held, “To trigger the exclusion-
ary rule, police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that
exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpa-
ble that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the jus-
tice system.” Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 144
(2009). The “exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate,
reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or in some circum-
stances recurring or systemic negligence.” Id. “For exclu-
sion to be appropriate, the deterrence benefits of suppres-
sion must outweigh its heavy costs.” Davis v. United States,
564 U.S. 229, 237 (2011). In essence, these competing prin-
ciples can be distilled to two key factors put forward by the
1 The relevant part of the search authorization allowed, with-
out restrictions, for the “seizure, copying, and analysis of [Appel-
lant’s] mobile device with biometric access.”
3
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
Supreme Court in Davis: (a) “When [law enforcement offic-
ers] exhibit ‘deliberate,’ ‘reckless,’ or ‘grossly negligent’ dis-
regard for Fourth Amendment rights,” or “the case in-
volve[s] ‘recurring or systemic negligence’ on the part of
law enforcement,” “the deterrent value of exclusion is
strong and tends to outweigh the resulting costs,” but
(b) “when [law enforcement officers] act with an objectively
‘reasonable good-faith belief’ that their conduct is lawful,
or when their conduct involves only simple, ‘isolated’ negli-
gence, the ‘deterrence rationale loses much of its force.’ ”
Id. at 238, 240 (citations omitted).
As noted by the majority, these two competing princi-
ples have been codified in M.R.E. 311(a)(3). The exclusion-
ary rule should apply under two conditions: (1) when “ex-
clusion of the evidence results in appreciable deterrence of
future unlawful searches or seizures,” and (2) when “the
benefits of such deterrence outweigh the costs to the justice
system.” M.R.E. 311(a)(3). For the sake of convenience and
for consistency with the majority opinion, I will also refer
to these two conditions as the “appreciable deterrence test”
and the “balancing test.”
The Appreciable Deterrence Test
For reasons I find puzzling, the majority glides over the
“appreciable deterrence test” and instead focuses on the
“balancing test.” The majority perhaps assumes, without
explanation, that the only person who could be deterred by
the application of the exclusionary rule is Special Agent
L.B. herself.) Perhaps they take this position based on the
Government’s claim that only “ ‘one individual in this case
will be deterred by exclusion: [Special Agent L.B.].’ ”
United States v. Lattin, __ M.J. __, __ (13) (C.A.A.F. 2023)
(quoting Brief for Appellee at 49, United States v. Lattin,
No. 22-0211 (C.A.A.F. Oct. 26, 2022)).
It presumably is true that Special Agent L.B. would be
deterred if the exclusionary rule were to apply here. But
she is far from the only consideration. The search authori-
zation was patently facially invalid. Applying the exclu-
sionary rule here would thus serve to deter other Air Force
Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) agents from simi-
larly requesting grossly overbroad search authorizations.
4
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
In fact, this deterrence principle would apply to all those
involved in criminal investigations—to include judge advo-
cates who, as in the instant case, may be presented with
facially and conspicuously deficient language in a search
authorization and must choose whether or not to fulfill
their professional obligation to protect the rights of our ser-
vicemembers by simply saying, “No. This material does not
pass constitutional muster.” 2
In sum, the message that would be sent by the invoca-
tion of the exclusionary rule in this case would be clear:
Evidence obtained from facially invalid search authoriza-
tions may be subject to suppression—not just in an aca-
demic, hypothetical, and remote sense but in a real, con-
crete, and principled sense.
The Balancing Test
The majority writes that “the costs to society and the
benefits of future deterrence are not historical facts that
are either true or false but instead are matters that depend
on judgment.” Lattin, __ M.J. at __ (14). Be that as it may,
the duty of this Court is demonstrably clear—we must de-
termine whether the military judge abused his discretion
in evaluating the information presented. Discerning the
costs and benefits are indeed “matters that depend on judg-
ment,” but that judgment must nonetheless be reasonable.
Id. And, as discussed below, the military judge’s conclu-
sions in this case were clearly unreasonable and hence his
2 There were at least three individuals involved in drafting
and approving the search authorization. Special Agent L.B. pre-
pared the search authorization (Air Force Form 1176). Appel-
lant’s group commander, Colonel M.R., signed off on the overly
broad search authorization. Judge Advocate Captain W.T. read
over Special Agent L.B.’s affidavit, explained probable cause
standards to Colonel M.R., and, concerningly, reviewed the
search authorization to provide legal feedback. In addition, there
were at least two AFOSI agents involved in executing the search
authorization—Special Agent L.B. and another AFOSI agent.
Applying the exclusionary rule here would also deter such law
enforcement personnel—not just Special Agent L.B.—from con-
ducting completely unreasonable searches based on facially in-
valid search authorizations.
5
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
disposition of the motion to suppress constituted an abuse
of discretion.
I. Special Agent L.B.’s unlawful search was
reckless or grossly negligent
There are two primary reasons why the military judge
clearly erred when he found that Special Agent L.B. was
not reckless or grossly negligent in conducting this search.
First, Special Agent L.B. searched for text message conver-
sations that predated the incident with Cadet A.W. by more
than four months—despite having no reason to think Ap-
pellant and the victim had met or been in communication
with each other prior to that incident. Indeed, Cadet A.W.
previously provided AFOSI with the relevant communica-
tions, and Special Agent L.B.’s justification for the search
was to merely corroborate their existence. This blatant de-
parture from the original purpose of the search demon-
strates that Special Agent L.B.’s conduct was unreasona-
ble, and it serves as a concerning display of Special Agent
L.B.’s misunderstanding of the scope of her authority. Sec-
ond, Special Agent L.B. knew the phone numbers of the vic-
tim and witnesses of the January 26, 2019, incident, and
yet she searched through Appellant’s personal cell phone
and read conversations with other unsaved contacts. There
simply was no reasonable justification for Special Agent
L.B.’s actions.
AFOSI began investigating the incident between Appel-
lant and Cadet A.W. on January 26, 2019, the same day as
the alleged assault. Special Agent L.B. took over the case
sometime in February 2019. She knew the incident be-
tween Appellant and Cadet A.W. occurred during the early
morning hours of January 26, 2019. She also presumably
knew from reviewing Cadet A.W.’s interview and the text
messages Cadet A.W. provided that Appellant and Cadet
A.W. had never met before and had never texted before the
incident in question. Therefore, once Special Agent L.B. ob-
tained Appellant’s phone, she should have known she was
looking for evidence related to an incident from late Janu-
ary 2019 between two people who had neither met nor
texted before that date. Any reasonable person would rec-
ognize that evidence relating to that incident would have
been generated on or after January 25, the day Appellant
6
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
and the victim first met. However, Special Agent L.B.
scrolled through messages from at least as far back as Au-
gust 2018. Searching messages from before the date of the
incident—let alone more than four months before—
amounts to a fishing expedition in the starkest sense, and
it was done in violation of Appellant’s Fourth Amendment
rights.
It must be borne in mind that Special Agent L.B., a mil-
itary criminal investigator, was no naïf who was oblivious
to the iPhone interface. She accurately testified that “the
way the I-phone works is it shows all the recent messages
first, by contact, and then the only text that shows up is the
most recent text message exchange.” She knew that text
conversations are saved and displayed in a chronological
manner; the information displayed is functionally equiva-
lent to an email inbox. Special Agent L.B. should have rea-
sonably known then that text threads related to the inci-
dent with Cadet A.W. would necessarily have occurred on
or after January 25. Yet alarmingly, Special Agent L.B.
seemed unconcerned by any temporal constraints on her
search. In response to the question about whether she be-
lieved “[t]hat when there’s probable cause for anything on
the phone, you can search everything on the phone,” she
responded, “Yes.”
Special Agent L.B. also testified she was looking for con-
versations between certain identified individuals and “she
knew what phone numbers to look for.” She further testi-
fied that as she searched through Appellant’s phone, she
noticed Cadet A.W. was not saved as a contact. In other
words, Cadet A.W.’s phone number was listed without a
corresponding name. Remarkably, Special Agent L.B. then
(somehow) concluded that any conversation with an un-
saved contact was fair game for review because they might
contain evidence of other potential victims. As noted above,
in an extraordinarily damaging concession, Special Agent
L.B. candidly explained that she looked through these con-
versations with other unsaved contacts “just to see who it
was or what they were talking about.” Because she knew
what phone numbers were relevant in her search for evi-
dence related to Cadet A.W., it was completely unreasona-
ble for her to randomly search through these nonresponsive
7
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
phone numbers for evidence of “any other victims that
could be out there.” Thus, at a minimum, Special Agent
L.B.’s conduct was reckless or grossly negligent.
In addition to the military judge’s findings being clearly
unreasonable, he also misapprehended the law when he
applied our reasoning and holding in United States v. Rich-
ards, 76 M.J. 365 (C.A.A.F. 2017). This case is clearly dis-
tinguishable. In Richards, we did indeed cite with approval
the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s
observation that “[t]he prohibition of general searches is
not to be confused with a demand for precise ex ante
knowledge of the location and content of evidence.” Rich-
ards, 76 M.J. at 369 (emphasis added) (internal quotation
marks omitted) (quoting United States v. Richards, 659
F.3d 527, 541 (6th Cir. 2011)). But we also underscored, as
the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
pithily opined, “ ‘As always under the Fourth Amendment,
the standard is reasonableness.’ ” Id. (quoting United
States v. Hill, 459 F.3d 966, 974 (9th Cir. 2006)). And im-
portantly, we dropped a footnote stating: “Obviously, what
is reasonable in one instance may not be so in another.” Id.at 369 n.6.
In Richards, the search was not only for communica-
tions but also for images. And “computer files [containing
images] may be manipulated to hide their true contents.”
Id. at 370 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting
United States v. Mann, 592 F.3d 779, 782 (7th Cir. 2010)).
But folders on a computer are not chronologically ordered
text threads on an iPhone. In the instant case, there was
simply no basis for Special Agent L.B. to conclude that the
old text messages she opened and read were related to any
effort by Appellant to “hide, mislabel, or manipulate files
to conceal criminal activity.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted) (quoting United States v. Stabile, 633 F.3d 219,
237 (3d Cir. 2011)). Again, I emphasize that while a more
expansive search authorization may have been reasonable
in Richards given the uncertainty as to when the crime oc-
curred, it was not reasonable here for Special Agent L.B. to
rummage through texts on Appellant’s phone that were ex-
changed four months prior to the alleged assault.
8
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
The military judge’s misapplication of Richards colored
his view of the reasonableness of Special Agent L.B.’s ac-
tions. According to the military judge, “when searching an
electronic device . . . ‘there may be no practical substitute
for actually looking in many (perhaps all) folders.’ ” (quot-
ing Richards, 76 M.J. at 370). The takeaway the military
judge instead should have gleaned from our Richards opin-
ion is the following statement contained within it: “[T]he
authorization and accompanying affidavit [although broad]
did not give authorities carte blanche to search in areas [of
the appellant’s electronic devices that were] clearly outside
the scope of the crime being investigated.” Id.II. Special Agent L.B.’s unlawful conduct and her testi-
mony establish recurring and systemic negligence
As further evidence that law enforcement here was “suf-
ficiently culpable” to warrant the invocation of the exclu-
sionary rule,� Herring, 555 U.S. at 144, the record strongly
suggests that Special Agent L.B.’s conduct was not an iso-
lated incident. She herself testified that it’s been her
“standard practice” for the past two years to search for an-
ything on a seized phone. According to Special Agent L.B.,
she had a “right to be in the phone,” and if she saw “some-
thing that [led her] to believe there’s evidence of [another]
crime . . . there was no need to get an expanded scope.” Her
significantly misguided understanding of what she could
lawfully search for in a cell phone seized pursuant to a
search authorization, and the fact that she had conducted
her searches this way for years, is sufficient evidence of re-
curring negligence.
And in terms of there being a systemic problem, Special
Agent L.B. testified that she (supposedly) learned her
search methodology from the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center. As observed by the majority, the military
judge made no finding that instructors at FLETC are in-
correctly instructing military law enforcement agents. Lat-
tin, __ M.J. at __ (14). But neither did the Government in-
troduce evidence to rebut its own witness’s assertion. And
the mere fact that Special Agent L.B. believes FLETC
taught her she can search the entire contents of a phone
whenever it is seized suggests FLETC may not be appro-
priately drilling into its graduates a scrupulous
9
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
appreciation of the fundamentals of Fourth Amendment
rights. In addition, Special Agent L.B. testified that it was
her practice in cases such as this one to input search pa-
rameters based on her discussions with “legal” [i.e., a judge
advocate].
Thus, as can be seen from all of the points above, the
Government’s own star witness makes it clear that we are
confronted with a systemic violation of servicemembers’
constitutional rights.
III. The price paid by the justice system
As the Supreme Court has stated, “The principal cost of
applying the [exclusionary] rule is, of course, letting guilty
and possibly dangerous defendants go free.” Herring, 555
U.S. at 141. It is important to underscore, however, that in
the instant case that “principal cost” would not have mate-
rialized if the exclusionary rule had been properly applied
because the evidence that sustained Appellant’s convic-
tions against Cadet A.W. was untainted by the unlawful
search. As a result, the exclusion of the unconstitutionally
obtained evidence would have had no effect on Appellant’s
other convictions; he still would remain guilty of sexual as-
sault and abusive sexual contact involving Cadet A.W. In
short, excluding the improperly obtained evidence would
not have let this “guilty and possibly dangerous defend-
ant[] go free.” Id.Nonetheless, it is still critical to acknowledge that the
personal trauma endured by First Lieutenant K.A. would
not be reflected in the results of Appellant’s court-martial.
That fact is certainly lamentable. Unfortunately, however,
this result is an outgrowth of the Government’s improper
conduct and is a cost that society must bear under these
circumstances. Simply stated, the exclusion of the evidence
in this case would serve as a compelling deterrent to future
unlawful searches, and this deterrence would outweigh the
resulting social costs. Indeed, to hold otherwise, as the ma-
jority does, essentially grants law enforcement carte
blanche when it comes to drafting search authorizations
without even coming close to “particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be
seized,” U.S. Const. amend. IV, and when it comes to
10
United States v. Lattin, No. 22-0211/AF
Judge OHLSON, dissenting
conducting completely unreasonable searches based on
those overly broad search authorizations.
Conclusion
We must do better in protecting the constitutional
rights of those who serve in our armed forces. Accordingly,
I would hold that the military judge abused his discretion
when he declined to impose the exclusionary rule in this
case. 3 Because the majority holds to the contrary, I respect-
fully dissent.
3 Because of my proposed disposition of this case, I need not
reach Issue II.
11