United States v. Sirmans

Opinions of the United
2008 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
5-21-2008
USA v. Sirmans
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 07-2370
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"USA v. Sirmans" (2008). 2008 Decisions. Paper 1170.
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT
OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
NO. 07-2370
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
TERRANCE SIRMANS
Appellant
On Appeal From the United States
District Court
For the District of Delaware
(D.C. Crim. Action No. 06-cr-00067)
District Judge: Hon. Sue L. Robinson
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
May 8, 2008
BEFORE: BARRY and STAPLETON, Circuit Judges,
and RESTANI,* Judge
(Opinion Filed: May 21, 2008)
*Hon. Jane A. Restani, Chief Judge, United States Court of International Trade, sitting by
designation.
OPINION OF THE COURT
STAPLETON, Circuit Judge:
In this appeal, Terrance Sirmans challenges the District Court’s refusal to exclude
evidence based on a minor typographical error in the search warrant that yielded it. We
will affirm.
I.
Because we write only for the parties who are familiar with the factual context and
procedural history of the case, we set forth only those facts necessary to our analysis.
While executing a search warrant for Terrance Sirmans and his dwelling, officers
discovered a loaded .38 Hi-Point pistol. As a result, Sirmans was charged with one count
of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and §
924(a)(2).
Prior to trial, Sirmans sought to exclude the pistol because of a typographical error
in the warrant. Specifically, the offending passage reads, “as I am satisfied that there is
probable cause to believe that certain property, namely the body of Curtis Henderson, and
any document used to falsely identify Mr. Henderson . . . is being concealed . . . on: the .
. . premises,” where the references to Curtis Henderson should be to Sirmans. (App. 20.)
At the suppression hearing, the officer who drafted the warrant explained that a computer
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malfunction left him unable to use the program he generally relied on to generate
warrants, so he drafted the warrant by hand using a prior warrant for Curtis Henderson as
a template. Apparently, during this process, the officer forgot to substitute Sirmans’
name for Henderson’s in this one instance.
After a hearing, the District Court concluded that the reference to Henderson was
an inadvertent error. Given as much, and given that the warrant makes a host of
references to Sirmans – indeed, it is even captioned as “In the Matter of Terrance
Sirmans” – the District Court ruled that the search was proper. (Id.)
The gun was introduced at trial, and after two days of proceedings, Sirmans was
convicted. He now appeals.1
II.
According to Sirmans, this inadvertent failure to substitute his name for
Henderson’s means the warrant “fail[ed] to meet the Forth Amendment ‘particularity
requirement,’” and therefore, that the pistol “must be suppressed.”
To be sufficiently particular, the Fourth Amendment requires the warrant to
describe the items to be seized in a way that the officer conducting the search can identify
them with reasonable effort. E.g., Bartholomew v. Pennsylvania, 221 F.3d 425, 428-29
(3d Cir. 2000). Given the many references to Sirmans, and the general rule that “phrases
1
We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, review the District Court’s factual
findings for clear error, and its legal determinations de novo. United States v. Shields,
458 F.3d 269, 276 (3d Cir. 2006).
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in a search warrant must be read in context and not in isolation,” we conclude that the
warrant did indeed sufficiently identify Sirmans, and thus that it was sufficiently
particularized. United States v. Johnson, 690 F.2d 60, 64 (3d Cir. 1982); see id. at 65 n.3.
(“[T]he warrant and the affidavit contain a ‘typographical error’ in that there is no
Chapter 4752 of the state code, although there is a Section 4752 which sets forth the
designated crime. We attach no significance to this ‘(m)inor irregularit(y).’” (alterations
in original)).
III.
For this reason, we will affirm.
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