Dunn v. State (1997)

In Dunn v. State, 951 S.W.2d 478 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997), the appellant argued that his arrest was illegal because the arrest warrant was not signed at the time of his arrest, in violation of article 15.02 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. The record at the hearing on the motion to suppress reflected that the magistrate was presented with twenty pages of affidavits and warrants. After determining that probable cause existed for all of the warrants, including Dunn's arrest warrant, the magistrate signed nineteen of the twenty pages. Id. at 479. The one page he did not sign was Dunn's arrest warrant. The mistake was not discovered until after Dunn had been arrested. Upon realizing the error, the magistrates signature was immediately obtained. Id. The court of criminal appeals stated that Dunn correctly asserted that the arrest warrant was not in compliance with article 15.02(3). The court also noted that article 38.23(a) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure excludes evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any provision of the constitutions or laws of the State of Texas and the United States of America. Id. However, the court looked to article 38.23(b), which provides that "it is an exception to the provisions of Subsection (a) of this Article that the evidence was obtained by a law enforcement officer acting in objective good faith reliance upon a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate based upon probable cause." With this statute in mind, the court stated that the record established that Dunn was arrested by officers acting in objective good faith reliance on a warrant based on probable cause and issued by a magistrate. The court also stated that the record reflected the "magistrate found probable cause to issue the warrant, signed the accompanying warrants, and intended but inadvertently failed to sign appellant's arrest warrant. This appears to be exactly the type of situation intended to be covered by article 38.23(b). Evidence obtained by a police officer acting in good faith reliance upon a warrant based upon a magistrate's determination of probable cause should not be rendered inadmissible due to a defect found in the warrant subsequent to its execution." After taking all of the facts surrounding the failure to sign the warrant into consideration, the court held that Dunn's arrest warrant had issued for purposes of the good faith exception of article 38.23(b). Id.