Rios, Manuel

5/21/26

PD-0014-26

  1. “Did the Court of Appeals err by overturning the trial court’s conclusion that the search warrant affidavit was legally unsworn, and the search warrant of Appellee’s phone was facially defective pursuant to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 18.0215(c) such that the good-faith exception of Article 38.23(b) did not apply to this case?”
  2. “If a good-faith exception analysis is required, did the Court of Appeals err by extending that exception to a case where the two law enforcement officers and the signing judge were unaware of a ten-year old statute that contained mandatory language reflecting an elevated concern for privacy rights for the issuance of a search warrant for an electronic communications device?”

The officer who obtained a search warrant for Rios’ cell phone swore the affidavit oath before another officer rather than a judge, as required by Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 18.0215(c).  The trial court granted Rios’ motion to suppress on that basis.

The court of appeals reversed, holding that the good-faith exception applied.  Good faith applies beyond defects on the face of a warrant to those in the affidavit if the “constitutional foundation lies intact” and the officer’s reliance was objectively reasonable.  The court likened the circumstances to a technical defect, analogous to a judge’s illegible signature and a magistrate’s missing signature.   Thus, the failure to comply with the judge-specific oath is not the equivalent of no oath at all— a distinction that matters because the absence of any oath precludes the good-faith exception.  The court then held: “Oaths for search warrant affidavits are regularly administered by non-judge officials in the vast majority of cases, placing [the officer’s] conduct ‘close enough to the line of validity’ to meet the ‘objectively reasonable officer’ standard.”

Rios claims that the oath error is not a technical defect and that it rendered the warrant invalid at the outset.  He argues that the court’s analysis conflicts with the rules of statutory construction—specifically the presumption that the Legislature purposely chose every word—and that Art. 18.0215(c)’s plain language forecloses the good-faith exception. He further contends that the court failed to account for the heightened privacy interests associated with cell phones.