In this Watauga County case, defendant appealed after pleading guilty to larceny and breaking and entering, arguing error in denying his motion to suppress the results of a search of his property. The Court of Appeals found no error.

In December of 2022, a caller reported two chainsaws were stolen from his property and provided law enforcement with trail camera footage of two men taking the chainsaws away in a wagon. Officers identified defendant as one of the men and prepared a search warrant for his property at 303 Tanner Road, including a photograph from the front of the property, an aerial photograph, and a description of a single wide mobile home with white siding. When executing the warrant, law enforcement officers realized they had provided photographs of the wrong property, which were of 310 Tanner Road. The officers went to the magistrate, who marked out the warrant’s reference to the attached photographs and initialed changes on the search warrant. The officers then searched the property, finding the chainsaws. Defendant subsequently confessed to stealing the chainsaws during an interview.

Defendant first argued that the search warrant failed to identify the property with reasonable certainty. The Court of Appeals disagreed, explaining that while G.S. 15A-246 requires a search warrant to “contain a designation sufficient to establish with reasonable certainty the premises,” a search warrant is not invalid simply because the address given differs from the address searched. Slip Op. at 9. The court explained the confusion of the two properties was understandable as they were both in the same area and had similar white mobile homes, concluding that the search warrant provided reasonable certainty because it referenced the correct street address to be searched.

Defendant next challenged the probable cause to search his home. The court explained that defendant’s address was taken from his driver’s license which was given during a recent traffic stop, and the address was within two miles of the location of the crime. Defendant was caught on the trail camera wearing the same hat he was wearing during the traffic stop, and he was transporting the chainsaws in a child’s wagon, indicating he did not travel far. These facts supported probable cause to search the residence. The court denied defendant’s challenge to the descriptions of the stolen property, noting they were adequate to identify the property based on the information provided by the victim.

The court also rejected defendant’s argument that the search warrant was improperly amended. The court acknowledged that G.S. Chapter 15A did not address amending warrants, then looked to Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978), and State v. Jackson, 220 N.C. App. 1 (2012), concluding “intentional falsehoods made by law enforcement” may render a warrant invalid, but no intentional falsehood was present here and the warrant still contained the correct address to be searched, regardless of the incorrect photographs. Slip Op. at 21.

Finally, the court dispensed with defendant’s argument that the warrant was not signed at the time of issuance, noting that G.S. 15A-246 required the date and time of issuance above the issuing official’s signature. The court considered this section in conjunction with G.S. 15A-248, concluding “the purpose of section 15A-246(1) is to provide a record of the time of issuance against which the forty-eight-hour time limit for execution contained in section 15A-248 may be measured against.” Id. at 23. The court likewise rejected defendant’s argument that the amendments to the search warrant contained information not taken under oath. Here the additional information was “simply that the photographs depicted the wrong address, a fact not bearing on whether probable cause existed to issue the warrant in the first place.” Id. at 24.