Does the Warrant Clause require a new trial when newly discovered evidence establishes that an affiant who applied for wiretap orders and search warrants in bad faith concealed his prior felonious conduct, tainting the evidence obtained from those orders and warrants?

QUESTION PRESENTED Nearly half a century ago, this Court held that the Fourth Amendment’s Warrant Clause “surely takes the affiant’s good faith as its premise.” Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 169 (1978). In this case, the law enforcement officer whose sworn affidavits resulted in the issuance of critical wiretap orders and search warrants was a drug trafficker and a thief. After Petitioners were indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced, the Government disclosed that the affiant repeatedly and flagrantly concealed his prior criminal conduct from issuing judges. Yet the Fourth Circuit held that a new trial was not warranted because, regardless of the affiant’s concealment of critical information about his background and qualifications, other information in the affidavits established probable cause. Does the Warrant Clause require a new trial — and the right to seek suppression of evidence — when newly discovered, undisputed evidence establishes that an affiant who applied to district and magistrate judges for wiretap orders and search warrants in bad faith concealed his prior felonious conduct, tainting the evidence obtained directly and derivatively from those orders and warrants?