Appeals Court: A Bunch Of Mostly-Irrelevant Information Is Not 'Probable Cause'

from the drug-warrior-enthusiasm-clouds-judgment dept

A drug conspiracy with no drugs. A house searched because a car carrying no drugs was registered to the address. It's little things like these that add up to a successfully suppressed evidence, even if it took defendant Ricky Brown a trip to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to achieve it.

The DEA, working with Michigan State Police, pulled over two vehicles that had left a house they had under surveillance, apparently on their way to a heroin buy set up by an informant. One vehicle, a Chevy Silverado driven by Steven Woods, was searched after a MSP traffic stop and approximately 565 grams of heroin were recovered. The other vehicle, a GMC Yukon in which Brown was a passenger was stopped as well. However, there were no drugs in this vehicle, just four cell phones.

Despite this lack of evidence, the MSP booked both the vehicle's driver (Marzell Middleton) and Brown on charges of "conspiring to deliver drugs." Search warrants were obtained for both Brown and Middleton's residences, and 90 grams of heroin were found at Middleton's house.

The route to the search warrant for Brown's residence was a bit more circuitous. The idea to search Brown's residence was apparently predicated on little more than the fact that a vehicle he owned (another Yukon, but not the one that was being driven when both parties were arrested) was parked in Middleton's driveway while that residence was searched. From the decision [PDF]:

During their search of Middleton’s residence, the police also searched a 2002 GMC Yukon registered to Brown, which was parked on the street in front of the residence. MSP Trooper Unterbrink allowed a drug dog to walk around and climb into the vehicle. The dog alerted to the odor of narcotics inside Brown’s vehicle, but the affidavit does not indicate that any drugs were actually recovered. Agents seized the 2002 Yukon under Michigan forfeiture laws.

This was the first plank of the DEA's probable cause platform: the drug sniff that seemingly failed to turn up any drugs. The next was text messages on a prepaid cell phone containing the message "He said 1175 or 1125 for one," which Agent Fitch claimed was "consistent with Detroit-area pricing for cocaine." Also added to the affidavit were the results of a criminal record database search: an arrest (and an acquittal) for "delivery/manufacture of dangerous drugs" dating back to 1996 and a 1999 conviction for conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

Despite there being nothing linking Brown to the sale of heroin and his most recent conviction being 12 years old at that point, Agent Fitch somehow convinced a judge that a vehicle parked in the driveway of a house being searched was enough of a "nexus" to justify a search of the vehicle owner's home. This warrant was obtained three weeks after Brown's arrest and three weeks from the point Brown had been released after being charged, during which time neither the DEA nor the MSP performed any surveillance of Brown or his residence.

The DEA rolled up to Brown's house and searched it. Agents found some stuff, but nothing that would link Brown to heroin distribution.

DEA agents executed the search warrant at Brown’s residence on March 31. They found a nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson semiautomatic pistol, a loaded 12-gauge shotgun, and 60 grams of marijuana. They also recovered a digital scale, various forms of ammunition, $5,805 in cash, utility bills addressed to Brown, a Michigan certificate of title and insurance document for a 2002 GMC Yukon, and a hand-written document—purportedly a drug ledger—listing names and what appeared to be gram drug quantities. They did not find heroin or any other evidence linking Brown to a heroin conspiracy.

The district court refused to suppress the evidence, claiming the "four corners" made up for the deficiencies in the affidavit, and allowed the good faith exception to paper over the rest of the warrant's flaws. The government continued to pursue the heroin conspiracy charge, but the jury found nothing in the evidence to support it. Brown was acquitted on that charge but convicted on the firearms and marijuana possession charges.

The appeals court is less impressed with the government's attempt to spin nearly nonexistent threads into connective tissue.

In the present case, the search warrant affidavit contained no evidence that Brown distributed narcotics from his home, that he used it to store narcotics, or that any suspicious activity had taken place there. The affidavit did not suggest that a reliable confidential informant had purchased drugs there, that the police had ever conducted surveillance at Brown’s home, or that the recorded telephone conversations linked drug trafficking to Brown’s residence. The Government notes that Brown’s car, which was registered to his residence, was parked outside Middleton’s home and tested positively for narcotics during a canine search. Although these facts supported the search of Brown’s car, they did not establish a fair probability that evidence of drug trafficking would be found at his residence. A more direct connection was required, such as surveillance indicating that Brown had used the car to transport heroin from his home to Middleton’s on the day in question. The mere fact that the car was registered to Brown’s home was too vague and generalized a nexus to support the search warrant.

The government tried to salvage this by claiming Brown's status as a "known drug dealer" was all it really needed to obtain a search warrant of his residence. The appeals court disagrees.

Although this alone establishes that the warrant was issued without probable cause, we note that the evidence supposedly establishing Brown’s status as a drug dealer was also inadequate. The affidavit relied on the following facts to show that Brown was a known drug dealer: Brown was a passenger in Middleton’s car when the arrest was carried out. Police officers seized four cell phones from the car, two of which were believed to belong to Brown because they listed Middleton’s phone number as a contact. One of Brown’s alleged cell phones had a text message that said, “He said 1175 or 1125 for one,” which Agent Fitch alleged referred to local cocaine prices, not heroin. Brown possessed $4,813 in currency at the time of his arrest. Brown’s car was parked at Middleton’s residence and, during a search of Brown’s vehicle, a drug dog alerted to the odor of narcotics.

Although some of these facts suggest that Brown may have been involved in the heroin drug conspiracy—and thus established probable cause to arrest Brown—they are too inconclusive to assume, for the purpose of determining probable cause to search Brown’s residence, that he was a known drug dealer.

The court also denies the government's good faith appeal, finding that law enforcement had 22 days to put together something more resembling probable cause. The court wonders why the DEA -- if it felt it didn't have enough PC to pursue a search of Brown's house right after his arrest (the driver's house was searched the next day) -- suddenly felt it had enough evidence to support a warrant three weeks later, when literally nothing had changed in the interim.

It is hard to account for this delay, as little new evidence was discovered during that period: just a cryptic text message, which Agent Fitch concluded reflected pricing for cocaine—not heroin—and a conviction for conspiracy to distribute marijuana from 1999. Neither the text message nor the 12-year-old conviction was probative of whether Brown was using his current residence for drug trafficking…

Save for a passing reference to Brown’s car registration, the affidavit is devoid of facts connecting the residence to the alleged drug dealing activity. Although the good-faith standard is less demanding than the standard for probable cause, the affidavit still must draw some plausible connection to the residence. Agent Fitch’s affidavit failed to do so.

With the evidence suppressed, the convictions for marijuana and firearms possession vanish as well. Considering the Supreme Court recently decided old arrest warrants can salvage illegal searches, it's nice to know mostly-irrelevant criminal history isn't enough to turn a lack of probable cause into a good faith effort.

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Filed Under: dea, law enforcement, michigan, probable cause