Case Title: Ex Parte Perry

Citation: 814 So. 2d 840

Docket Number: 1000290

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 2001-05-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
814 So. 2d 840 (2001)
Ex parte Keith Alan PERRY.
(Re Keith Alan Perry v. State of Alabama).
1000290.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 11, 2001.
*841 James M. Kendrick, Birmingham, for petitioner.
Bill Pryor, atty. gen., and Jack W. Willis, asst. atty. gen., for respondent.
WOODALL, Justice.
Keith Alan Perry was convicted of trafficking in cocaine, a violation of § 13A-12-231, Ala.Code 1975. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Court of Criminal Appeals, on September 22, 2000, affirmed the judgment of the trial court in an unpublished memorandum. Perry v. State (No. CR-98-2033), 814 So. 2d 1011 (Ala.Crim.App. 2000) (table). Perry petitioned this Court for certiorari review, which we granted, limited to whether the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence seized as the result of an allegedly unlawful search of his residence.
Perry argues that the affidavit supporting the search warrant authorizing the search of his residence did not establish a sufficient nexus between the items sought to be seized and his residence. The affidavit stated, in pertinent part:
(Emphasis added.)
The Court of Criminal Appeals, relying on Gord v. State, 475 So. 2d 900 (Ala.Cr. App.1985), held:
However, the facts in Gord v. State are distinguishable from the facts in the present case. The affidavit in support of the warrant in Gord stated:
Id. at 904. The affidavit in Gord cited two separate occasions on which officers observed Gord leave his residence, saw him make no stops, and then found him in the possession of drugs. In the present case, the affidavit does not state that officers followed Perry from his residence to a drug sale. The affidavit does not state that Perry came from or went to his residence directly before or directly after any of the drug sales. Nor does the affidavit state that Perry was ever seen at the residence. In fact, the affidavit does not state how the officers came to know that the address was Perry's residence. Furthermore, Officer Bemis indicates that individuals engaged in the sale of illegal drugs may keep those illegal drugs at their residence or a "stash house," thereby identifying two possible locations in which officers *843 might find illegal drugs, without providing any cause to search one location over the other.
"It is true that the nexus between the objects to be seized and the premises searched can be established from the particular circumstances involved and need not rest on direct observation," but "there still must be a `substantial basis' to conclude that the instrumentalities of the crime will be discovered on the searched premises." United States v. Lockett, 674 F.2d 843, 846 (11th Cir.1982). In Lockett, the Eleventh Circuit stated that "[i]n United States v. Flanagan, 423 F.2d 745 (5th Cir.1970), the court noted that knowledge of a defendant's possession of stolen goods does not, without more, make reasonable a search of the defendant's residence." Id. Consequently, a defendant's possession of illegal drugs does not, without more, make reasonable a search of the defendant's residence.
The affidavit in this case does not present facts from which the judge might make an independent determination of probable cause, but offers instead nothing more than conclusory statements by Officer Bemis that sufficient probable cause exists to search Perry's residence. "`Sufficient information must be presented to the magistrate to allow that official to determine probable cause; his action cannot be a mere ratification of the bare conclusions of others.'" Crittenden v. State, 476 So. 2d 632, 633 (Ala.1985) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 239, 103 S. Ct. 2317, 76 L. Ed. 2d 527 (1983)).
An affidavit may "be validated if it is supplemented with additional facts which the magistrate considered before determining that probable cause was present.... Without such additional information, the affidavit and arrest warrant cannot be given any effect...." Crittenden, 476 So. 2d  at 634. In this case, the affidavit alone was insufficient to support a valid warrant, and there is no indication in the record that the district court was privy to any additional information before issuing the warrant.
The trial court erred when it denied Perry's motion to suppress evidence (cocaine) seized as the result of the search of his residence. Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and remand this cause for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
MOORE, C.J., and HOUSTON, SEE, LYONS, JOHNSTONE, and STUART, JJ., concur.
HARWOOD, J., concurs specially.
BROWN, J., dissents.
HARWOOD, Justice (concurring specially).
I concur with the main opinion. I write, however, to explain certain considerations that lead me to that decision. First, the affidavit of Officer Bemis references three "undercover buys" of cocaine from Perry by Bemis on October 27, October 31, and November 4, 1997. It does not reference the fourth controlled buy by Bemis from Perry on November 5, 1997, wherein Perry again sold Bemis a quantity of cocaine, and was arrested at that point. Including in the affidavit information relating to this fourth sale would certainly have "shored up" the inference the State asks us to draw from the affidavitthat there was probable cause to believe Perry was obtaining the cocaine from his residence. A more important omission from the affidavit, however, is the omission of an item of information the State nonetheless proffers at page 10 of its brief: "In each case [of the controlled drug buys made from Perry], the drug sale was made within a short *844 time from the call of the undercover agent requesting the drugs." That information is simply not included within the affidavit. Also, the affidavit contains no information as to whether the calls of the undercover agent were made to Perry at a telephone number registered for the residence. If such information had been included in the affidavit, then the facts of this case would have been close enough to the facts of Gord v. State, 475 So. 2d 900 (Ala.Crim. App.1985), to persuade me to vote to uphold the search. Of course, it may well have been that Perry received his telephone calls on "a mobile" phone, in which event his location at the time he received a call from the undercover agent would not have been indicated. We do not have before us telephone records from which we might resolve these unknowns, and they are not resolved by the materials that are before us. Officer Bemis's statements do not fit within the observations made in United States v. Lockett, 674 F.2d 843 (11th Cir.1982), cited in Gord, 475 So. 2d  at 905, concerning the fact that controlled substances "are usually kept in a dealer's place of residence and under constant surveillance or supervision"; Officer Bemis stated in his affidavit that drug dealers use neutral locations to consummate the transactions, "in order to divert [suspicion] from their residence and/or `stash house,' where they store the illegal drug." (Emphasis supplied.) Nothing in the affidavit serves to discriminate between the possibility that Perry was retrieving drugs from a "stash house" and the possibility that he was retrieving them from his residence.
BROWN, Justice (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals, which found in its unpublished memorandum that, although the affidavit at issue here was "not a model of clarity," the affidavit nevertheless set forth a sufficient "`nexus between the objects to be seized and the premises searched,'" quoting Gord v. State, 475 So. 2d 900, 905 (Ala.Crim.App.1985). The affidavit showed probable cause to believe that Perry was likely storing a supply of drugs at his residence. Perry was "obviously a dealer" and "logic and common sense dictate" that the cocaine he was selling would be kept in his residence. See State v. Bernth, 196 Neb. 813, 246 N.W.2d 600, 602 (1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 948, 97 S. Ct. 1587, 51 L. Ed. 2d 797 (1977) (quoted in Gord, 475 So.2d at 905).