Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03262/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03262-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sidney Thompson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-3262

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

SIDNEY THOMPSON,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Central District of Illinois.

No. 13-cr-10086 — James E. Shadid, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JUNE 10, 2015 — DECIDED SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

____________________

Before MANION, WILLIAMS, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. Sidney Thompson challenges the denial of a 

motion to suppress evidence that was seized from his house 

during execution of a state search warrant. The affidavit underlying that warrant, Thompson argued, does not establish 

probable cause. The district court disagreed with this contention and, alternatively, concluded that the police relied on the 

warrant in good faith. We conclude that, even if the affidavit 

does not include sufficient facts to establish probable cause, 

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the evidence was admissible under the good-faith exception 

to the exclusionary rule.

In July 2013 a circuit judge in Peoria County, Illinois, issued a warrant to search Thompson and his house in Peoria 

for evidence that cocaine was being sold and used. The judge 

issued the warrant based exclusively on the affidavit of Peoria 

police officer Matthew Lane, who averred that an informant 

had told him that “a black male” named Sidney “routinely 

sells cocaine” from his house in Peoria. According to Officer 

Lane’s affidavit, the informant had recounted going to Sidney’s house twice within the past 30 days (most recently 

within 72 hours) and both times observing “cocaine in and 

about the premises” and seeing Sidney with “a quantity of an 

off white like rock substance that was represented to be cocaine.” Officer Lane attested that the informant had provided 

Thompson’s address and his physical description.

Officer Lane explained in the affidavit that he had corroborated some of the informant’s information. He knew from 

prior investigations that Thompson matched the physical description given by the informant, and the informant had 

picked Thompson from a photo array as “Sidney.” Officer 

Lane also had checked Thompson’s criminal history and 

found 14 arrests involving drugs and 4 convictions. A state 

database gave Thompson’s address as the one provided by 

the informant, and Officer Lane had conducted surveillance 

and seen Thompson enter and exit the side door of the house. 

As for the informant’s reliability, Officer Lane stated in the 

affidavit that one time previously the informant had made a 

controlled buy of marijuana and another time had given information which led to a search warrant and the suspect’s arrest for possessing a controlled substance.

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No. 14-3262 3

Police officers executed the search warrant for Thompson 

and his house the same day it was issued. They found about 

17 grams of cocaine in the house, and a federal grand jury 

charged Thompson with possessing the drugs with intent to 

distribute. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Thompson moved to suppress the cocaine, arguing that Officer Lane’s affidavit does 

not establish probable cause. According to Thompson, the affidavit provides “nothing more than mere conclusions and assertions of wrongdoing.” The affidavit, he said, omits details—e.g., the amount of drugs seen by the informant, how 

the informant knew that the powder was cocaine, and 

whether other people were at the house—and the informant 

did not appear before the state judge. Moreover, Thompson 

argued, the good-faith exception of United States v. Leon, 468 

U.S. 897, 919–23 (1984), could not salvage the search because, 

in his view, the affidavit is so facially deficient that no officer 

reasonably could have believed that it supplies probable 

cause.

At a hearing on the motion, Thompson repeated his argument that the affidavit’s accusation of drug sales is “summary 

in nature” and provides “no information” about “how the 

confidential informant [drew] these conclusions.” In response 

the district judge initially declined to decide if Officer Lane’s 

affidavit establishes probable cause. Rather, the judge concluded from the bench that, although the affidavit “does lack 

some detail,” the good-faith exception of Leon “would make 

this a valid search warrant.” It was significant, the judge 

thought, that the informant had been in Thompson’s house 

within 72 hours, that the informant had described Thompson 

in detail, and that Officer Lane had corroborated some of the 

informant’s information. After the hearing, though, the judge 

issued a written order concluding that Officer Lane’s affidavit 

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indeed establishes probable cause. And as he had said at the 

hearing, the judge added that, probable cause or no, the cocaine would be admissible because the warrant was obtained 

and executed in good faith. Thompson then entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving for appeal his challenge to the district court’s ruling. 

In this court Thompson renews his argument that the affidavit does not supply probable cause. Where, as here, the district judge made no factual findings and simply examined the 

affidavit submitted to the state judge who issued the search 

warrant, we evaluate, giving “great deference” to the issuing 

judge’s conclusion, whether that judge acted on the basis of 

probable cause. United States v. Aleshire, 787 F.3d 1178, 1179 

(7th Cir. 2015); see United States v. McIntire, 516 F.3d 576, 578 

(7th Cir. 2008). Probable cause exists when, based on the totality of the circumstances, there is a fair probability that a 

search will uncover contraband or evidence of a crime. Illinois 

v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983); see United States v. Sutton, 742 

F.3d 770, 773 (7th Cir. 2014). When a finding of probable cause 

incorporates information from an informant, we consider “(1) 

the degree to which the informant has acquired knowledge of 

the events through firsthand observation, (2) the amount of 

detail provided, (3) the extent to which the police have corroborated the informant’s statements, and (4) the interval between the date of the events and the police officer’s application for the search warrant.” Sutton, 742 F.3d at 773; see United 

States v. Garcia, 528 F.3d 481, 486 (7th Cir. 2008). Under this 

totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry, no single factor controls, and a weakness in one may be overcome by other factors 

or by other indicia of reliability. See United States v. Searcy, 664 

F.3d 1119, 1122 (7th Cir. 2011).

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No. 14-3262 5

We share the district court’s initial instinct about the 

weakness of this affidavit. Like other affidavits that we have 

criticized, this one falls short of what we would expect to see 

in a case brought by federal prosecutors. We are growing 

weary of thin affidavits that suffer from the same omissions 

which provoked our criticism in the past. We recognize that 

law enforcement officers have a legitimate interest in minimizing some details about an informant’s presence at the location to protect the informant’s identity. See United States v. 

Glover, 755 F.3d 811, 818 (7th Cir. 2014); Garcia, 528 F.3d at 486; 

United States v. Hicks, 575 F.3d 130, 138 (1st Cir. 2009). But still 

there must be enough factual content in an affidavit to establish probable cause. Here, for example, the affidavit omits an 

estimate of the amount of drugs seen by the informant (instead stating only that cocaine was routinely sold at the residence). Too much precision, of course, might unmask the informant if the specific amount was present only briefly while 

the informant was in the house. Yet we said in Owens v. United 

States, 387 F.3d 607, 608 (7th Cir. 2004), that an estimate of the 

drug quantity seen at the premises gives the issuing judge 

reason to conclude that some of the drugs or other evidence 

would still be present at the location. See also Garcia, 528 F.3d 

at 487; United States v. Matthews, 753 F.3d 1321, 1325 (D.C. Cir. 

2014). And it seems easy enough to explain how the informant 

knew (besides being told) that the substance was cocaine. See 

United States v. Peck, 317 F.3d 754, 755, 757 (7th Cir. 2003) (noting that informant’s unstated “personal experiences” and 

what she had been told about wrapped packages by suspect 

did little to shore up informant’s assertion that packages at 

suspect’s house contained cocaine and marijuana). Disclosing 

that the informant has used or sold a particular drug in the 

past is one common way of establishing the reliability of an 

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informant’s representation that the substance was present in 

the location to be searched. See, e.g., Sutton, 742 F.3d at 772;

United States v. Sims, 551 F.3d 640, 644 (7th Cir. 2008); Garcia, 

528 F.3d at 486; United States v. Johnson, 289 F.3d 1034, 1036 

(7th Cir. 2002); United States v. Jones, 208 F.3d 603, 606 (7th Cir. 

2000). These details would strengthen an affidavit, and the 

government has not suggested that including them would 

risk compromising an informant’s identity. 

All that said, we need not decide whether the state judge 

who issued the warrant had a basis for finding probable 

cause, since the search of Thompson’s residence survives a 

motion to suppress under the good-faith exception of Leon, 

468 U.S. at 919–23. Officer Lane’s decision to obtain a warrant 

is prima facie evidence that he was acting in good faith. 

See Searcy, 664 F.3d at 1124. Thompson challenges that presumption by arguing that a police officer could not reasonably rely on a search warrant which, he insists, rests on less 

detail than the affidavit in Garcia, a case in which we saw reason to ”hesitate” before finally deciding that a “sensible 

judge” could have found that the challenged affidavit included enough information to establish probable cause. 528 

F.3d at 486. It is true that the affidavit in this case lacks many 

of the same details missing from the affidavit in Garcia, but 

we reject Thompson’s suggestion that Officer Lane’s affidavit 

is materially inferior. As we’ve noted, Officer Lane corroborated some of the information supplied by the informant in 

this case, unlike the police officer in Garcia who corroborated 

none of the informant’s information. Id. at 483; see also United 

States v. Harju, 466 F.3d 602, 609 (7th Cir. 2006) (explaining 

that police officer’s effort to corroborate informant’s information was reason to apply good-faith exception despite affidavit’s lack of detail).

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Thompson maintains that Officer Lane’s affidavit does not 

go far enough in establishing the informant’s credibility because, according to Thompson, even someone with almost no 

knowledge of drug trafficking could purchase marijuana in 

the area of Peoria where the informant made the controlled 

buy. And, Thompsons continues, the affidavit does not say 

whether the information supplied on the other occasion led to 

an arrest for possessing cocaine, the drug involved in this case. 

We don’t understand Thompson’s point; both times authorities trusted the informant to provide information and even 

engage in a drug buy on their behalf. This court and others 

have applied the good-faith exception where the police relied 

on the issuing judge’s conclusion that a history of supplying 

information leading to controlled buys, arrests, or convictions 

sufficiently demonstrated an informant’s credibility. 

See Searcy, 664 F.3d at 1123; Garcia, 528 F.3d at 483, 487; United 

States v. Thomas, 605 F.3d 300, 308, 311 (6th Cir. 2010); United 

States v. Quezada-Enriquez, 567 F.3d 1228, 1231, 1235 (10th Cir. 

2009); United States v. Gabrio, 295 F.3d 880, 883 (8th Cir. 2002). 

Accordingly, even if probable cause was lacking, the evidence properly was admitted under the good-faith exception. 

The government would be well advised, however, not to confuse this decision with an endorsement of Officer Lane’s affidavit.

AFFIRMED.

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