### In the 

# United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

____________________ No. 19

- 2802
U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA , Plaintiff

- Appellee ,

v.

F INAS J. G LENN , Defendant

- Appellant

.

____________________ Appeal from the Unit ed States District Court for the Central District of Illinois

. No. 18

- cr

- 20061

— James E. Shadid
, Judge

.

____________________
A RGUED J ULY 7, 2020

— D ECIDED J ULY 20, 2020

____________________

Before S YKES , Chief Judge , and E ASTERBROOK and K ANNE , Circuit Judges

. E ASTERBROOK , Circuit Judge

. Police investiga ting drug trafficking in Vermil ion County, Illinois, sent an informant to buy two ounces of cocaine at the home of Finas Glenn. The transaction was recorded on audio and video. About a month later the police asked for a warra nt to search Glenn’s home. A state judge put agent Pat Alblinger under oath, took2 No. 19

- 2802

his testimony (which was recorded), and issued a warrant. A search turned up cocaine and guns

. Indicted on drug and weapons charges, Glenn moved to suppress the evidence seiz ed in the search. A district judgeheld a hearing and concluded that the warrant was supported by probable cause. 2019 U.S. Dist. L EXIS 89507 (C.D. Ill. May 29, 2019). Glenn then pleaded guilty to one firearms charge, see 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1), and the pros ecutor dismissed the remaining counts. The plea reserved Glenn’s right to contest on appeal the denial of his motion t o suppress. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2). The judge sentenced Glenn to 102 months’ imprisonment.
A judge in a criminal prosecution must a fford “great deference” to the probable

- cause finding by the judge who issued a warrant. See Illinois v. Gates , 462 U.S. 213, 236 (1983 ); United States v. McIntire , 516 F.3d 576 (7th Cir. 2008). That norm is as applicable to warrants based on live testimon y as it is to warrants based on affidavits. See United States v. Pa?on , 962 F.3d 972 (7th Cir. 2020)

. This warrant rests on the “controlled buy” plus Alblinger’s testimony that th e informant had for more than a decade provided reliable infor mation . Glenn contends that this is not enough to show probable cause, because Alblinger did not tell the state judge whether agents had searched the informant be fore the transaction , that the informant had a long criminal record and was cooperating to earn lenience,

an d that the informant’s record of providing accurate information was with the local police as a whole rather than with Alblinger personally. Like the district judge, we think these omissions unfortunate. But they do not negate probable cause, when, as Gates requires, the evidence is viewed as aNo. 19

- 2802 3

whole and the federal court gives the state judge great deference.The principal reason to search an informant before a controlled buy is to make sure that he does not try to trick the investigators by providing the d rugs himself and then asserting that he bo ught them from the target . It is possible that

some sleight of hand might be practiced even when a transaction is recorded, but the audio and visual record of this transaction would have allowed a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. Probable cause is a lower standard. TheFourth Amendment does not require best practices in criminal investi gations. T hat the agents could have managed this controlled buy to provide an even higher level of confidence does not imply that probable cause is missing.
Given the audio and video evidence of the controlledbuy, the informant’s reliability and motivations are not material to the existence of probable cause. Gates observed that these considerations can be import ant to the total mix of information, which is why police do well to provide details to the judge asked to issue a warrant, but the omissions do not detract from the powerful audio and video evidence.Glenn contends that the evidence provided by the control led buy was stale by the time the agents searched his house. Yet the passage of time does not necessarily imply that a retail site for drug sales has ceased to be so. See United States v. Lamon , 930 F.2d 1183, 11 87

– 88 (7th Cir. 1991). If the house had been sold in the interim, or if there were some reason to think that Glenn had changed h is line of business, then the passage of time would provide reason to doubt the inference that a place used to distribute drugs in the recent past is still used for that pu rpose. But there is no such evi-4 No. 19

- 2802

dence. To the contrary, in an interview shortly before agent Alblinger applied for the warrant, Glenn conceded that he sold cocaine from his home

— and although Glenn said that he sold only “small quantities,” retail drug sales are retail drug sales. Alblinger did not present this confession to the state judge, so it does not factor into the finding of probable cause, but it negates any possibility that Alblinger knew that the information after the controlled buy implied that Gl enn’s house no longer contained cocaine. Alblinger told the federalcourt that the delay was designed to prevent Glenn from inferring the informant’s identity. That’s a good reason to wait, and Glenn was not injured by the delay.
A FFIRMED