UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. No. 96-4433

PAMELA LAVERN WILLIAMS,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of South Carolina, at Greenville.

William B. Traxler, Jr., District Judge.

(CR-95-1011)

Submitted: October 17, 1996

Decided: October 29, 1996

Before MURNAGHAN and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and

BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

Michele S. Nelson, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Greenville,

South Carolina, for Appellant. J. Rene Josey, United States Attorney,

Harold W. Gowdy, III, Assistant United States Attorney, Greenville,

South Carolina, for Appellee.

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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See

Local Rule 36(c).

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OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Pamela Williams appeals her conviction for possessing with the

intent to distribute cocaine base, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (1994). She

argues that the district court erred by denying her motion to suppress

evidence seized from her residence pursuant to a search warrant. Williams contends that the warrant was not supported by probable cause

and that the "good faith exception" under United States v. Leon, 468

U.S. 897, 920-22 (1984), does not apply. We affirm.

On October 20, 1995, Officer Joyce Huff of the Spartanburg City

Police Department accompanied an informant to Williams' residence

to monitor a controlled purchase of crack cocaine from Williams. The

informant had earlier approached the police with information concerning Williams' drug selling activities, in the hopes of having certain outstanding traffic charges reduced. Officer Huff gave the

informant $20, searched him and found no drugs on his person,

watched him enter Williams' residence, and monitored the drug transaction by radio, made possible because the informant was wearing a

transmitter. Officer Huff watched the informant leave Williams' residence and come directly back to the officer's car. The informant

handed Officer Huff a rock of crack cocaine which he said he purchased from Williams. Officer Huff searched the informant and found

no other drugs.

In her affidavit submitted to a state magistrate, Officer Huff stated

that a confidential informant had made a controlled drug purchase,

that she (Huff) had witnessed the informant go into the residence and

listened to him make a twenty-dollar purchase of crack cocaine by

electronic surveillance. Huff further stated that she had received information in the past that crack cocaine had been sold at the residence.

Officers executing the warrant at Williams' residence found 6.24

grams of cocaine in Williams' young granddaughter's pants pocket.

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A jury convicted Williams and she was sentenced to ninety months

in prison.

Williams claims that the search warrant was not supported by probable cause and that, therefore, the district court should have suppressed the drugs seized from her residence. Specifically, Williams

contends that the warrant should not have been issued because Huff

did not state in her affidavit that she had never used the informant

before, nor did she disclose information regarding the informant's

criminal history or the fact that he was arrested later in the same day

and found in possession of a small amount of crack cocaine. The

informant testified during Williams' trial that he was unaware of the

cocaine found on him and that it apparently had broken off of what

he had purchased from Williams earlier in the day.

A district court's determination of probable cause to issue a search

warrant is reviewed de novo. United States v. Miller, 925 F.2d 695,

698 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 833 (1991). However, "great

deference" is accorded the magistrate's assessment of the facts presented to him and this court asks only whether the magistrate had a

substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed. United

States v. Blackwood, 913 F.2d 139, 142 (4th Cir. 1990) (quoting

Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410 (1969)). Whether probable

cause existed to support a warrant is determined by a "totality-of-thecircumstances" test. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983). It is well

established that information received from an informant which, in and

of itself, does not establish probable cause may be sufficiently corroborated by independent police work to support the issuance of a search

warrant. See, e.g., United States v. Miller, 925 F.2d at 698 ("An informant's tip is rarely adequate on its own to support a finding of probable cause."); United States v. Blackwood, 913 F.2d at 142 (upholding

issuance of warrant where "[t]he information presented to the magistrate detailed the fruits of [police officer's] effort to corroborate the

initially vague information he received").

We find that the controlled purchase from Williams sufficiently

corroborated the "initially vague" information received from the

informant and that, therefore, the warrant was properly issued. The

omissions cited by Williams (concerning the informant's reliability)

were immaterial to a finding of probable cause. See Blackwood, 913

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F.2d at 142-43 ("Rather, those contentions, considered individually

and in the aggregate, invite us to engage in just the kind of hypertechnical scrutiny of immaterial omissions in the affidavit that the

Supreme Court has expressly condemned.").

Because we find that the search warrant here was properly supported by probable cause, we need not address the"good faith" exception under Leon. Accordingly, we affirm. We dispense with oral

argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the

decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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