Opinion ID: 557798
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Challenges to the Validity of the Warrants

Text: 39 Plaintiffs challenge the validity of the warrants principally on the grounds (a) that the information that a cocaine delivery would be received at 143 Bruce on January 8, 1987, was too stale to support a finding of probable cause; (b) that probable cause was in any event lacking for the issuance of an anticipatory warrant; and (c) that the Boylan affidavit contained false or recklessly inaccurate information and omitted information upon which the magistrate would have concluded that there was not probable cause. We reject these arguments. 40 A plaintiff who argues that a warrant was issued on less than probable cause faces a heavy burden. [W]here [the] circumstances are detailed, where reason for crediting the source of the information is given, and when a magistrate has found probable cause, the courts should not invalidate the warrant by interpreting the affidavit in a hypertechnical, rather than a commonsense, manner.... [T]he resolution of doubtful or marginal cases in this area should be largely determined by the preference to be accorded to warrants. United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 109, 85 S.Ct. 741, 746, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965). In particular, where the officer requesting the search warrant relies on an informant, the magistrate's role is to examine the totality of the circumstances and to 41 make a practical, commonsense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the veracity and basis of knowledge of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a substantial basis for ... conclud[ing] that probable cause existed. 42 Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238-39, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2332, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (quoting Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 271, 80 S.Ct. 725, 736, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960)); see United States v. Feliz-Cordero, 859 F.2d 250, 252-53 (2d Cir.1988). 43 In determining whether probable cause exists, the magistrate is required to assess whether the information adduced in the application appears to be current, i.e., true at the time of the application, or whether instead it has become stale. 44 [T]he principal factors in assessing whether or not the supporting facts have become stale are the age of those facts and the nature of the conduct alleged to have violated the law. Where the supporting affidavits present a picture of continuing conduct or an ongoing activity, as contrasted with isolated instances of illegal acts, the passage of time between the last described act and the presentation of the application becomes less significant. 45 United States v. Martino, 664 F.2d 860, 867 (2d Cir.1981), cert. denied, 458 U.S. 1110, 102 S.Ct. 3493, 73 L.Ed.2d 1373 (1982). In investigations of ongoing narcotics operations, we have held that intervals of weeks or months between the last described act and the application for a warrant did not necessarily make the information stale. See, e.g., id. (22 days); United States v. Fama, 758 F.2d 834, 838 (2d Cir.1985) (5 weeks); United States v. Rowell, 903 F.2d 899, 903 (2d Cir.1990) (18 months). 46 Plaintiffs complain that because the Boylan affidavit did not state when the informant himself learned of the planned delivery, stating only that Boylan had received the information from the informant [i]n the past week, the information might have been quite stale. Given the affidavit's tenor, suggesting an ongoing flow of information from the informant to Boylan, it was within the province of the magistrate to give this statement a commonsense interpretation as meaning that the informant had passed this information to Boylan shortly after receiving it. The magistrate could have inferred that the information was a week old. Any doubts the magistrate may have had as to the recency of the information could have been resolved by inquiry of Boylan, who swore to his affidavit before the magistrate. Further inquiry by the magistrate would have revealed that the information was just under two weeks old. This interval, in light of (a) the continuing nature of the activity and the observations, and (b) our precedents upholding reliance on information 22 days to 18 months old, plainly was not in itself sufficiently long to make the information stale. 47 Plaintiffs' staleness argument combined with their challenge to the warrants on the ground that they were anticipatory gives us somewhat more pause, though we ultimately reject it. An anticipatory warrant ... is a warrant that has been issued before the necessary events have occurred which will allow a constitutional search of the premises. United States v. Garcia, 882 F.2d 699, 702 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 348, 107 L.Ed.2d 336 (1989). We accepted the validity of such warrants in Garcia in the context of a planned controlled delivery of contraband, see also United States v. Wylie, 919 F.2d 969, 974-75 (5th Cir.1990); United States v. Dornhofer, 859 F.2d 1195, 1198 (4th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1005, 109 S.Ct. 1639, 104 L.Ed.2d 155 (1989); United States v. Washington, 852 F.2d 803, 804 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 974, 109 S.Ct. 512, 102 L.Ed.2d 547 (1988); United States v. Hale, 784 F.2d 1465, 1468 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 829, 107 S.Ct. 110, 93 L.Ed.2d 59 (1986), noting that the fact that the contraband is not 'presently located at the place described in the warrant' is immaterial, so long as 'there is probable cause to believe that it will be there when the search warrant is executed.'  United States v. Garcia, 882 F.2d at 702 (quoting United States v. Lowe, 575 F.2d 1193, 1194 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 869, 99 S.Ct. 198, 58 L.Ed.2d 180 (1978)). Such a warrant may be issued if the affidavit submitted in support of the warrant application specifies how [the agent] has obtained [his] belief [that the anticipated narcotics delivery is to occur, and] how reliable his sources are so that a judicial officer may have a substantial basis for concluding that the delivery will occur, and ... there is probable cause to believe that the contraband will be located on the premises when the search takes place. Id. at 703 (emphasis in original). 48 The principal difference between Garcia and the present case is that in Garcia the government planned to make a controlled delivery of narcotics; thus, the fruition of the expectation of the arrival of narcotics on the targeted premises was somewhat within the control of the government. Here, in contrast, the expectation was based on information given to the informant as to a delivery expected in the ordinary course of the drug organization's operations. When the anticipatory warrant is not based on a delivery controlled by the government, there is a greater possibility that the expected drugs will not in fact arrive. In such circumstances, the magistrate should require a particularized showing of strong reason to believe the contraband will in fact be on the targeted premises at the time the warrant is executed. The present case is a close one, and we would have preferred that the record reflect an inquiry by the magistrate focused closely on the likelihood that the expected delivery of cocaine would arrive at 143 Bruce on or before January 7. However, the affidavit showed plainly that the informant was trusted by the coconspirators; for the last several weeks he had been welcomed as a frequent visitor to Molina's apartment, permitted to observe cocaine, to witness repeated sales of large quantities of cocaine, to watch the comings and goings of various coconspirators between apartments, and to be informed directly as to which apartments the narcotics operation controlled. The repeated cocaine sales, revealing a continuity of operation, the informant's continuing access to the premises to make the reported observations, and the permissible inference that Boylan had postponed his application as long as possible in order to be informed of any late change in the anticipated delivery date, allowed the magistrate to conclude that the information was sufficiently fresh notwithstanding the two-week interval. Accordingly, despite the fact that it would have been a prudent exercise of the magistrate's discretion to attempt to elicit from Boylan reason to believe that the December 25 expectation that a large shipment of cocaine would arrive at 143 Bruce on January 7 remained viable, we conclude that in light of all the circumstances discussed above, together with the past seizures of large quantities of cocaine resulting from the informant's information, we cannot say, giving the required deference to the magistrate's determination, that the warrant was invalid because it was anticipatory. 49 Finally, we uphold the summary dismissal of plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims insofar as they rest on the contention that the Boylan affidavit intentionally or recklessly made false statements or omitted material information. In the context of a criminal case, where a magistrate has found that an affidavit presented to him showed that there was probable cause for the issuance of a warrant, a challenge to the veracity of the affidavit merits a hearing only if the challenger makes a substantial preliminary showing that the affiant knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, made a false statement in his affidavit and if the allegedly false statement was necessary to the finding of probable cause. Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 155-56, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 2676, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978); see United States v. Orozco-Prada, 732 F.2d 1076, 1089 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 845, 105 S.Ct. 154, 155, 83 L.Ed.2d 92 (1984); United States v. Barnes, 604 F.2d 121, 151-53 (2d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 907, 100 S.Ct. 1833, 64 L.Ed.2d 260 (1980). Intentional or reckless omissions of material information, like false statements, may serve as the basis for a Franks challenge. See United States v. Campino, 890 F.2d 588, 592 (2d Cir.1989), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1787, 108 L.Ed.2d 788 (1990). Recklessness may be inferred where the omitted information was clearly critical to the probable cause determination. See DeLoach v. Bevers, 922 F.2d 618, 622 (10th Cir.1990); Hale v. Fish, 899 F.2d 390, 400 (5th Cir.1990); United States v. Reivich, 793 F.2d 957, 961 (8th Cir.1986). The Franks standard, established with respect to suppression hearings in criminal proceedings, also defines the scope of qualified immunity in civil rights actions. See Magnotti v. Kuntz, 918 F.2d 364, 367-68 (2d Cir.1990). An officer can have no reasonable grounds for believing that [a] warrant was properly issued [i]f the magistrate or judge in issuing a warrant was misled by information in an affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard of the truth. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 923, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3421, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). Where an officer knows, or has reason to know, that he has materially misled a magistrate on the basis for a finding of probable cause, the shield of qualified immunity is lost. See Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 344-45, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1097-98, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986). 50 Plaintiffs' principal quarrels with the Boylan affidavit are (a) that it did not provide all of the information Boylan possessed with respect to the confidential informant, such as the exact dates of his conversations with Molina; (b) that it masked the fact that all of the informant's information had come from Molina rather than from different members of the Dominican organization; (c) that Boylan somehow misused the information obtained from Con Edison; and (d) that the affidavit's statement that there had been arrests and prosecutions as a result of the informant's prior communications may have been false. The Franks standard is a high one, and we agree with the district court that plaintiffs have not succeeded in meeting it here. 51 We see no problem with the Boylan affidavit's failure to identify the informant, to give the dates of his communications with Molina, to state that information was obtained at a Christmas or New Years' party, or to specify that all of the informant's communications were with Molina. So long as law enforcement agents present adequate information to permit the magistrate to conclude that there is probable cause and do not suppress facts that would cast doubt on its existence, they may properly exclude information that would unduly risk revealing a confidential informant's identity and exposing him or her to harm. See, e.g., United States v. Strini, 658 F.2d 593, 597 (8th Cir.1981) (failure to reveal informant's identity is not a false statement within the contemplation of Franks when the omission was intended not to enhance the contents of the affidavit but to protect the informant). 52 Nor did plaintiffs make any showing of misuse of Con Edison as a source of information. Though plaintiffs seem to criticize, first, any investigation of the utilities records, we find it difficult to fault an agent's attempt to obtain information. Further, while plaintiffs would have us infer that the Boylan affidavit used the negative results of the Con Edison inquiry to bolster the showing of probable cause, the affidavit, read in a commonsense fashion, seems to suggest rather that hoped-for corroboration had not been forthcoming, but that the lack of corroboration was not a negative factor and was merely neutral. Finally, though plaintiffs suggest that additional checking by Boylan would have revealed that none of the plaintiffs was Dominican and that Rivera, the Arces, and the Mendezes had lived at 143 Bruce for some time, those facts would hardly have eliminated probable cause in light of the information that Molina had pointed out or entered these specific apartments in connection with the Dominican organization's drug operations. 53 Finally, plaintiffs' effort to show that the Boylan affidavit misrepresented the results of prior information received from the informant was insufficient. Plaintiffs' attorneys submitted affidavits stating that they had been informed by state prosecutors in the Bronx that the latter had seen no record of court proceedings arising out of the October 1986 events and that AUSA Ferguson advised plaintiffs he had no indication that any of the persons named in Boylan's affidavit had been arrested or charged in the Bronx cases. There are several problems with plaintiffs' proffer. First, the representations as to what the attorneys were told by the Bronx prosecutors are hearsay and thus are not entitled to weight. See, e.g., Wyler v. United States, 725 F.2d 156, 160 (2d Cir.1983). Second, in the absence of more detailed statements, it is impossible to know whether the prosecutors' search was adequate to find records of court proceedings arising out of the October 1986 events; hence their not finding such records may not have been relevant. Third, there was no showing that the absence of an indication that any of the persons named in Boylan's affidavit had been arrested or charged was material, since the Boylan affidavit did not purport to state that the individuals it named were the individuals arrested. Ferguson advised plaintiffs' attorneys and the court of other persons who were arrested. Finally, even if there were no records of court proceedings against anyone, plaintiffs have not managed to cast doubt on the Boylan affidavit's representations that a significant quantity of narcotics was seized and that arrests occurred. Given the lack of any serious challenge to these facts, we could not conclude that the absence of court proceedings would have materially affected the magistrate's determination that there existed probable cause. 54 In sum, we find no error in the district court's rulings that summary judgment was warranted dismissing so much of plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims as were premised on flaws in the warrants or the underlying affidavit.