Opinion ID: 4289070
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Third factor

Text: With regard to the third Spikes factor—whether the evidence to be seized is of enduring utility to the holder—the government contends that the warrant sought not only controlled substances, but also records of drug trafficking and firearms used in drug trafficking. These latter two categories of evidence, it argues, are likely to endure, even if controlled substances themselves are not. To support this argument, the government relies on United States v. Burney, 778 F.3d 536 (6th Cir. 2015). But Burney is distinguishable from the present case because there was no dispute that the 17-page affidavit in Burney provided sufficient evidence that the property had been used as a stash house for “a large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering operation— . . . a regenerating, enduring criminal enterprise that bears no resemblance to a ‘chance encounter in the night.’” Id. at 538, 541–42. Such an extensive operation was likely to involve “scales, weapons, safes, bagging materials, and the like,” evidence that was “not readily consumable” and thus unlikely to “be consumed or to disappear.” Id. at 541. In his affidavit in the present case, Officer Bush acknowledged the distinction between those who occasionally sell from their own supply—and thus produce little lasting evidence— No. 17-1799 United States v. Christian Page 16 and those who sell regularly for profit using extensive networks that likely involve durable evidence like records and firearms. Although Officer Bush stated in the affidavit that he was seeking records and firearms related to extensive drug-trafficking operations, this statement assumes what the affidavit tried and failed to prove by substantial evidence—that Christian was engaged in organized and extensive drug-trafficking operations likely to involve not only controlled substances, but also records and firearms. Because the government has provided credible evidence of just one sale of an unknown quantity of a controlled substance in January 2015, rather than “a large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering operation,” it failed to provide a reason to believe that records of drug trafficking and firearms would be found at the Residence. Whether those types of evidence are durable is thus irrelevant. And “‘because drugs are usually sold and consumed in a prompt fashion[,]’” evidence of a single drug sale became stale “very quickly” and well before the search was executed eight months later. See United States v. Abernanthy, 843 F.3d 243, 250 (6th Cir. 2016) (quoting Brooks, 594 F.3d at 493); see also Hython, 443 F.3d at 486 (noting the limited evidentiary value of an undated controlled buy absent evidence of any recent drug activity at the residence). Consequently, we find that the third factor weighs in favor of finding the evidence of the controlled buy to be stale.