Opinion ID: 6497731
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Leon Good Faith Issue

Text: Minneapolis police investigated Randle for selling crack cocaine while he was on supervised release for a prior federal offense. After conducting a controlled buy, Minneapolis Police Officer Efrem Hamilton applied for a warrant to search a home on Vera Cruz Lane in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota that Randle listed as his supervised release address. The warrant was issued and executed that day. Randle arrived with the search underway. Police seized 308 grams of crack cocaine and related evidence from the home and from bags carried by Randle. After indictment, he moved to suppress this evidence. 1 The Honorable Ann D. Montgomery, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota. -2- Officer Hamilton’s warrant affidavit first recited his experience in narcotics investigations and described his investigation of Randle and the Brooklyn Park home: Your Affiant received information from a Confidential Reliable Informant (CRI) that a male is selling crack cocaine in and around the city of Minneapolis MN. Through various investigative techniques, your affiant positively identified the male as Johntez Leondus RANDLE []. Your affiant has had many interactions with RANDLE including arrests and undercover crack cocaine buys from RANDLE. RANDLE is currently on U.S. Probation and on Supervised Release. RANDLE has [] Vera Cruz Lane Brooklyn Park, MN listed as his reported address until 03/08/2021. After reciting the CRI’s past reliability, Officer Hamilton described the CRI’s controlled buy of crack cocaine from Randle “[w]ithin the past 72 hours”: CRI contacted RANDLE and a short time later RANDLE arrived inside . . . a silver 2008 Audi Q7 Sports Utility Vehicle which is registered to him in the DMV/DVS records. CRI made contact with RANDLE who was the front seat passenger. . . . RANDLE sold a quantity of suspected crack cocaine that later field tested positive to CRI in exchange for the pre-recorded buy funds. CRI returned and presented to your Affiant an amount of suspected crack cocaine that they purchased. Your affiant showed the CRI a color photo of RANDLE and they confirmed that RANDLE is the person that they bought the field tested positive crack cocaine while in an area of Minneapolis. Your Affiant and assisting Officers followed RANDLE as he drove from the City of Minneapolis to his home located at [] Vera Cruz Lane, Brooklyn Park, MN. Later, your Affiant field screened a small amount of the purchased suspected crack cocaine, and it field screened positive for cocaine. . . . -3- Adopting findings in the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, the district court found that Hamilton’s affidavit contained “sufficient facts to establish probable cause that Randle was engaging in the sale of narcotics and that he likely lived at the [Vera Cruz] Residence.” In addition to probable cause that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found, “there must be evidence of a nexus between the contraband and the place to be searched.” United States v. Tellez, 217 F.3d 547, 550 (8th Cir. 2000). Here, the district court concluded, the affidavit did not create a “fair probability that evidence of Randle’s alleged drug trafficking activities would be found at the Residence.” The affidavit did not include Officer Hamilton’s statement that in his professional judgment drug traffickers typically keep narcotics in their home. See United States v. Ross, 487 F.3d 1120, 1123 (8th Cir. 2007). In addition, the affidavit “did not state that Officer Hamilton followed Randle to the Residence directly after the controlled buy” and failed to specify when the officers started following Randle. The court nonetheless denied Randle’s motion to suppress because the “Leon good-faith exception clearly applies.” Under this exception to the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule, “disputed evidence will be admitted if it was objectively reasonable for the officer executing a search warrant to have relied in good faith on the judge’s determination that there was probable cause to issue the warrant.” Grant, 490 F.3d at 632. We will assume without deciding that the warrant affidavit lacked a sufficient showing of nexus and turn to consideration of the officers’ good faith. See United States v. Carpenter, 341 F.3d 666, 669 (8th Cir. 2003). The objective good faith inquiry requires analysis of “whether a reasonably well trained officer would have known that the search was illegal despite the [issuing judge’s] authorization.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 922 n.23. The good faith exception does not apply when “an affidavit [is] so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.” Id. at 923 (quotation omitted). -4- In Carpenter, we noted that “‘[e]ntirely unreasonable’ is not a phrase often used by the Supreme Court.” 341 F.3d at 670. Given this “particularly strong choice of words,” we held that the Leon good faith exception applied. Despite the warrant affidavit’s “multiple alleged infirmities,” we concluded “that the cumulative effect of the information set forth in the affidavit provides an adequate basis for finding that Officer Shoemaker’s reliance [on the warrant] was reasonable.” Id. at 668, 670. Regarding the alleged lack of facts showing a nexus between the residence and suspected contraband, we observed that, “[a]s a matter of common sense, it is logical to infer that someone in possession of valuable contraband would store that contraband in a safe, accessible location such as his or her residence.” Id. at 671. We distinguished our prior decision in United States v. Herron, 215 F.3d 812 (8th Cir. 2000), on which Randle heavily relies, because “the affidavit to support the warrant [in Herron] focused suspicion of illegal activity solely on a separate suspect.” 341 F.3d at 672. Like the district court, we conclude that the information in the Hamilton affidavit -- that Randle was engaged in drug trafficking, including the controlled buy by a CRI -- “allows for a reasonable inference that Randle was trafficking drugs and might be storing ‘valuable contraband’ in his home.” We view the failure of Hamilton’s affidavit to recite that in his judgment drug dealers often store contraband in their home to be “a technical legal deficiency.” Herron, 215 F.3d at 814. After the controlled buy, the affidavit recited that officers followed Randle to his home on Vera Cruz Lane. Thus, it was not “entirely unreasonable” to rely on the warrant providing probable cause to search the home for “valuable contraband” he was storing. The district court did not err in concluding that the Leon good faith exception applies and denying the motion to suppress.