Opinion ID: 694108
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: January 21 Warrant Search of Motel Rooms

Text: 24 Tapia-Torres argues that the district court should have suppressed evidence seized as a result of the search of her motel rooms at the Lampliter Inn because the search warrant was not supported by probable cause. 25 A magistrate's determination of probable cause to issue a warrant is treated with great deference and is not ... reverse[d] ... unless it is clearly erroneous. United States v. McQuisten, 795 F.2d 858, 861 (9th Cir.1986). The reviewing court must decide whether under the totality of the circumstances the magistrate had a substantial basis for concluding that the affidavit in support of the warrant established probable cause. United States v. Ayers, 924 F.2d 1468, 1478 (9th Cir.1991) (citations omitted). 26 Police submitted a 25-page affidavit in support of the search warrant which detailed a series of observations made by the affiant, the two confidential informants, and other BNE agents and local police officers. 1 27 Tapia-Torres argues that the information was insufficient to constitute probable cause because Amescua had stated that he rented rooms for his workers at the Lampliter Inn but the rooms searched were rented by Tapia-Torres. Tapia-Torres maintains that if Amescua had rented the rooms, probable cause may have existed to search them based on the information in the supporting affidavit. The district court found that even though Amescua was not the registered guest of the rooms, his coming and going from the rooms during a time when police observed drug manufacturing activities, coupled with the information that his workers stayed at the Inn, constituted probable cause to search the rooms. 28 Tapia-Torres also argues that the warrant was based upon stale information, i.e., Amescua's December 1 statement, made six weeks before the search, that he rented rooms for his workers at the Inn. According to Tapia-Torres, the statement did not indicate when he last rented rooms at the Inn. The district court found that the information was not stale in light of the ongoing nature of the enterprise and police corroboration of Amescua's continued presence at the Inn. 29 The district court's findings were proper. Probable cause to search may be established by converging details in an affidavit which form a fair probability that evidence of criminal activity will be found. See United States v. Potter, 830 F.2d 1049, 1052 (9th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 937 (1988); United States v. Kinstler, 812 F.2d 522, 525 (9th Cir.1987). The details set out in the affidavit formed a pattern in which Amescua repeatedly entered the motel rooms during periods of observed methamphetamine production. The personal observations of the officers and their corroboration of the informants' information were sufficient to constitute probable cause to search those rooms whether they were technically registered in the name of Amescua or Tapia-Torres. 30 Furthermore, the lapse of time between Amescua's December 1 statement to the informant and the actual search was not sufficiently significant to render the information stale. Staleness arguments lose much of their force when there is evidence of a firmly entrenched, ongoing narcotics operation. See United States v. Hernandez-Escarsega, 886 F.2d 1560, 1566 (9th Cir.1989) (information of events occurring 20 months before search was not too stale to establish probable cause in light of evidence of widespread, continuous drug enterprise), cert. denied, 497 U.S. 1003 (1990); United States v. Dozier, 844 F.2d 701, 707 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 927 (1988). 31 Therefore, we find that the magistrate had probable cause to issue the search warrant for the rooms. 32