Opinion ID: 2975934
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Reliability of a Confidential Informant

Text: Our cases have identified three categories of informants: (1) named informants; (2) confidential informants, who are known to the affiant but not to the magistrate; and (3) anonymous informants, who 9 are known to no one but the informant. Whereas naming an informant is often, but not always, an indicator of reliability, 2 WAYNE R. LA FAVE, SEARCH AND SEIZURE § 3.3(c) at 136 (4th ed. 2004), the police must find other ways to bolster the tips of the other, confidential or anonymous, informants. For instance, we demand consideration of an informant’s “veracity, reliability, and ‘basis of knowledge’” when dealing with a confidential informant, as we are in this case. Rodriguez-Suazo, 346 F.3d at 646 (quoting United States v. Smith, 182 F.3d 473, 477 (6th Cir. 1999)). These factors are not evaluated independently; rather, the presence of more of one factor makes the others less important. For instance, the more reliable the informant, the less detail the informant must provide in his tips before a magistrate can find probable cause. See Gates, 462 U.S. at 233. In its brief, the government leans heavily upon Allen. We conclude, however, that Allen is inapposite, because although Allen suggested that a magistrate may find probable cause where an affiant simply attests to the reliability of the informant, Allen involved a named informant, not a confidential informant. Allen, 211 F.3d at 976. Our post-Allen confidential informant cases, in contrast, have continued our pre-Allen approach of demanding that an affidavit demonstrate more than simply blind faith in the words of an affiant who claims his unnamed informant is reliable. For example, in Rodriguez-Suazo, even though the officer’s confidential informant had provided prior tips that resulted in over three arrests and convictions, the police still conducted some (albeit minimal) corroboration of the tip in question. 346 F.3d at 646-47. Similarly, in United States v. May, 399 F.3d 817 (6th Cir. 2005), we held that the tip of an unnamed confidential informant can support a finding of probable cause when “the issuing judge had before him ‘additional evidence [that] buttressed the informant’s information.’” 399 F.3d at 824 (quoting United States v. Williams, 224 F.3d 530, 532 (6th Cir. 2000)). One piece of additional evidence that the May court considered was that the informant had provided reliable information in the past, but we also considered the independent corroboration by the police. See also United States v. Williams, 224 F.3d 530, 532-33 (6th Cir. 2000) (finding probable cause from an affidavit that relied on 10 a confidential informant who had previously provided information leading to arrests and convictions, but where the affiant also mentioned his own personal knowledge regarding the sale of drugs at the location to be searched and the affiant separately informed the issuing judge about police surveillance of the residence), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1095 (2001). Applying this precedent, we conclude that the issuing chancellor had a substantial basis to conclude that there was probable cause to believe that a search of Ferguson’s residence would yield evidence of criminal conduct. Officer Harrison did not name his confidential informant for the chancellor; thus, in evaluating the reliability of the tip and the existence of probable cause, the chancellor required additional bolstering information. In this case, the officer attested to the confidential informant’s prior successful assistance five previous times and also discussed his own efforts at corroborating elements of the confidential informant’s tip. These two factors combine to provide a substantial basis for the issuing chancellor’s probable-cause determination.4 C. The Generality of the Confidential Informant’s Tip Additionally, Ferguson urges this court to overturn the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress because the confidential informant “only gave general information, not explicit and detailed information of any wrongdoing.” Appellant Br. at 7. In particular, the Appellant suggests that there can be no probable cause when the informant does not provide specific dates of sales, the names of buyers, the location of the drugs, or specific details about the home or car mentioned in the tip. Id. 4 Because the confidential informant in this case had provided a significant level of prior and accurate assistance in the past, we need not consider the concern that Officer Harrison corroborated only innocent facts. See LA FAVE, § 3.3(f) at 189 (“[A] lesser quantum of corroboration may be legitimately relied upon in combination with other circumstances tending to show veracity even if no one of them alone would suffice.”). Had the confidential informant not had a track-record of veracity and reliability, we would be required to resolve at what point the “corroboration of a very few nonsuspicious and easily predictable events should not suffice.” Id. at 187-88. 11 Although an affidavit “‘must contain adequate supporting facts about the underlying circumstances to show that probable cause exists for the issuance of the warrant,’” United States v. Gardiner, 463 F.3d 445, 470 (6th Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Weaver, 99 F.3d 1372, 1377 (6th Cir. 1996)), we have never required the level of detail that Ferguson demands. The Allen court, for example, upheld a finding of probable cause when the informant claimed there were drugs at a named location and that the informant had personally observed the drugs within seventy-two hours of the tip. Allen, 211 F.3d at 971-72. The informant’s tip in Allen, similar to Harrison’s informant’s tip, lacked many specifics; the warrant was not specific as to the amount of cocaine and there was no explanation of how the informant was able to identify the powder as cocaine. Id. at 975; see also Rodriguez-Suazo, 346 F.3d at 647 (upholding a finding of probable cause where the informant did not offer details on prior drug sales he supposedly witnessed, but did note that he had witnessed the suspect in a drug sale within the last forty-eight hours); Williams, 224 F.3d at 531-33 (upholding a finding of probable cause where the informant stated only that he had observed the suspect in possession of cocaine at the residence in the last seventy-two hours). Our evaluation of the specificity of an informant’s tip is not an independent consideration; the level of generality is but one factor that the issuing magistrate must consider in the probable-cause determination that we have already discussed here. We conclude that in this case, although the confidential informant did not provide certain specifics, he did claim to have seen a drug sale within five days of his tip, and this level of generality is not, by itself, fatal to the chancellor’s finding of probable cause.