Opinion ID: 2959836
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Time to Procure a Warrant

Text: The district court made much of the fact that a substantial amount of time had passed between the intercepted phone calls, the initiation of surveillance of the defendants and the vehicle searches. With respect to Howard,1 the district court noted that investigators knew of his involvement in the drug trafficking conspiracy by April 26, 2004, because of phone calls they had intercepted. The investigators were aware of Howard’s participation in the particular drug transaction at issue at least as early as May 19, 2004, at 1:50 p.m., when an intercepted call indicated that Howard was planning a drug deal. There were three more intercepted calls over the next twenty hours, and surveillance began the following day, continuing until the traffic stop at approximately 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. The alleged narcotics transaction took place some time shortly after 4:45 p.m., meaning that one to two more hours transpired between observation of the alleged narcotics transaction and the traffic stop. Based on this passage of time, the district court found that there was “no way that it could be said that insufficient time had elapsed in which to present the facts to a neutral magistrate and obtain a search warrant.” Howard, 406 F. Supp. 2d at 224. The district court made a similar finding with respect to Williams, who was implicated in the drug conspiracy as early as April 23, 2004. With regard to the particular transaction giving rise to the traffic stop, Williams was being surveilled beginning 4:30 a.m. on the morning of June 1, 2004, and, by about 6:30 a.m., inspectors deduced that he was driving his mother’s car to 1 The district court did not make particularized findings concerning the timing of police surveillance of Restifo. -17- procure cocaine in New York City. An intercepted call indicated that Williams was leaving New York City at approximately 9:30 p.m. to return to Schnectady. As the district court noted, “[a]t this point, about 16 hours had elapsed since the surveillance started. At least several hours elapsed between when it was deduced that Williams was in the process of purchasing cocaine in New York City and probably was driving a gold Stratus, and when his vehicle was stopped.” Id. at 225. There was yet another hour between the positive identification of Williams in his mother’s gold Stratus and the traffic stop. Once Williams accompanied the police to the barracks, he “was under the complete control of the officers while his vehicle was fully secured by the investigatory team on the Thruway.” Id. The district court further noted that during the time the ruse was being developed, the investigatory team had sufficient time to contact the United States Attorney’s office to discuss its plan, implicitly suggesting that it believed the team could have procured a warrant if it had tried to do so. The passage of so much time suggested to the district court that a warrant could have been procured to search the vehicles, and that the failure to procure one rendered the search constitutionally defective. However, as noted, the Supreme Court has made clear that an automobile “search is not unreasonable if based upon facts that would justify the issuance of a warrant, even though a warrant has not been actually obtained.” Dyson, 527 U.S. at 467 (quoting Ross, 456 U.S. at 809). As discussed above, there was ample probable cause to support these searches, and a disinterested magistrate judge assuredly would have issued a warrant had one been sought. But within the context of the automobile exception, a reasonable search does not become unreasonable because law enforcement officials lacked a warrant. The district court erred in holding to the contrary. -18-