Opinion ID: 196972
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Staleness Claim

Text: 26 The district court elected to bypass the merits of the staleness claim that the Graffam affidavit afforded no substantial basis for a probable cause finding that Zayas either resided or conducted drug operations within a reasonably recent time frame at 16 Holbrook Road. See Zayas-Diaz, No. 94-30-01-B, slip op. at 7. Leon allows the trial court, in its informed discretion, to bypass the customary merits inquiry into whether there existed a substantial basis for the probable cause determination made by the issuing magistrate, and simply decide instead whether the challenged search in all events came within the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. Leon, 468 U.S. at 925, 104 S.Ct. at 3421; see Gates, 462 U.S. at 264-65, 103 S.Ct. at 2346-47 (White, J., concurring); see, e.g., United States v. Manning, 79 F.3d 212, 221 (1st Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 147, 136 L.Ed.2d 93 (1996); Craig, 861 F.2d at 820 (discussing principles of judicial restraint and precedent affecting Leon bypass determinations). 8
27 The instant Leon good faith analysis fundamentally depends upon the probable cause concept itself. See supra Section II.A.1. The commission and nexus elements in the probable cause analysis each include a temporal component. The issuing magistrate must not only consider the accuracy and reliability of the historical facts related in the affidavits, but must determine, inter alia, whether the totality of the circumstances reasonably inferable from the affidavits demonstrates a fair probability that evidence material to the commission of the probable crime will be disclosed at the search premises at about the time the search warrant would issue, rather than at some remote time. See Sgro v. United States, 287 U.S. 206, 210, 53 S.Ct. 138, 140, 77 L.Ed. 260 (1932); United States v. Wilkinson, 926 F.2d 22, 27 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1211, 111 S.Ct. 2813, 115 L.Ed.2d 985 (1991). 28 As the more serious challenge to the Graffam affidavit focuses on its allegedly stale information, thus arguably describing events that occurred at some remote earlier time, see Bucuvalas, 970 F.2d at 940, we devote particular attention to the contemporaneity of the attested facts relating to Zayas' connection with 16 Holbrook Road at or about the time the search warrant issued on March 4, 1994. As already noted, however, ultimately the probable cause analysis takes into account the totality of the circumstances reasonably inferable from the reliable facts set forth in the Graffam affidavit. Thus, a weak showing on a particular factor may be offset by more compelling evidence on another relevant factor in the probable cause analysis. See supra Section II.A.1. 29 Once the trial court elects to bypass the merits and proceed with the Leon analysis, moreover, the probable cause focus shifts. Since no deterrent purpose is served by sanctioning objectively reasonable law enforcement conduct, see United States v. Ricciardelli, 998 F.2d 8, 15 (1st Cir.1993) (citation omitted), the extreme sanction of exclusion is inapplicable to evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant obtained in an objectively reasonable manner from a neutral magistrate, even assuming the warrant or supporting affidavits were defective, see Leon, 468 U.S. at 921, 926, 104 S.Ct. at 3419, 3422. 30 The Supreme Court employed four exemplars in Leon to outline the ongoing role it envisioned for exclusionary rule deterrence in circumstances where evidence is seized pursuant to a search warrant: (1) the magistrate is misled by information in an affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard for the truth; (2) the magistrate wholly abandon[s] his [detached and neutral] judicial role; (3) the warrant is so facially deficient [e.g., failing to list, with sufficient particularity, the evidence to be seized] ... that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid; or (4) the supporting affidavits are  'so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.'  Id. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3421 (citing Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 610-11, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2265, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring in part)). The instant Leon dispute implicates only the latter category. 9 31 With respect to the critical temporal nexus, Zayas contends that the Graffam affidavit contained only stale information that he resided or conducted drug operations at 16 Holbrook Road, since the second CI did not specify when he last visited Zayas there. Absent other reliable evidence of a discernible temporal nexus, says Zayas, it was entirely unreasonable for the executing officers to rely on the Graffam affidavit as an adequate basis for the required probable cause showing. See id. This challenge likewise impermissibly depends, in part, upon the implicit assumption that the second CI misdescribed exterior features of the premises, but see supra Section II.A, despite the substantially contemporaneous aerial surveillance which essentially corroborated the description given by the second CI, and notwithstanding Graffam's vouching for the second CI's reliability. 32 The lone respect in which this aspect of Zayas' Leon challenge differs from that discussed above, see supra Section II.A, is its focus on Graffam's undeniable failure to ascribe in the affidavit an approximate date to the second CI's last visit with Zayas at 16 Holbrook Road. At this juncture it is important to note that the government must establish objectively reasonable reliance on a defective warrant, see, e.g., Leon, 468 U.S. at 924, 104 S.Ct. at 3421, based on all the circumstances, id. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3420; Ricciardelli, 998 F.2d at 15. Moreover, though the clear error standard governs our review of any findings of fact, see, e.g., United States v. Jackson, 67 F.3d 1359, 1366 (8th Cir.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1684, 134 L.Ed.2d 785 (1996), the ultimate determination as to whether the executing officers acted in objectively reasonable reliance on a defective warrant is reviewed de novo. United States v. Procopio, 88 F.3d 21, 28 (1st Cir.1996). 10 33 Were the critical time element presently under discussion otherwise indiscernible within the four corners of the Graffam affidavit, see Bucuvalas, 970 F.2d at 940, the government might well have been unable to save the evidence seized at 16 Holbrook Road. See, e.g., United States v. Huggins, 733 F.Supp. 445, 449 (D.D.C.1990) (Leon doctrine unavailing where court could not infer, from information within the four corners of the affidavit ... the time during which the criminal activity was observed) (citing Herrington v. State, 287 Ark. 228, 697 S.W.2d 899, 900-01 (1985)). Ostensibly, the second CI's statement that he had visited with Zayas at 16 Holbrook Road on several occasions is a prime example of undated stale information, which raises the specter that officers with information of questionable recency [may] escape embarrassment by simply omitting averments as to time. Rosencranz v. United States, 356 F.2d 310, 316 (1st Cir.1966). Moreover, as the government all but conceded at oral argument, it would seem that a reasonably well-trained law enforcement officer should be familiar with the fundamental legal principle that both the commission and nexus elements of probable cause include an essential temporal component. See Leon, 468 U.S. at 920, n. 20, 104 S.Ct. at 3419, n. 20. Without necessarily endorsing their sufficiency, we acknowledge that the circumstantial considerations relied upon by the district court, see supra note 10, are relevant to the required nexus between the date the second CI visited with Zayas at 16 Holbrook Road and the date the search warrant issued. 34 Fortunately for the government, other circumstantial indicia buttress the required temporal link. The analysis suggested by Zayas disregards salient inferences which well-trained, objectively reasonable law enforcement officers might draw from the totality of the circumstances disclosed in the Graffam affidavit. See Gates, 462 U.S. at 238, 103 S.Ct. at 2332 (requiring practical, common-sense probable cause assessments by issuing magistrates and reviewing courts). Thus, Zayas adroitly skews the focus of the Leon debate, from whether a well-trained officer reasonably could have relied upon a search warrant based on the evidence described in the Graffam affidavit as well as all fair inferences therefrom, to whether a well-trained officer would have known that supporting affidavits whenever practicable should provide at least approximate dates for pivotal events such as the second CI's last visit with Zayas at 16 Holbrook Road. 35 While Zayas would win the latter debate hands-down, he loses the former under Leon 's objectively reasonable officer test because the Graffam affidavit describes a collocation of circumstances, as well as expert law-enforcement insights, adequate to enable the recency of the critical last visit by the second CI to be fairly inferred. See United States v. Jewell, 60 F.3d 20, 23 (1st Cir.1995) (citing totality of the circumstances test, and rejecting defendant's invitation to engage in a piecemeal examination of the affidavit, and [to] base our review of the clerk-magistrate's actions on ' bits and pieces of information in isolation ' ) (citation omitted). First, the Graffam affidavit afforded ample basis for finding the second CI trustworthy. 11 See supra Section II.A. Second, the link with 16 Holbrook Road, whether as Zayas' residence or drug operation site, plainly satisfied the probable cause standard. All that remained was the temporal component of the commission and nexus elements. See supra pp. 112-13. 36 As to the commission element, the ongoing nature of Zayas' cocaine trafficking activities in the Manchester area was amply demonstrated in the supporting affidavit: first, by Sosa's admission that Zayas had supplied the six ounces of cocaine seized from Sosa's residence on January 26, 1994, the date of Sosa's arrest; and by the second CI, who informed the Manchester police on February 24, 1994--twelve days before the challenged search--that Zayas, alias Juan, currently controls cocaine distribution at various Manchester business establishments, including the Oasis Social Club. See supra Section I.A.1. 37 As to the nexus element, the pivotal linkage was the second CI's statement that Juan lives in Bedford, where on several occasions the second CI had visited Juan and seen cocaine and cash in substantial quantities. Though imprecise, these temporal references were related by the second CI in the present tense, which at the very least would permit an objectively reasonable officer to infer that the occurrences described were substantially contemporaneous with the second CI's interview, which in turn took place within twelve days of the warrant application. The second CI's description of various exterior features of 16 Holbrook Road, as substantially corroborated by virtually contemporaneous aerial surveillance, likewise lent to the probability that his last visit had been relatively recent, rather than remote in time. The few minor discrepancies in the second CI's descriptive account were by no means necessarily attributable to a substantial time lapse. See Schaefer, 87 F.3d at 567 (noting that magistrate may reasonably choose to ... disregard petty inconsistencies in informants' statements). Finally, the second CI made statements that plainly imply regular, ongoing transactions at 16 Holbrook Road, e.g., that [S]panish males arrived every Tuesday at the Bedford residence in automobiles bearing New York license plates. 38 Absent any indication or suggestion that Graffam purposely withheld more precise temporal references adverse to the warrant application, see supra note 9, it would be pure speculation to credit Zayas' implicit premise that the last visit the second CI had with Zayas at 16 Holbrook Road was necessarily remote in time even though there was probable cause to believe that Zayas was still trafficking cocaine less than two weeks before the search. See, e.g., id. at 568 ([I]t is common ground that drug conspiracies tend to be ongoing operations, rendering timely [two- or three-year-old] information that might, in other contexts, be regarded as stale.); United States v. Hernandez, 80 F.3d 1253, 1259 (9th Cir.1996) (With respect to drug trafficking, probable cause may continue for several weeks, if not months, [from] the last reported instance of suspect activity.); United States v. Smith, 9 F.3d 1007, 1014 (2d Cir.1993) (weeks or months); Rivera v. United States, 928 F.2d 592, 602 (2d Cir.1991) (noting that in drug trafficking cases, information may be weeks or months old). Finally, it is one thing to find use of the past tense lived insufficient to indicate a current residence, as Zayas urges; quite another to equate lives with lived. See supra Section I.A.2. It is one matter to find the term dealt inadequate to indicate current drug dealing; quite another to equate deals with dealt. See id. 39 To this must be added the weight due Graffam's insights into drug trafficking modi operandi, based on more than two decades as a DEA agent. See supra Subsections I.A.4 & I.A.5. Given Graffam's expertise, it would be objectively unreasonable to conclude, as Zayas simply presumes, that mere stoppage of postal deliveries and electrical utility services, or the use, listing, and/or maintenance of other residential addresses, or nominee owners such as Brenda Koehler, compelled an inference that Zayas was no longer residing, conducting drug operations, or keeping illicit drug-related records, at 16 Holbrook Road. Thus, in no sense would it have been objectively unreasonable for a well-trained police officer to believe there was a fair probability that these developments were subterfuges prompted by Sosa's recent arrest and designed to prevent detection, as the Graffam affidavit indicated. See id. III