Opinion ID: 2995004
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Obtaining the Search Warrant for Room

Text: 422 at the Stevenson Inn. On June 30, 1999, Whitley and Mitchum were staying in rooms 421 and 422 at the Stevenson Inn Motel in Springfield, Illinois. Local and federal law enforcement officers were investigating the two men for allegedly participating in the sale of cocaine./2 A confidential informant working with the law enforcement officers visited Whitley at the motel shortly after his arrival, and subsequently reported to the officers her belief that Whitley and Mitchum had transported a large quantity of cocaine and cocaine base into the city for sale and distribution. Following the informant’s report, FBI Special Agent Steven Bennett and FBI Special Federal Officer Stephen Welsh/3 took the informant to Springfield Police headquarters to secure a warrant to search Whitley’s motel room, identified by the informant as Room 422 at the Stevenson Inn Motel. Meanwhile, Springfield Police officers Paul Carpenter and Stephen Peters took up positions outside the motel and kept the building under surveillance. In the course of their surveillance the officers observed a woman, later identified as Latisha Benton, enter Whitley’s motel room, stay for a period of time, and shortly thereafter depart in her van. When Benton failed to properly signal for a turn when leaving the motel, Peters notified uniformed support officers and requested a traffic stop. Benton’s car was pulled over by Springfield Police Officer Jeffrey Bivens. Officer Bivens spoke with Benton and during the conversation obtained her consent to search. While executing the search, Bivens discovered twenty-two individually wrapped bags of marijuana in Benton’s purse. Shortly after this discovery was made, Officers Carpenter and Peters arrived at the scene. Benton was questioned by Carpenter about the connection, if any, between the marijuana in her purse and her visit to Whitley’s room at the Stevenson Inn. Benton made it very clear to Carpenter that she had not obtained the marijuana from anyone at the Stevenson Inn, and furthermore that she had the marijuana in her possession prior to her arrival at the motel. Exactly what happened next is the subject of a great amount of confusion. This much is clear: One of the officers present at the scene of Benton’s vehicle stop communicated with either Agent Bennett or Detective Welsh, who were at police headquarters preparing the documents necessary for the issuance of the search warrant for Whitley’s motel room. Welsh and Bennett claim to have been informed by someone that Benton had received the marijuana from Whitley at the Stevenson Inn. Obviously, this information was exactly the opposite of the statement Benton made to Officer Carpenter only minutes before--that she had the marijuana in her possession before arriving at the motel. At the hearing on Whitley’s motion to suppress, none of the officers involved/4 admitted to a clear recollection of who told what to whom concerning the source of Benton’s marijuana. Officer Bivens recalled relaying some information to Agent Bennett and Detective Welsh from the scene of the traffic stop, but he emphatically denied conveying any information regarding the source of Benton’s marijuana. Carpenter recalled discussing with Peters the content of his interview with Benton, and he also remembered stating to Peters that it would have been helpful to the investigation if Benton had received the marijuana from Whitley. Carpenter was certain, however, that he did not relay the content of Benton’s statements to either Welsh or Bennett. Peters was also certain that he never spoke with either Welsh or Bennett regarding any of the information he received at the scene of Benton’s traffic stop. At Whitley’s suppression hearing, Agent Bennett was able to recall very little about the source of the false information other than that he and Welsh were informed by someone at the scene that Benton had received the marijuana from Whitley at the Stevenson Inn. He testified that the information came from a radio or cellular phone communication emanating from either Bivens or Carpenter. Agent Bennett was unable to recall whether the phone or radio call was directed to himself or Detective Welsh, or even which of the two actually heard the fictitious information first. Detective Welsh also had very little recollection regarding the specifics of the communications received from the scene of Benton’s traffic stop. He could not recall which officer was relaying information from the scene, or whether it was Bennett or himself who received the calls. Welsh’s testimony on this point contradicted the information set forth in his sworn warrant affidavit, which positively identified Carpenter as the source of the information concerning Benton’s marijuana. At Whitley’s suppression hearing, Agent Bennett testified that when the confidential informant learned that the information falsely attributed to Benton was going to be incorporated into the warrant affidavit, the informant reacted with surprise at the idea that marijuana was being sold from Whitley’s motel room. The record discloses that the informant had no reason to believe that Whitley and Mitchum were involved with the sale of any controlled substance other than cocaine. Despite the officers’ professed lack of recollection regarding the identity of the officer communicating information concerning the source of Benton’s marijuana, and the exact content of those communications, there is no question that Detective Welsh prepared and signed an affidavit reading in part as follows: I was advised by Officer Paul Carpenter that a black female named Latisha Benton was stopped for a traffic violation in the area of Taylor & Ash Streets, Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois. That pursuant to the stop, officers learned about and found approximately 22 small, Ziploc-type plastic baggies, commonly known on the street as dime-size baggies, containing green leafy substance that field-tested positive for the presence of THC, indicating the substance to be cannabis. That Burton [sic] told officers at the stop that she got the cannabis from a room at the hotel on Stevenson Drive from a male known to her as Q./5 There is no dispute in this case that the final sentence in the above-quoted section of Detective Welsh’s affidavit is untrue. There is also no dispute that the Sangamon County Circuit Court issued a search warrant for Whitley’s motel room (Room 422) based at least in part on the false information contained in Detective Welsh’s affidavit. The search warrant was issued at approximately 8:15 a.m. on June 30, 1999. Officers promptly returned to the motel and spoke with the motel manager, who informed them that Whitley had rented not only Room 422, but also Room 421./6 Faced with a situation in which they possessed a search warrant for one, but not both, of the rooms Whitley rented, officers decided that they would knock on the door to Room 421 and attempt to gain entry by obtaining the consent of whomever answered the door. Once officers had gained entry into Room 421 and believed that there was no threat to their safety, other officers would then serve the search warrant on Room 422. The officers proceeded according to this plan of entry, and the ensuing search of both rooms turned up evidence that Whitley and Mitchum were involved in the sale of cocaine and cocaine base. In view of the fact that they had a search warrant in hand, the officers’ actual entry into and search of Whitley’s room (Room 422) is not an issue in this appeal. However, the officers’ testimony regarding the means by which they gained entry into Room 421 (Mitchum’s room), the premises for which no search warrant had been issued, is pertinent to Whitley’s appeal.