Opinion ID: 588454
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admissibility of Fruits of Search Warrant

Text: 7 The Fourth Amendment mandates that the issuing authority must have probable cause to issue a search warrant. United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573 (1971). There is no rigid test for a magistrate or other issuing authority to follow in determining whether probable cause exists for issuing a search warrant. Instead, the magistrate must make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the 'veracity' and 'basis of knowledge' of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that the contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983). 8 The affidavit upon which the magistrate issued the search warrant in this case identified the apartment where a confidential police informant had observed a crack cocaine sale within the preceding seventytwo hours. The affiant was a law enforcement officer with extensive police experience in narcotics. He noted that the confidential police informant was reliable and that [e]very investigation this informant ha[d] been utilized in ha[d] resulted in guilty plea or conviction in court. The Appellants contend that the confidential informant's assertion that a single drug sale occurred at the apartment did not establish probable cause that such activity was ongoing. 9 Probable cause that criminal activity is ongoing is not necessary to justify the issuance of a search warrant. However, the affidavit supporting a search warrant must allege criminal activity occurring close enough to the time the warrant is issued to justify a finding of probable cause at that time. Sgro v. United States, 287 U.S. 206, 210 (1932). Probable cause can become stale if there is a significant lapse of time between the observed drug transaction and the issuance of the search warrant. See United States v. Button, 653 F.2d 319, 324-25 (8th Cir. 1981) (affidavit of police officer who received information about drug transactions from information over past six months does not show probable cause that drugs are still in the residence); cf. United States v. Reyes, 798 F.2d 380, 382 (10th Cir. 1986) (where periodic drug violations at several month intervals are alleged, five months old information upon which search warrant was issued was not impermissibly stale). 10 However, where no more than seventy-two hours have passed between the alleged drug transaction and issuance of a search warrant, probable cause does not become stale. United States v. Tellis, 538 F.2d 1254, 1255 (6th Cir. 1976); United States v. Missouri, 644 F. Supp. 108, 111 (E.D. Mich. 1986). Thus, here, where a reliable informant had observed a drug sale within seventy-two hours of the issuance of the search warrant, the information had not become stale and provided the magistrate with a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed that narcotics, drug paraphernalia, or documentation linking people to the observed crack cocaine sale would be found in the apartment.