Opinion ID: 196972
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Graffam's Law Enforcement Experience

Text: 14 Finally, based on Graffam's twenty-two years as a DEA agent, the supporting affidavit stated that active drug traffickers commonly: (1) retain for ready reference, in their residences for extended periods, records relating to their ongoing trafficking activities; (2) assume fictitious names or use nominees to avoid detection; (3) establish surveillance at their operational bases to detect law enforcement activity; and (4) attempt to avoid disclosure or discovery of their actual residences and operational bases by suspending mail and telephone service.B. The District Court Proceedings 15 The search conducted pursuant to the challenged warrant disclosed ammunition, cocaine residue, cocaine distributing paraphernalia, substantial cash, and numerous documents detailing Zayas' ongoing cocaine trafficking activities. In due course, Zayas and ten associates, including Brenda Koehler, were charged with conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute. 3 See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846. Zayas and Koehler jointly sought to suppress the evidence seized at 16 Holbrook Road, claiming among other things that the Graffam affidavit did not reflect 16 Holbrook Road as the address at which Juan resided or conducted drug operations and that much crucial information in the affidavit was irredeemably stale. Zayas stressed in particular that the Graffam affidavit, which identified February 24, 1994, as the date upon which the authorities interviewed the second CI, nonetheless failed to state when the second CI last visited with Juan at 16 Holbrook Road. 16 The district court denied the motion to suppress after an evidentiary hearing. United States v. Zayas-Diaz, No. 94-30-01-B, 1995 WL 154841 (D.N.H. Mar. 23, 1995). 4 First, it ruled that the Graffam affidavit contained sufficient information to provide probable cause to believe that Zayas either resided or conducted drug operations at 16 Holbrook Road. Second, without deciding whether the matters affirmed in the Graffam affidavit were sufficiently contemporaneous to afford a substantial basis for the probable cause determination, the district court held the exclusionary rule inapplicable based on the so-called good faith exception. See Leon, 468 U.S. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3421 (holding that the exclusionary rule is not implicated unless, inter alia, the supporting affidavit was so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable). II