Opinion ID: 2837800
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motion to Suppress Evidence from the Apartment

Text: Monell renews his challenge to the search warrant, claiming that the warrant lacked probable cause, and that the goodfaith exception to the exclusionary rule should not apply. His argument relies primarily on a discrepancy between the criminal conduct described in the supporting affidavit (illegal use of a firearm) and the items to be searched for (evidence of illegally possessed firearms). In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we review the district court's ultimate probable cause and good faith determinations de novo. United States v. Brunette, 256 F.3d 14, 16-17 (1st Cir. 2001). We review the district court's factual findings for clear error. United States v. Woodbury, 511 F.3d 93, 96 (1st Cir. 2007). - 4 -
On February 16, 2012, Detective William Falandys (Detective Falandys) applied for and received a no-knock warrant to search apartment number four in a multi-unit dwelling at 696 North Main Street in Fall River. The primary evidence in support of probable cause for the search came from two confidential informants, whose information was set forth in Detective Falandys's attached and incorporated affidavit. The first confidential informant (CI-1) had previously provided information that led to at least two arrests and the seizure of marijuana and cocaine. In the week before the warrant application, CI-1 had given Detective Falandys the following information about the resident of apartment four at 696 North Main Street (known to CI-1 only as Ness):  Ness is a member of the Bloods [s]treet gang;  Ness has threaten[ed] individuals in the area to further his gang[']s activity;  Ness was involved in an incident where 'Ness' struck an individual with a firearm;  Ness possessed a shotgun, rifle, and bulletproof vest;  Within the previous 72 hours, CI-1 had seen two rifle type firearms against a wall in the apartment. - 5 - CI-1 also showed Detective Falandys the apartment building and described the location of apartment four within the building, which was later confirmed by another officer. The second confidential informant (CI-2) had spoken to another police officer, who relayed CI-2's information to Detective Falandys. The affidavit provided no information about CI-2's track record as an informant. Within the prior week, CI-2 had seen someone named Ness point a firearm at an individual in the area of 696 North Main Street. Both CI-1 and CI-2 gave similar physical descriptions of Ness, though they did not provide his full name.2 Detective Falandys stated that he had exhausted all means necessary to identif[y] the identity of 'Ness' without compromising this investigation. Detective Falandys also listed his law enforcement training and experience, primarily as a narcotics investigator, including experience cultivat[ing] confidential informants and participat[ing] in the execution of numerous (no less than two hundred) search warrants. Based on his training and experience, and the information from the CIs, Detective Falandys believe[d] firearms arms [sic], are being stored in apartment 4. The 2 CI-1 described Ness as a light skin black male, approximately 6'0 tall between 190-200 lbs who wore eyeglasses. CI-2 described Ness as a black male, approximately 6'0 tall between medium build [sic] with wire frame glasses. - 6 - magistrate signed the warrant, and Detective Falandys executed the search warrant later the same day. Before trial, Monell filed a motion to suppress evidence found in the apartment on the basis that the warrant was not supported by probable cause. The district court denied the motion. The court concluded that the affidavit furnished probable cause that the search would uncover evidence of the Commonwealth crimes of assault with a dangerous weapon and use of a firearm during commission of a felony, although the district court acknowledged that the evidence here was thin, and only enough for a borderline or marginal case from a probable cause standpoint. The district court also found that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule would apply in any event. After a change of defense counsel, Monell filed a motion to reconsider the suppression ruling. In response to further briefing, the district court revised its earlier ruling. The district court determined that the search warrant was not supported by probable cause because it authorized a search for evidence of a crime for which probable cause was lacking: illegal possession of firearms. In particular, the affidavit contained no information that Monell was prohibited from possessing firearms. The district - 7 - court concluded nonetheless that the good faith exception applied, and therefore denied Monell's motion.3
We begin our analysis by rejecting Monell's contention that the warrant affidavit did not adequately establish the reliability of the information supplied by the two confidential informants. CI-1 had previously provided information found to be accurate in at least two other arrests. See United States v. Schaefer, 87 F.3d 562, 566 (1st Cir. 1996) ([S]uch an indicium of reliability may itself be sufficient to bulwark an informant's report.). Though the officer's affidavit did not provide a track record for CI-2, the mutual corroboration of the two CIs' stories- -the location of the events, the physical description of Ness, and the firearm-involved nature of the activity--served to bolster the reliability of the information provided by each of them. See id. ([C]onsistency between the reports of two independent informants helps to validate both accounts.). 3 In addition to assault with a dangerous weapon, the government argues that the affidavit supported probable cause of two other crimes. The first is possession of a firearm during commission of a felony under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 18B, though the government does not articulate which felony it thinks Monell committed. The second crime, mentioned for the first time in a footnote in the government's brief, is illegal storage of a firearm under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 131L. For simplicity, we focus our treatment not on these two crimes, but on assault with a dangerous weapon. - 8 - That brings us to the substance of the facts collectively supplied by the two informants. As the district court observed, those facts supplied probable cause to believe that a person named Ness residing in apartment four at 696 North Main Street had committed assault with a firearm. See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 15B; Commonwealth v. Melton, 763 N.E.2d 1092, 1096 (Mass. 2002) (crime of assault with a dangerous weapon consists of attempted battery or immediately threatened battery perpetrated by means of a dangerous weapon). Accordingly, a magistrate would have had a substantial basis to think that the affidavit supported probable cause to search for evidence of assault with a dangerous weapon in apartment four. See United States v. Joubert, 778 F.3d 247, 252 (1st Cir. 2015) (The reviewing court's duty is 'simply to ensure that the magistrate had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed.' (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983)); United States v. Feliz, 182 F.3d 82, 86 (1st Cir. 1999) (A warrant application must demonstrate probable cause to believe that (1) a crime has been committed . . . and (2) enumerated evidence of the offense will be found at the place to be searched . . . .). And such evidence would plainly include guns--whether legally possessed or not--and evidence of access to guns. The warrant as issued did indeed authorize a search for guns used as the means of committing a crime. The complication - 9 - that gives rise to the main thrust of this appeal is that the warrant authorized a search only for illegally possessed weapons and evidence that would show Ness had such weapons. In this respect, the warrant was less broad than it might have been. That diminished breadth, moreover, was a product of Detective Falandys's apparent--and mistaken--belief that the facts reported by the confidential informants established probable cause to believe that Ness committed the crime of illegally possessing a gun. That apparent belief was clearly wrong because there was no evidence at the time that Ness had no right to possess a gun, a necessary element of the crime. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon). In short, the detective had probable cause to search Ness's apartment for firearms that might bolster a charge of assault or battery with a firearm, but he crafted the warrant application to search for evidence of another crime (illegal possession of firearms) for which the detective lacked any evidence of an essential element (that Ness was unable to lawfully possess a gun).4 4 As requested in the application, the warrant authorized a search of the apartment for the following items: Any and all illegally possessed assault weapons, machine guns, firearms, shotguns, ammunition, feeding devices, and Any paraphernalia, or instrumentalities, related to the use, sales, manufacture, defacement, and distribution, of said illegal weapons, and all monies or records, printed or electronic, - 10 - It is difficult to see why such an error in identifying the criminal law that is violated by the conduct described in the affidavit necessarily renders the warrant invalid. Cf. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996) (arrest is valid if supported by probable cause of offense X, even if the officer made the arrest with the goal of finding evidence of offense Y). In assessing the validity of a warrant, we generally apply an objective test, asking whether the facts constitute probable cause of a crime, rather than whether the officer thought they did. See United States v. Silva, 742 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2014) (In evaluating probable cause, a court looks 'at the objective facts, not at the actors' subjective intent.' (quoting United States v. Sanchez, 612 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2010)). It is even more difficult to see why the officer's limitation on the types of guns and gunrelated evidence to be searched for should render the warrant invalid. Nothing in the Fourth Amendment requires that a search be conducted as broadly as possible. In any event, we need not decide finally whether the detective's error rendered the warrant invalid and the search unlawful.5 Instead, we hold that, assuming the warrant was derived from the illegal sales thereof, and any personal papers or items to show standing. 5 We therefore need not address the government's argument that the affidavit contained probable cause of assault with a dangerous weapon or similar crime, and that illegally possessed in the - 11 - invalid, the nature, effect, and cause of this particular type of assumed invalidity are such as to render the exclusionary rule inapplicable. When a warrant issues without any probable cause of any crime, it results in a search that violates the subject's privacy and that would not have occurred but for the error. See Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 176 (1949) (probable cause principles seek to safeguard citizens from rash and unreasonable interferences with privacy and from unfounded charges of crime). Here, by contrast, had the error in labeling the criminal conduct described in the affidavit as illegal possession rather than assault with a deadly weapon not occurred, there still would have been a search, and that search would have been valid. And precisely that evidence which was found in the search challenged here would have been found in a valid search predicated on the crime of assault using a firearm.6 warrant could be read to mean firearms possessed while using them illegally. See, e.g., United States v. Beckett, 321 F.3d 26, 32 & n.4 (1st Cir. 2003) (declining to decide whether warrant was supported by probable cause and instead affirming on basis of good faith under Leon). 6 Although the search warrant also authorized a search for evidence related to illegal firearm sales, manufacture, defacement, and distribution, and records or money derived from illegal sales, Monell does not argue that the officers found or seized any evidence under these clauses. - 12 - The Supreme Court has instructed that in order to trigger the exclusionary rule, police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system. Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 144 (2009); see also United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 920-21 (1984) (explaining that in most cases, when an officer acting with objective good faith has obtained a search warrant from a judge or magistrate and acted within its scope . . . there is no police illegality and thus nothing to deter). No officer could have had any reason to deliberately make the error made here. The error arguably reduced the scope of the search from evidence of any firearm that might have been used to assault or batter a person to evidence of illegally possessed firearms only. To be blunt, if Detective Falandys were to encounter the exact same situation tomorrow, having first read our discussion of the deficiencies of the warrant, his likely reaction would be to draft a broader description of the items to be searched for, not a narrower one. See Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 138 n.9 (1990) (If the police have probable cause to search for a photograph as well as a rifle and they proceed to seek a warrant, they could have no possible motive for deliberately including the rifle but omitting the photograph. Quite the contrary is true. Only oversight or careless mistake would explain the omission - 13 - . . . . (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 517 (1971) (White, J., concurring and dissenting)). And the exclusionary rule does not exist to punish such negligent, harmless mistakes by law enforcement. See Herring, 555 U.S. at 144 ([T]he exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or in some circumstances recurring or systemic negligence.). Similarly, our holding gives no other officer any incentive to describe inaccurately a crime for which there is probable cause so as to obtain a warrant that casts no more broadly than would a properly targeted warrant. In short, were we to invoke the exclusionary rule in this case, we would neither deter culpable conduct nor reduce the incidence of intrusions that should not occur. Exclusion of the evidence found in such a case would therefore impose a price on the justice system in return for no meaningful gain in deterring the occurrence of searches that should not be conducted. See Davis v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2419, 2427 (2011) (For exclusion to be appropriate, the deterrence benefits of suppression must outweigh its heavy costs.). Monell's only rejoinder is to point to case law like our recent decision in United States v. Cordero-Rosario, 786 F.3d 64(1st Cir. 2015), ordering the exclusion of evidence of child pornography seized under a warrant. In that case, we held that an officer's bald assertions that he was investigating lewd acts, and that his investigation and interview with an injured minor led - 14 - him to believe the defendant stored pornography on his computer, did not justify a search of the defendant's apartment for pornography (illegal or otherwise). Id. at 70, 72-73. The affidavit suffered from glaring deficiencies: there was simply no nexus between the crime made out in the affidavit and the object of the search (the defendant's computer), nor was there even probable cause to believe that the defendant engaged in any crime. Id. at 71-72. Accordingly, there was no basis at all to have searched the suspect's apartment or seized the computer. Id. at 72-73. Here, by contrast, the facts described in the affidavit provide probable cause to believe that a crime involving gun use had occurred, and that some evidence related to that crime was in Ness's apartment. For these reasons, we agree with the district court that, assuming the invalidity of the warrant, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied to the evidence found in the apartment.