Court Opinion

ID: 9498482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:18:37.20599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:51.367718
License: Public Domain

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I conclude that the magistrate judge made an error of law in the analysis of probable cause that precluded a proper consideration of the totality of the circumstances and produced an erroneous finding of staleness. Considering the circumstances of the case absent the magistrate judge’s legal error, a reasonable person in Officer Abbott’s position could believe there was a fair probability that methamphetamine would be found under the speaker in Kennedy’s trunk. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
I
The Court states that the magistrate judge made a finding of fact that there was no evidentiary basis from which Abbott could have concluded Ruud’s information about the presence of methamphetamine in the speaker box was current. The Court then emphasizes the deference owed to the magistrate judge’s factual finding, see Smith, 266 F.3d at 904, and holds the factual finding was not “clearly erroneous.” However, the magistrate judge made a serious error of law in evaluating the currency of the information for probable cause purposes. As explained below, the magistrate judge, relying on United States v. Button, 653 F.2d 319, 324 (8th Cir.1981), ruled as a matter of law that Ruud’s information must be assumed to stem from the most remote part of the time frame in which Ruud could have witnessed Kennedy’s methamphetamine activity. Thus, the magistrate judge’s assumption that Ruud’s knowledge was six months old is a conclusion of law, which we review de novo. Smith, 266 F.3d at 904.
The magistrate judge stated:
In addressing the staleness of information in a search warrant, the Button court noted that “when the courts are forced to make an assumption as to when transactions occurred ‘within’ a given period, for purposes of determining probable cause, it must be assumed that the transactions took place in the most remote part of the given period
Ruud provided Officer Abbott with no specific time frame for her knowledge. This Court must assume that the transactions witnessed by Ruud took place in the most remote part of the given period. See Button, 653 F.2d at 324. The only time frame presented to the court at the motions hearing would be that of Ruud and Defendant’s relationship .... The Court must consider Ruud’s knowledge to stem from, at best, at least six months previous.
United States v. Kennedy, No. 04-079, Report and Recommendation at 9, 11-12 *1146(D.Minn. Apr. 26, 2004) (citation omitted) (emphasis added).
The Court characterizes part of the above quote, “Ruud provided Officer Abbott with no specific time frame for her knowledge,” as a factual finding that there was no evidentiary basis from which Abbott could have concluded Ruud’s information was current. Supra at 6. Read in context, however, it is clear that the magistrate judge merely was stating that Ruud did not specify a date and time at which she had last known Kennedy to place methamphetamine under the loose speaker. Regardless of the specificity of Ruud’s statement, the proper inquiry for the magistrate judge was to analyze whether, “given the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person could believe there [was] a fair probability” that methamphetamine was currently under the speaker. Wells, 347 F.3d at 287 (quoting United States v. Fladten, 230 F.3d 1083, 1085 (8th Cir.2000)). Instead, the magistrate judge first felt compelled by Button to “assume that the transactions witnessed by Ruud took place in the most remote part” of the entire time frame during which Ruud had been observing Kennedy’s conduct. The magistrate judge found that this time frame stretched from at least six months prior to Ruud’s statement up through the time of her statement and then assumed, based solely on Button, that the information was current at the most remote part of that time frame, six months previous. Report and Recommendation at 11-12. The magistrate judge’s assumption preempted any consideration of whether, given the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person in Officer Abbott’s position could believe there was a fair probability that methamphetamine was currently under the speaker.
I conclude that the magistrate judge erred in applying the holding of Button to the facts of this case. The Button panel held that the information in an affidavit supporting a search warrant for a home was too stale to establish probable cause where the police officer affiant averred only that “[t]he information he received from the first informant came to him ‘over the past six months’ ” prior to the date of the affidavit. 653 F.2d at 324. Although the affidavit reported the informant’s statement that the defendant “is currently supplying Angel Dust to the person close to informant,” id. at 325, the informant’s use of the present tense did not establish the currency of the information because “[t]he present tense is suspended in the air; it has no point of reference. It speaks, after all, of the time when an anonymous informant conveyed information to the officer, which could have been a day, a week, or months before the date of the affidavit.” Id. (quoting Rosencranz v. United States, 356 F.2d 310, 316 (1st Cir.1966)). In other words, faced with an indeterminate time lapse of up to six months between the anonymous informant’s statement that the defendant “is currently supplying Angel Dust” and the police officer’s decision to act on that statement, the Button panel assumed as a matter of law that the informant’s knowledge came from the most remote part of the time period during which the police officer was in contact with the informant.
The circumstances of the instant case, in contrast to Button, involved no indeterminate time lapse between the informant’s statement to the police officer and the officer’s decision to act on that statement. Instead, Officer Abbott acted immediately on Ruud’s statement that Kennedy “deals in a lot of methamphetamine” and “keeps” it under a loose speaker in his car. Because there is no issue of delay in this case, the magistrate judge had no discernible rationale to extend the assumption mandated by Button to a case involving immediate action under the automobile ex*1147ception.6 By erroneously holding at the outset that Ruud’s information must be assumed to be six months old, the magistrate judge never properly applied “the totality of the circumstances” analysis of probable cause that the majority purports to uphold. Obfuscating the analysis by importing legal rules from cases like Button, which turned on indeterminate delay in a search warrant application rather than immediate action under the automobile exception, can only produce impractical precedent.
II
All that remains is to apply the proper analysis of probable cause without the taint of the magistrate judge’s error of law. There is no dispute that the automobile exception to the search warrant requirement applies in this case if Officer Abbott had probable cause for the search. Wells, 347 F.3d at 287. Therefore, the search under the speaker was valid if, “given the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person could believe there [was] a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime would be found” in that particular place. Id. (quoting Fladten, 230 F.3d at 1085). This inquiry includes consideration of whether the available information is timely. See Smith, 266 F.3d at 904. “Courts should apply a common sense approach and, considering all relevant circumstances, determine whether probable cause exists.” Gleich, 397 F.3d at 612.
The personal and recent knowledge of an identified eyewitness may be sufficient to establish probable cause. See, e.g., Cundiff v. United States, 501 F.2d 188, 190 (8th Cir.1974). In this case, a reasonable person in Officer Abbott’s position could have believed that Ruud’s information was recent. Officer Abbott had corroborated Ruud’s story about the safe and her description of Kennedy’s involvement. He was aware that Ruud and Kennedy previously had lived together and continued to the present in a “significant sexual relationship.” Report and Recommendation at 6. He was also aware that Kennedy was in possession of a large amount of cash. Finally, Ruud told him that Kennedy “deals in a lot of methamphetamine” and “keeps” it under a loose speaker in his car, and Ruud was “extremely adamant” that he check under the speaker immediately. Under these circumstances, especially with knowledge of an ongoing “significant” relationship, a reasonable person could interpret Ruud’s urging to check under the speaker immediately as an indication that Ruud had good reason to believe the methamphetamine was presently under the speaker. This was enough to establish a fair probability that the contraband would be found in that particular place, authorizing Officer Abbott to proceed with the search under the automobile exception to the search warrant requirement. See, e.g., United States v. Alverez, 235 F.3d 1086, 1089 (8th Cir.2000) (upholding an immediate search inside a spare tire in the defendant’s trunk “[b]ecause the troopers had probable cause to believe that contraband was secreted in the vehicle, in particular in the spare tire, [so] they could lawfully complete a full and thorough search of the tire, including dismantling or damaging it”).
*1148III
The magistrate judge’s analysis of probable cause was tainted by an error of law. Considering the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person in Officer Abbott’s position, free of the magistrate judge’s erroneous assumption that Ruud’s information had to be six months old, could have believed there was a fair probability that methamphetamine would be found under the speaker in Kennedy’s trunk. Therefore, I would reverse the district court’s order granting the motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the search of Kennedy’s vehicle. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. In any event, Button held that an informant's present-tense statements should be assumed to have been current at the most remote time at which the informant passed knowledge to the police officer, not at the most remote time in which the informant observed the defendant. 653 F.2d at 324-25. Therefore, even if Button were somehow applicable to the facts of this case, the magistrate judge's application of Button's holding was faulty.