People v. Gates

• Decision Date: 01 April 1980
• Docket Number: No. 78-570,78-570
• Citation: 403 N.E.2d 77,82 Ill.App.3d 749
• Parties: , 38 Ill.Dec. 62 PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lance GATES and Susan Gates, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 77

403 N.E.2d 77

82 Ill.App.3d 749, 38 Ill.Dec. 62

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lance GATES and Susan Gates, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 78-570.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District.

April 1, 1980.

J. Michael Fitzsimmons, State's Atty., Robert L. Thompson, Asst. State's Atty., Wheaton, for plaintiff-appellant.

James W. Reilley, Chicago, for defendants-appellees.

LINDBERG, Justice.

The State appeals an order entered by the Circuit Court of DuPage County which quashed a search warrant and suppressed the evidence seized pursuant to the authority of the warrant. At issue is whether the warrant was sufficient under the standards set forth in Aguilar v. Texas (1964), 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723, and Spinelli v. United States (1969), 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637. We affirm.

The facts are straightforward. On May 3, 1978, the Bloomingdale Police Department received a handwritten, anonymous letter which had no return address. The letter recited as follows:

"This letter is to inform you that you have a couple in your town who strictly make their living on selling drugs. They are Sue and Lance Gates, they live on Greenway, off Bloomingdale Road, in the condominiums. Most of their buys are done in Florida. Sue his wife drives their car to Florida, where she leaves it to be loaded up with drugs, than flys (sic) back after she drops the car off in Florida. May 3, she is driving down there again and Lance will be flying down in a few days to drive it back. At the time Lance drives the car back he has the trunk loaded with over $100,000.00 in drugs. Presently they have over $100,000 worth of drugs in their basement.

"They brag about the fact that they never have to work, and make their entire living on pushers.

"I guarentee (sic) if you watch them carefully you will make a big catch. They are friends with some big drug dealers, who visit their house often.

Lance and Sue Gates

Greenway

In Condominiums"

On the same day the letter was received, Detective Charles Mader of the Bloomingdale Police Department made an inquiry to the Secretary of State's Office regarding the driver's license of one Lance Gates. The computer reply stated that an Illinois Sex Male

[38 Ill.Dec. 64] Drivers License had been issued to a Lance B. Gates, whose address was listed at 209 D, Dartmouth Drive, Bloomingdale, Illinois. His physical description was given as follows:

Date of Birth July 13, 1947

Height 5' 11

Weight 220 pounds

Hair Brown

Eyes Brown

Later the same day, Detective Mader contacted a confidential informant. Detective Mader had known this informant for approximately two years during which time the informant had provided the detective with information which resulted in seven criminal convictions. This informant told the Detective that Lance B. Gates' current address was 198 B. Greenway Drive, Bloomingdale, Illinois.

Detective Mader then called Officer Ott of the Chicago Police Department who at that time was assigned to O'Hare Airport. Officer Ott reviewed flight information and stated that L. Gates, phone number 980-8427, was scheduled to depart Chicago-O'Hare on May 5, 1978, on Eastern Airlines Flight 245, departing at 4:15 p. m. The flight was scheduled from Chicago to Atlanta and then to West Palm Beach, Florida.

Detective Mader then told the radio operator at the Bloomingdale Police Department to call the Security Office of the Illinois Bell Telephone Company. The radio operator was told that telephone number 980-8427 was a non-published number issued to Lance B. Gates whose address is 198 B Greenway Drive, Bloomingdale, Illinois.

On May 5, 1978, Detective Mader was telephoned by Agent William Morely of the Drug Enforcement Agency. He told Mader that, pursuant to a prior arrangement with the Detective, he had maintained a surveillance on all passengers boarding Flight 245. He told Mader that a person matching the description of, and using the name Lance Gates had boarded the flight.

Agent Morely called Mader the next day and told him that an agent in Florida had just completed a surveillance on Lance Gates in West Palm Beach. This Florida agent told Morely that he observed the defendant remain in the airport for approximately one hour after his arrival. He next saw him take a taxi which the agent followed to the Holiday Inn in West Palm Beach. The defendant went to a room which was registered to Susan Gates. At approximately 7:00 a. m. on May 6, 1978, the Florida agent saw Lance Gates and a female leave the room, go to the parking lot, and get in a red vinyl over gray Mercury bearing Illinois license plates RS8437. The Florida agent followed this Mercury northbound to an interstate which is commonly used by travelers to the Chicago area. At that point the surveillance was terminated.

Agent Morely also told Detective Mader that the license plate RS8437 was registered to the defendant but for a 1975 Hornet station wagon. Finally Agent Morely advised the Detective that the approximate driving time from West Palm Beach to Bloomingdale is 21-23 hours.

A complaint for search warrant was prepared and presented for approval to an associate judge. The complaint attached an affidavit signed by Detective Mader, which recited substantially the same facts as set forth above, and included a copy of the anonymous note as an attachment to the affidavit. ¹ The request for the issuance of the warrant was approved, and a search warrant was issued authorizing police to search the person of both defendants, their condominium located on Greenway in Bloomingdale, and the gray Mercury driven by Lance Gates.

On May 7, 1978 at approximately 5:15 a. m., Lance and Susan Gates arrived at the residence of 198 B Greenway Drive, in Bloomingdale. Pursuant to the warrant, the police searched the car and found "seven large burlap bundles of cannabis" weighing in excess of 400 pounds. The residence Both defendants were arrested and later were indicted on various narcotics and firearms charges. Prior to trial, a motion to quash the arrest and suppress evidence was filed on behalf of both defendants. The basis of the defendants' motion was that the warrant failed to comply with the requirements of Aquilar v. Texas (1964), 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed. 723, in that the author of the anonymous letter was not "reliable" and that there was no showing that his or her information was obtained in a reliable manner. After a hearing, the trial court granted the defendants' motion to quash and suppress, and the State appeals.

[38 Ill.Dec. 65] was then searched, and police discovered numerous rifles, a handgun, a green garbage can containing approximately twenty pounds of cannabis, three-fourths of a bale of cannabis, numerous baggies and hand-rolled cigarettes containing cannabis, and assorted weighing devices.

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, requires that search warrants be issued only upon a showing of "probable cause." Whenever a search warrant is sought on the basis of information supplied by an anonymous informant, it is necessary that the judge or magistrate issuing the warrant be provided with sufficient facts and circumstances from which he can determine the reliability of the informer and the accuracy of his present information so that the constitutional requirement of probable cause may be satisfied. People v. Thomas (1975), 62 Ill.2d 375, 378, 342 N.E.2d 383, 384, People v. Isenberg (1977), 52 Ill.App.3d 426, 429, 9 Ill.Dec. 930, 367 N.E.2d 364.

The leading case of Aguilar v. Texas (1964), 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723, set forth a two-prong test to be applied by a judge or magistrate in testing the sufficiency of an affidavit filed in support of the issuance of a search warrant: first, the judge must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded that the defendants were involved in criminal activity (the "basis of knowledge" prong); and secondly, the judge must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances from which the affiant concluded that the informer or his information was worthy of belief (the "veracity" prong). The veracity prong of the Aguilar test may be satisfied by showing either that the informant, whose identity need not be disclosed, is "credible" (the "credibility" spur) or that his information is "reliable" (the "reliability" spur). Aguilar, 378 U.S. at 114-115, 84 S.Ct. at 1514, 12 L.Ed.2d at 729.

Pursuant to the test set forth in Aguilar, the first question we must address in this case is whether the affidavit was sufficient to inform the issuing judge of the underlying circumstances from which the anonymous informant reached his conclusions that defendants were engaged in criminal conduct. The affidavit attached to the complaint for search warrant does not reveal the manner in which the anonymous informer obtained or gathered his information. (Cf. People v. Gomez (1980), 80 Ill.App.3d 668, 35 Ill.Dec. 741, 399 N.E.2d 1030 (informant had personal knowledge that crime had been committed); People v. Swift (1978), 61 Ill.App.3d 486, 18 Ill.Dec. 770, 378 N.E.2d 234 (informer was requested by defendant to participate in crime.) Thus our inquiry turns to whether the judge could reasonably infer that the information was gained in a reliable fashion because of the great amount of detail supplied by the informer. Spinelli v. United States (1968), 393 U.S. 410, 417, 89 S.Ct. 584, 589, 21 L.Ed.2d 637, 644. In Spinelli, the Supreme Court utilized the detail provided by the informant in Draper v. United States (1959), 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327, as an example of the detail required to satisfy the basis of knowledge prong of the Aguilar test.

Using Draper as a standard, we are of the opinion that the information supplied by the anonymous informer does not contain sufficient detail to allow the...