Com. v. Ramos

• Decision Date: 19 April 1988
• Citation: 521 N.E.2d 1002,402 Mass. 209
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Carmello RAMOS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1002

521 N.E.2d 1002

402 Mass. 209

COMMONWEALTH v. Carmello RAMOS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Hampden.

Argued Jan. 4, 1988.

Decided April 19, 1988.

John M. Thompson, Springfield, for defendant.

Dianne M. Dillon, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Com.

Before WILKINS, ABRAMS, NOLAN, LYNCH and O'CONNOR, JJ.

LYNCH, Justice.

Carmello Ramos was indicted for conspiracy to traffic in heroin, trafficking in heroin, conspiracy to possess heroin with intent to distribute heroin, and possession of heroin with intent to distribute. The defendant filed two pretrial motions to suppress, on the grounds that the affidavit in support of a warrant to search his apartment contained intentional or reckless misstatements and failed to establish probable cause. Both motions were denied.

The defendant was found guilty and sentenced on the indictment for trafficking in heroin. The defendant's motion for required findings of not guilty on the conspiracy indictments was allowed, and the remaining indictment was dismissed. He thereupon appealed, challenging the judge's denial of his motions to suppress and his request for a hearing under Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), and the admission of evidence obtained in an allegedly illegal automobile search. We transferred the case to this court on our own motion. We affirm.

The underlying facts may be stated briefly. On December 3, 1984, Springfield police officers executed a search warrant at the defendant's apartment at 90A Hickory Street, where they found 400 black bags of heroin in the defendant's room. Two days earlier, on December 1, 1984, the police had stopped an automobile in which the defendant and Victor Rafael Espinosa Perez, an alleged coconspirator, were traveling. ¹ Ramos and Perez were among a group under surveillance by the Springfield police as a result of information that a group of Hispanic individuals was involved in transporting heroin from New York City to Springfield. Ramos and Perez had been observed in each other's company and in the company of known heroin dealers during the autumn of 1984. In the trunk of the car the police found a "sealing machine"; a police narcotics detection dog "reacted in a positive manner" to a spot in the trunk, but no contraband was found. On December 3, the police had also raided Perez's apartment and found 1,000 black bags of heroin, packaged in the same manner as those found in Ramos's apartment.

The search warrant executed at Ramos's apartment was issued on the basis of information presented in an affidavit by Lieutenant Gary Mitchell of the Springfield police department. Mitchell reported the results of the December 1 automobile search, information provided by two anonymous informants, and the observations from surveillance of Ramos and Perez as the basis for probable cause to issue the warrant. Mitchell stated that an informant had visited Ramos's apartment at 8 A.M. that day, had seen several hundred bags of heroin and discussed purchasing some, but had been unable to obtain any because Ramos felt that things were "too hot."

1. The defendant claims that the search of his apartment was illegal because probable cause to issue a warrant was not established. We disagree.

Central to the defendant's argument is the contention that results of the automobile search may not be used to establish probable cause because the automobile search was illegal. The question of the legality of the automobile search was not raised in either of the defendant's motions to suppress. Indeed, when evidence of the fruits of that search was introduced at trial, the defendant made no objection to the admission of the evidence. As a result, the defendant is precluded from raising the issue for the first time on appeal. ² Commonwealth v. Barnes, 399 Mass. 385, 393-394, 504 N.E.2d 624 (1987). Commonwealth v. Marchionda, 385 Mass. 238, 242, 431 N.E.2d 177 (1982). Commonwealth v. Lewis, 346 Mass. 373, 383, 191 N.E.2d 753 (1963), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 933, 84 S.Ct. 704, 11 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964), and cases cited.

The affidavit in support of the search warrant is based on information discovered in the automobile search described above and information obtained from anonymous informants. The automobile search alone may have provided the police with the requisite probable cause to search the defendant's home. When coupled with the information supplied by the unknown informants, probable cause to search is clearly established.

For an informant's information to pass muster under art. 14 of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, the affidavit must apprise the magistrate of some facts and circumstances showing both (1) the basis for the informant's tip (basis test), and (2) the credibility of the informant or the reliability of his information (veracity test). Commonwealth v. Upton, 394 Mass. 363, 374-375, 476 N.E.2d 548 (1985) (Upton II ). See Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 414-415, 89 S.Ct. 584, 588, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969); Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 114, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 1514, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964). If the informant's tip does not satisfy each aspect of the Aguilar test, other allegations in the affidavit that corroborate the information could support a finding of probable cause. Spinelli v. United States, supra 393 U.S. at 415, 89 S.Ct. at 588. Upton II, supra 394 Mass. at 375, 476 N.E.2d 548. Commonwealth v. Upton, 390 Mass. 562, 566, 458 N.E.2d 717 (1983) (Upton I ), rev'd, 466 U.S. 727, 104 S.Ct. 2085, 80 L.Ed.2d 721 (1984), S.C., 394 Mass. 363, 476 N.E.2d 548 (1985). See Commonwealth v. Bottari, 395 Mass. 777, 783, 482 N.E.2d 321 (1985). Furthermore, affidavits should be read as a whole, not parsed, severed, and subjected to hypercritical analysis. United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 109, 85 S.Ct. 741, 746, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965). What is required is not elaborate specificity, but rather a commonsense showing of probable cause. Id. at 108, 85 S.Ct. at 745. We are " 'slow to jettison' warrants which exhibit such a commonsense approach." Upton II, supra 394 Mass. at 376, 476 N.E.2d 548. Applying these principles, we discern no defect in the affidavit here.

In substance the affidavit stated the following: An officer of the Springfield police department received information concerning a group transporting heroin from New York City. The information came from two informants. One informant (informant one) had provided information in the past which the affiant had been able to verify; the other (informant two) had given information leading to arrests and convictions relating to narcotics. The affiant and other officers had had the group under surveillance for some time and had seen the defendant and Perez in the company of known heroin dealers. Both the defendant and Perez are described in some detail. The search of the automobile and the items seized are described. The affidavit also states that one of the informants went to Ramos's house and spoke to Ramos about purchasing some drugs, but Ramos said that things were "too hot." The informant saw several hundred black bags of heroin in the apartment.

It was conceded that the veracity of informant two was established. The portion of the affidavit relevant to informant one's veracity is the affiant's statement, "[t]his informant has provided me with information in regards to narcotics that I have been able to substantiate." The veracity test might be established by the affiant's statement above alone, although the defendant argues that the affiant's statement is a mere conclusion of a police officer, which is insufficient to permit the magistrate to make for himself the determination of probable cause. However, even were we to accept this argument, the affidavit nonetheless withstands scrutiny because there is adequate police corroboration of the informant's tip, as discussed below.

The affidavit essentially contains three distinct pieces of information: (1) a group was transporting heroin from New York City to Springfield, (2) Perez would be returning from New York in a particular automobile, carrying a large quantity of heroin, and (3) there were several hundred bags of heroin in Ramos's apartment observed by one of the informants. The affidavit does not specify, however, which informant gave which piece of information. Since it is clear that observation of the contraband inside the defendant's apartment satisfies the basis of knowledge test, see Commonwealth v. Borges, 395 Mass. 788, 795, 482 N.E.2d 314 (1985), we need only discuss possible deficiencies in the veracity prong.

Since the reliability of informant two is conceded, we assume, as did the judge below, that the critical information came from informant one--the informant whose reliability was least established. ³ The question therefore narrows to whether there was independent corroboration for believing that the "tip" was reliable. The police were informed that Perez would be transporting drugs from New York City on a certain date within a limited time frame in a particular automobile. On that date and within that time frame the police stopped an automobile of the precise make, model, color, and registration number as that described by the informant, driven by Perez, with Ramos as a passenger. Cf. Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 312-313, 79 S.Ct. 329, 332, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959). The search of the vehicle disclosed a heat sealing machine and, later, a narcotics detection dog "reacted positively" to the automobile's trunk. Clearly that information tends to corroborate the informant's personal observations at Ramos's apartment. In spite of the affiant's somewhat vague statement as to the informant's past reliability, the corroborating evidence and other information in the affidavit justified the magistrate's determination that, more probably than not, evidence of a crime would be found in Ramos's apartment. Therefore, reading the affidavit as a...