People v. Paquin

• Decision Date: 10 June 1991
• Docket Number: No. 91SA94,91SA94
• Citation: 811 P.2d 394
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Thomas Joseph PAQUIN and Christina Ann Ammon-Paquin, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 394

811 P.2d 394

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Thomas Joseph PAQUIN and Christina Ann Ammon-Paquin Defendants-Appellees.

No. 91SA94.

Supreme Court of Colorado En Banc.

June 10, 1991.

Stuart A. VanMeveren, Dist. Atty., Loren B. Schall, Asst. Dist. Atty., Jolene L. Carman, Deputy Dist. Atty., Fort Collins, for plaintiff-appellant.

Michael E. Manning, Fort Collins, for defendant-appellee Thomas Joseph Paquin.

David F. Vela, Colorado State Public Defender, Anne W. Williams, Deputy State Public Defender, Fort Collins, for defendant-appellee Christina Ann Ammon-Paquin.

Justice QUINN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The People in this interlocutory appeal challenge the district court's suppression of marihuana plants and drug paraphernalia seized during a search pursuant to warrant and a custodial statement made by one of the defendants during the course of the search. The district court ruled that the affidavit in support of the search warrant failed to establish probable cause and that the custodial statement was the fruit of the illegal search. We reach a contrary result and reverse the suppression ruling.

I.

The defendants, Thomas Joseph Paquin and Christina Ann Ammon-Paquin, are charged in the District Court of Larimer County with cultivation of marihuana. ¹ Thomas Joseph Paquin, in addition, is charged with possession of more than eight ounces of marihuana. ² The charges are based on evidence obtained by the police during the execution of a search warrant at the defendants' residence in Wellington, Colorado, on October 2, 1990.

On October 1, 1990, Officer Rick E. Russell of the Larimer County Sheriff's Department filed an affidavit in support of a search warrant for a two-story, wood frame farm house and an adjacent shed located at 6605 East County Road 66, Wellington, Colorado. The affidavit recited the following facts in support of the application for the search warrant.

On September 28, 1990, a confidential informant contacted Detective Russell about illegal drug activities at the residence in question. The affidavit alleged that the informant had previously provided the Larimer County Sheriff's Department with reliable information in furtherance of criminal investigations and that this information resulted in at least one felony arrest. The informant, according to Detective Russell's affidavit, was familiar with marihuana, had observed marihuana when it was being grown, and had used it in the past. The informant told Officer Russell that during the week of September 24, 1990, he went to a residence near Wellington, Colorado, where he purchased several quarter-ounce bags of marihuana for $30 each from an adult male known to him as T.J. According to the affidavit, T.J. obtained the marihuana from a room inside the residence and then placed it in plastic sandwich bags and delivered it to the informant. T.J. then took the informant to a metal shed located near the house where the informant observed numerous marihuana plants which were approximately six feet in height and were beginning to bud. The shed was equipped with sunlamps, and the marihuana plants were growing on the dirt floor of the shed.

The affidavit also alleged that T.J. lived with a female and several small children. The informant did not know the address of the residence, but provided Officer Russell with directions to the location. Officer Russell stated in his affidavit that he followed the directions and was led to 6605 East Larimer County Road 66, where he observed "a residence, outbuildings, and an abandoned vehicle similar to those described to me by the informant." The affidavit alleged that Officer Russell checked the utility records of the Poudre Valley REA and determined that electric utility service was listed in the name of "Christina A. Amman." Based on the affidavit, a district judge issued a search warrant on October 1, 1990, for "farm property located at 6605 E. County Rd. 66, Wellington, Colorado."

Officer Russell and other officers executed the search warrant on the morning of October 2, 1990, and seized several marihuana plants, a plastic tray and a cardboard box containing loose marihuana, marihuana seeds, two ultraviolet grow lamps, and other drug paraphernalia. During the course of the search Christina Ann Ammon-Paquin, after being advised of her Miranda rights, ³ told Officer Russell that she knew the marihuana plants were present on the premises and that Thomas Joseph Paquin was the one responsible for growing them.

Each defendant filed a motion challenging the veracity of the affidavit, see People v. Dailey, 639 P.2d 1068 (Colo.1982), and also a motion to suppress any evidence seized during the search on the basis that Officer Russell's affidavit failed to establish probable cause. Prior to ruling on the motion to suppress, the district court interviewed the informant in camera and determined that the statements in the affidavit were basically consistent with the information which the informant gave to Officer Russell and that it would be inappropriate to order the disclosure of the informant's identity. ⁴

The court then granted the motion to suppress. The court ruled that, except for the statement in the affidavit relating to the location of the buildings, there was no corroboration by independent investigation of the informant's statements and that the affidavit, when analyzed under the totality-of-the-circumstances test, failed to satisfy the constitutional standard of probable cause. The court accordingly suppressed all property seized during the search and also suppressed the statement made by Christina Ann Ammon-Paquin to Officer Russell as the fruit of an illegal search.

The People claim that the district court applied an unduly rigid standard of probable cause when it ruled that, except with respect to the location of the buildings, there was no corroboration by independent police investigation of the contents of the informant's tip. Corroboration of an informant's tip by independent police investigation, according to the People, is not essential to a probable-cause determination under the totality-of-the-circumstances test. We agree with the People's argument and conclude that the affidavit satisfied the constitutional standard of probable cause. ⁵

II.

Whether an affidavit based on information provided by a confidential informant satisfies the constitutional standard of probable cause must be evaluated on the basis of the totality-of-the-circumstances test formulated by the United States Supreme Court in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). Prior to Gates, Fourth Amendment jurisprudence required a probable-cause determination to be made on the basis of the two-pronged test formulated in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964), and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969). Under the Aguilar- Spinelli test, a reviewing court was required to resolve the issue of probable cause by determining, first, whether the affidavit contained sufficient facts from which the issuing judge could determine independently whether the informant had an adequate basis in knowledge for an allegation that incriminating evidence will be found at the place to be searched, and, second, whether the affidavit contained sufficient information to enable the issuing judge to determine whether the informant was credible or his information reliable. Spinelli, 393 U.S. at 412-13, 89 S.Ct. at 586-87; Aguilar, 378 U.S. at 114-15, 84 S.Ct. at 1514. The Supreme Court in Gates abandoned the Aguilar- Spinelli two-pronged test and adopted in its place the totality-of-the-circumstances test for the following reasons:

[T]he "two-pronged test" directs analysis into two largely independent channels--the informant's "veracity" or "reliability" and his "basis of knowledge." ... There are persuasive arguments against according these two elements such independent status. Instead, they are better understood as relevant considerations in the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that traditionally has guided probable-cause determinations: a deficiency in one may be compensated for, in determining the overall reliability of a tip, by a strong showing as to the other, or by some other indicia of reliability....

If, for example, a particular informant is known for the unusual reliability of his predictions of certain types of criminal activities in a locality, his failure, in a...