State v. Guardarrama

• Decision Date: 14 December 2016
• Docket Number: I.D. No. 1604012801,Cr. A. Nos. 16-05-1029, etc.
• Parties: STATE OF DELAWARE, v. JOSE I. GUARDARRAMA
• Court: Delaware Superior Court

STATE OF DELAWARE, v. JOSE I. GUARDARRAMA

I.D. No. 1604012801

Cr. A. Nos. 16-05-1029, etc.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

Submitted: October 31, 2016

December 14, 2016

MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER

Upon Defendant Jose I. Guardarrama's Motion to Suppress, DENIED.

Barzilai K. Axelrod, Esquire, Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware, for the State of Delaware.

Joseph W. Benson, Esquire, Law Offices of Joseph W. Benson, P.A., Wilmington, Delaware, for Defendant Jose I. Guardarrama.

WALLACE, J.

I. INTRODUCTION

Defendant Jose I. Guardarrama ("Guardarrama") was arrested on April 18, 2016 for illegal possession of a firearm, ammunition, and drug paraphernalia. Those items were found during the execution of a search warrant at his home located at 1615 Tulip Street in the City of Wilmington.

The investigation of Guardarrama commenced when a confidential informant notified the New Castle County Police Department that Guardarrama was involved in the sale and distribution of marijuana. To further the investigation and corroborate the informant, New Castle County detectives took Guardarrama's discarded trash bags from a trash container placed near the front of the 1615 Tulip Street residence on three different designated trash collection days.

Based, in part, on the evidence from the trash pulls, the detectives applied for a search warrant for 1613 and 1615 Tulip Street on April 15, 2016.¹ The search was executed on April 18, 2016. The police found: (a) a .380 semi-automatic Walther firearm; (b) matching ammunition; (c) drug paraphernalia, including scales and a marijuana grinder; (d) documents with Guardarrama's name; (e) sixgrams of marijuana; and, (f) .7 grams of marijuana-tainted material.² Guardarrama was indicted for two counts of Possession of a Firearm by a Person Prohibited,³ one count of Possession of Ammunition by a Person Prohibited,⁴ and one count of Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.⁵

Guardarrama now asks the Court to grant his motion to suppress evidence the police obtained during the search of 1615 Tulip Street. He argues that the search warrant for the residence was fatally flawed because it contained information obtained by an improper seizure of his trash. For the reasons below, his motion is DENIED.

II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The structure at 1615 Tulip Street is a single-family house located between an empty yard and a parking lot.⁶ This block of Tulip Street lies between South Dupont Street and South Clayton Street, an unusual span otherwise devoid of any homes.

During the week of March 14, 2016, a confidential informant notified the New Castle County Police Department that Guardarrama was involved in selling marijuana and had been seen with "pounds" of it.⁷ The confidential informant also shared that Guardarrama resided somewhere on Tulip Street with his girlfriend, that both Guardarrama and his girlfriend were close in age, and that, to distribute the marijuana, Guardarrama drove a dark-colored Mercedes that was registered in his name.⁸

Based on this information New Castle County Police Detective Jared Miller ran a Delaware Criminal Justice Information Services ("CJIS") search for Guardarrama. CJIS revealed that Guardarrama had "an extensive drug history", including multiple marijuana-related charges.⁹ The CJIS report listed Guardarrama's last known address as 8 Golden Acres Drive, not Tulip Drive. But it also showed that: Guardarrama's girlfriend had been the victim of a burglary at 1615 Tulip Street; that they were, in fact, close in age; and, that Guardarrama's girlfriend had been found in possession of marijuana during a 2012 traffic stop.¹⁰

Later that same week, Det. Miller conducted a property check of 1615 Tulip Street and found two dark-colored Mercedes with Delaware license plates 325218 and 356380 parked in front of the residence.¹¹ Det. Miller conducted a CJIS inquiry of both license plates and found them to be registered to Guardarrama at the Golden Acres Drive address.¹² While at 1615 Tulip Street, Det. Miller also saw a brown trash receptacle at the southwest corner of the residence. He contacted Wilmington Department of Public Works and learned that Friday was the trash pickup day for that address.¹³

In the early morning hours of Friday, March 18, 2016, Det. Miller and Det. Christopher Potter (also of the New Castle County Police Department) went to 1615 Tulip Street to collect the discarded trash from the receptacle that Det. Miller observed earlier in the week.¹⁴ They saw the same brown trash can seen earlier in the week in front of the residence.¹⁵ The receptacle was no longer against the house. Instead, it was pushed out from the house and was on the far edge of thepublic sidewalk area.¹⁶ The detectives removed three large black trash bags from the receptacle and one from the ground next to the receptacle. They later searched the contents of the bags at a secure location.

In the bags taken on March 18, Det. Miller found "numerous vacuum food saver style bags that contained trace amounts of a green leafy plant like substance consistent with marijuana."¹⁷ That substance field-tested positive for marijuana. In the same bags, Det. Miller found a small piece of a green leafy substance that field-tested positive for marijuana and mail addressed to the "Current Residents" of 1615 Tulip Street.

Two Fridays later, during the early morning hours of April 1, 2016, the detectives again went to 1615 Tulip Street to collect additional trash for the investigation. That morning, the detectives collected two black trash bags from the receptacle and three black trash bags from the ground next to it. In these bags, they found an airline boarding pass for Guardarrama dated March 24, 2016. They also found "trace amounts of a green leafy plant like substance consistent withmarijuana wrapped in brown paper."¹⁸ That substance field-tested positive for marijuana.

On the following Friday, April 8, 2016, the detectives visited Tulip Street in the early morning hours to collect additional trash from the curb at 1615. That morning, they collected three black trash bags from the receptacle and two black trash bags from the ground next to it. In those bags, the detectives found a piece of mail addressed to Guardarrama's girlfriend. They also found "a small sandwich style bag which contained trace amounts of a green leafy plant like substance consistent with marijuana."¹⁹ That substance field-tested positive for marijuana.

With the confidential informant's corroborated statements and the evidence from the trash pulls, the police applied for a search warrant for 1615 Tulip Street on April 15, 2016. The Justice of the Peace approved the warrant and the New Castle County Police detectives executed it on April 18, 2016 at around 2:00 p.m.

Guardarrama was exiting 1615 Tulip Street when the police arrived. During the execution of the warrant, the police located: (a) one semi-automatic .380 Walther firearm; (b) forty-seven rounds of .380 ammunition; (c) drug paraphernalia, including a table top scale, a grinder, and a digital scale; (d) documents bearing Guardarrama's name; and (e) 6.7 total grams ofmarijuana.²⁰ Guardarrama was arrested at 1615 Tulip Street. He later admitted that he did live at that residence with his girlfriend and that there were about two grams of marijuana therein. He told the police that his girlfriend had the gun for protection.

Guardarrama now claims that the three trash pulls conducted by Dets. Miller and Potter were improper under the federal and Delaware constitutions. In turn, he says, evidence derived from those pulls should not have been considered when the magistrate determined probable cause for the issuance of the search warrant. Guardarrama contends that without the evidence from the trash pulls, the warrant application lacks probable cause. He argues, therefore, that the subsequent search of his home, the seizure of all physical items therefrom, and his later statement to the police should be suppressed.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review and Guardarrama's Claims

It is well-settled that "[o]n a motion to suppress challenging the validity of a search warrant, the defendant bears the burden of establishing that the challenged search or seizure was unlawful."²¹ The Fourth Amendment requires that "nowarrants shall issue, but upon probable cause."²² Protection from such seizures is provided under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and in Article I, § 6 of the Delaware Constitution.²³ Delaware law contemplates a "four-corners" test for determining whether a search warrant was issued on probable cause.²⁴ This means "sufficient facts must appear on the face of the affidavit so that a reviewing court can verify that probable cause existed for issuance of the warrant."²⁵ A magistrate's finding of probable cause in a situation like this - i.e. that there is a "fair probability" that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place - should be based on a "totality of the circumstances."²⁶ And a reviewing court must ensure "that the magistrate had a substantial basis for concluding probable cause existed."²⁷ When doing so, thereviewing court pays "great deference" to the issuing magistrate's probable cause determination.²⁸

In his motion, Guardarrama contends that insufficient probable cause is established within the four corners of the search warrant for 1615 Tulip Street. Guardarrama posits two bases for this: (1) that the anonymous tip alone did not provide any information to the New Castle County Police Department that was not already known to the public; and (2) that "the information the tip supplied regarding selling marijuana was corroborated only by information gained from the trash."²⁹ Guardarrama goes on to argue that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the trash bags left at the curbside of 1615 Tulip Street, and that the seizure of those bags constituted an improper...