State v. Reesman, 99-142.
| Decision Date | 11 September 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-142.,99-142. |
| Citation | 10 P.3d 83,2000 MT 243,301 Mont. 408 |
| Parties | STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. REESMAN, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Jennifer Wendt Bordy, Bozeman, Montana, For Appellant.
Joseph P. Mazurek, Montana Attorney General, Jennifer Anders, Assistant Montana Attorney General, Helena, Montana; Marty Lambert, Gallatin County Attorney, Jane Mersen, Deputy Gallatin County Attorney, Bozeman, Montana, For Respondent.
¶ 1 John Reesman (Reesman) appeals from two orders issued by the Eighteenth Judicial District Court, Gallatin County, which denied his motion to suppress evidence, and denied his motion to dismiss based on destruction of evidence.
¶ 2 We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
¶ 3 Reesman raises the following issues on appeal:
¶ 4 During the search of a trailer home located in Big Sky, Montana, in which Gallatin County Sheriff's officers believed marijuana was growing in a bedroom closet, more than 100 "hits" of LSD were found in another bedroom where the Appellant Reesman lived. The search was conducted pursuant to a search warrant allegedly validated by the statements of a confidential informant and corroborated by information received from an "anonymous citizen."
¶ 5 Reesman's motion to suppress the evidence gathered in his bedroom as well as his testimony to the officers was heard by the District Court on July 24, 1998. The following factual scenario was set forth in the warrant application and testified to at the hearing.
¶ 6 On November 28, 1995, a confidential informant provided Gallatin County Detective Don Hanson (Hanson) with first-hand information concerning a variety of illegal drug-related activity at a trailer home located in Big Sky, Montana. Hanson was assigned at the time to the Missouri River Drug Task Force. The warrant application did not indicate whether the informant had provided law enforcement officers with accurate information regarding criminal activity in the past.
¶ 7 The informant stated that a person named Brent Hoge, or "Beau Dylan Hogge" answered the door, and escorted her to his bedroom located at the north end of the trailer. There, he allegedly revealed marijuana growing in a closet, as well as recently harvested "buds." According to the informant, he also showed her spore-like growth in a styrofoam cup, which he claimed were mushrooms that produce the illegal hallucinogen, psilocybin. These described events allegedly took place, according to the informant, on the weekend of October 28, 1995. The informant did not give information that any other person was conducting illegal activity of any type in the trailer, and she did not mention Reesman by name, or indicate that he was living in the trailer.
¶ 8 Hanson also testified that an "anonymous citizen," who had provided reliable information in the past, told him that the marijuana growing operation had existed at that location for approximately one year. This information was included in the application. The application omitted, however, further detail as to whether this informant's information came from personal observation, or under what context law enforcement personnel had received the prior reliable information.
¶ 9 According to testimony, neither Hanson nor any other law enforcement officer took further steps to corroborate the information supplied by the informant and anonymous citizen other than, apparently, confirming that a trailer as described by the informants was located at the given address. Hanson testified that he attempted to learn more about other residents at the trailer through telephone records, power records, and vehicles at the residence. Despite these efforts, he was unable to ascertain who owned the trailer, and no information concerning any such records was included in his application for the search warrant.
¶ 10 Nevertheless, Hanson applied for and obtained a search warrant for the entire trailer two days later on November 30, 1995. On that same day, at approximately 11:40 a.m., the search warrant was executed by Hanson and other officers. Four persons were found in the trailer, including Reesman, as officers commenced gathering evidence pursuant to the search warrant.
¶ 11 Hanson advised Reesman of his constitutional rights pursuant to Miranda, and interviewed him in his bedroom. During this interview two other officers searched Reesman's bedroom. Reesman signed a written "waiver of rights" form at that time, which gave the officers permission to conduct the search. The waiver form expressly included the entire residence. Reesman would contend that in signing the waiver, he believed he was only consenting to a search of his vehicle. Hanson's report, in fact, stated that he obtained only Reesman's consent to search the vehicle. Reesman testified that he did not understand the consent form at the time, and would not have consented to the search of his bedroom if he had been given the option. Although the waiver was sought, Hanson maintained that the original warrant validly provided that officers could search the entire trailer.
¶ 12 The initial search of Reesman's bedroom produced 13 hits of LSD. Reesman then told the officers where more could be found in his room. The officers found an additional 110 hits of LSD.
¶ 13 On May 22, 1998, Reesman moved to suppress the evidence found in his bedroom, as well as his statements made to officers at the time, claiming that the search warrant issued for the entire trailer lacked probable cause, and that it was overbroad. At that time, Reesman pled not guilty to one count of criminal possession of dangerous drugs with intent to sell, a felony, and criminal possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor.
¶ 14 Following the July 24, 1998 hearing, the District Court issued its Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order. The court followed the well-established Montana rule that the determination of whether there was sufficient probable cause for a court to issue a search warrant must follow the "totality of the circumstances" test.
¶ 15 The court determined that corroboration of the confidential informant's first-hand, detailed information by an anonymous tip weighed heavily in favor of the informant's reliability, and therefore concluded that there was a substantial basis upon which the issuing court found probable cause for the search warrant. The court stated, in its conclusions of law, that "[t]he application for the search warrant provided sufficient probable cause that criminal activity was occurring at the residence named in the caption."
¶ 16 The court also determined that Reesman's consent was, ultimately, immaterial in that the original search warrant covered the entire residence, including Reesman's bedroom. Even so, the court concluded that "the consent was sought to only search the vehicle."
¶ 17 Reesman ultimately pled guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, to one count of criminal possession of dangerous drugs, which is a felony offense. He received a suspended sentence of three years. Reesman appealed the District Court's order denying his motion to suppress evidence, as well as a denial of a motion to dismiss based on destruction of evidence. This matter was heard at oral argument on May 1, 2000.
¶ 18 The standard of review of a district court's denial of a motion to suppress is whether the court's findings of fact are clearly erroneous. See State v. Kuneff, 1998 MT 287, ¶ 6, 291 Mont. 474,
¶ 6, 970 P.2d 556, ¶ 6 (citing State v. Siegal (1997), 281 Mont. 250, 257, 934 P.2d 176, 180). Further, the standard of review of a district court's denial of a motion to suppress is whether the court's interpretation and application of the law is correct. See State v. Hubbel (1997), 286 Mont. 200, 207, 951 P.2d 971, 975 (citation omitted).
¶ 19 Finally, this Court's function as a reviewing court is to ultimately ensure that the magistrate or the lower court had a "substantial basis" to determine that probable cause existed. State v. Crowder (1991), 248 Mont. 169, 173, 810 P.2d 299, 302. It is critical in our review, however, that a magistrate's determination that probable cause exists be paid great deference and every reasonable inference possible be drawn to support that determination. State v. Rinehart (1993), 262 Mont. 204, 211, 864 P.2d 1219, 1223 (citations omitted).
¶ 20 Reesman claims that, from a number of legal angles, the search warrant issued in this instance must be viewed as "fatally" defective, and that due to the destruction of evidence, the District Court erred by not dismissing this case. We conclude that the issue of whether the information supplied by the informants was sufficient to establish probable cause is dispositive, and we therefore narrow our review without reaching the other issues raised by Reesman.
¶ 21 Furthermore, the State concedes that, in light of the District Court's findings and conclusions, Reesman did not validly consent to a search of his bedroom and thus the signed waiver was ineffective. Therefore, if information provided in the application for the search warrant did not provide a substantial basis for a probable cause determination, the District Court's denial of Reesman's motion to suppress evidence must be reversed. Accordingly, we address the following issue, which we restate as follows:
Issue
Did the District Court err by concluding that the application for a search warrant, which provided a confidential informant's information supplied to law enforcement officers as...
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