United States v. Christian

• Decision Date: 31 May 2019
• Docket Number: No. 17-1799,17-1799
• Citation: 925 F.3d 305
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Tyrone Dexter CHRISTIAN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

925 F.3d 305

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Tyrone Dexter CHRISTIAN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17-1799

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Reargued En Banc: March 20, 2019

Decided and Filed: May 31, 2019

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

Based on a five-page-long search-warrant affidavit—which included evidence from a confidential informant and other sources, a controlled buy, and direct police-officer surveillance—a magistrate determined that there was probable cause to search 618 Grandville Avenue, Tyrone Christian’s home, for evidence of drug trafficking. That search uncovered a large amount of heroin, some cocaine and marijuana, and two loaded guns. Convicted of various drug and firearm crimes, Christian argues on appeal that the search was not supported by probable cause. Christian questions each factual assertion in the affidavit as insufficient to show probable cause, while the Government contends that a common-sense examination of the totality of the circumstances, in light of the deference that a court owes to warrant-issuing magistrates, is required by cases like Illinois v. Gates , 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), and District of Columbia v. Wesby , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 577, 589, 199 L.Ed.2d 453 (2018). For the reasons that follow, the district court properly denied Christian’s suppression motion.

I.

On September 3, 2015, Officer Thomas Bush, a law enforcement officer for the Grand Rapids Police Department, submitted an affidavit in support of a search warrant for the residence of suspected drug trafficker Tyrone Christian at 618 Grandville Avenue in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The affidavit provided the following information in support of Officer Bush’s belief that there was probable cause to search Christian’s home: (1) Christian had a history of drug trafficking at 618 Grandville, which included drug-related arrests after two separate raids in 2009 and 2011, along with four prior felony convictions for drug-related offenses between 1996 and 2011; (2) a "credible and reliable" informant had contacted law enforcement in December 2014 to notify them that Christian was dealing drugs; (3) law enforcement successfully conducted a controlled buy from Christian in January 2015; (4) between May and September 2015, four different subjects told law enforcement that Christian was dealing drugs and that they had personally purchased drugs from him; (5) law enforcement had established surveillance at 618 Grandville and observed a man named Rueben Thomas "walk away from the area of [the residence] and leave the area in a vehicle," after which officers stopped Thomas and discovered heroin in his car; and (6) Thomas subsequently "admitted that he had recently been at an address on [Grandville Avenue]," but he "denied being at [Christian’s residence] contrary to observations of the law enforcement officers."

A magistrate judge approved the warrant, and police officers conducted a drug raid at Christian’s home just after midnight on September 4, 2015. During the raid, officers seized cocaine, marijuana, over 80 grams of heroin, a cutting agent, and two loaded guns. The Government charged Christian with possession of heroin with intent to distribute, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking.

Christian moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the September 3 search warrant. The district court denied the motion, determining that the affidavit provided sufficient information to establish probable cause and that in any event the Leon good-faith exception would apply regardless of the probable cause determination. A jury convicted Christian on all counts, and the district court sentenced Christian to 210 months in prison.

Christian now appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress, arguing that the affidavit did not establish probable cause and that the Leon good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule should not apply. He also challenges the district court’s admission of testimony about a jail call that occurred between Thomas and Thomas’s girlfriend, Tanisha Edwards, before Christian was arrested. Edwards testified during trial that she told Thomas that Christian "got the groceries out" of their house, where the "groceries" referred to a gun and drugs. The Government introduced the testimony to help explain why law enforcement later found a gun and drugs buried in the backyard behind the home of Christian’s mother.

II.

A.

The search-warrant affidavit at issue here provided an ample basis for probable cause, and the question is really not even close. The affidavit first outlined Christian’s extensive history with drugs—four felony drug convictions from 1996, 2002, 2009, and 2011, at least two of which were for drug trafficking. In 2009 and 2011, search warrants executed at Christian’s home, 618 Grandville, the same place searched here, uncovered evidence of drug trafficking that each time resulted in Christian’s arrest.

The affidavit next detailed the reasons why officers believed that Christian had gone back into business. In December 2014, a "credible and reliable informant" advised Officer Bush, the affiant, that Christian was again dealing drugs. The informant also provided information about other traffickers, including "names, nicknames, phone numbers, residences utilized by the drug traffickers and information regarding specific drug transactions." Officer Bush independently corroborated "much of the information provided" by this informant. In January 2015, under the direction of Officer Bush, the informant executed a controlled purchase of drugs from Christian. In addition, "[w]ithin the last four months" preceding the search, meaning from May to September of 2015, several other informants stated that "Tyrone Christian is a large scale drug dealer" and that "they [had] purchased large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine from Christian at [his residence] in the last four to five months."

That brings us to September 3, 2015, the day of the search, when, according to the affidavit, officers established surveillance "at 618 Grandville Avenue." The officers observed Rueben Thomas "walk away from the area of 618 Grandville Avenue and leave the area in a vehicle." After stopping him for a traffic violation, officers found "approximately 20 grams of heroin" in the form of " ‘chunk[s]’ that appeared to have been removed from a larger portion of heroin." Thomas denied having been at 618 Grandville but admitted having been at another address on that street. Crucially, the affidavit recounted that Thomas’s denial was "contrary to observations of the law enforcement officers."

Viewing the "totality of the circumstances," Florida v. Harris , 568 U.S. 237, 244, 133 S.Ct. 1050, 185 L.Ed.2d 61 (2013), through the "lens of common sense," as the Supreme Court has instructed, id. at 248, 133 S.Ct. 1050, the conclusion is inescapable: there was probable cause to believe that a search of 618 Grandville would uncover evidence of drug trafficking. Most readers of the affidavit would have been surprised if it did not.

Indeed, one element of the affidavit was independently sufficient for probable cause: the surveillance of Rueben Thomas. Christian argues that there was no "nexus" between Thomas and 618 Grandville because the affidavit states merely that officers saw Thomas "walk away from the area of 618 Grandville Avenue," rather than entering or leaving that residence. But that selective, out-of-context reading is contradicted even by other parts of the affidavit, which later states that "Rueben Thomas ... denied being at [the residence], contrary to observations of the law enforcement officers ." (Emphasis added.) While this is not a direct statement that Thomas was seen entering or leaving 618 Grandville, the law does not require such a direct statement. Indeed, our precedents require us to eschew such a formal requirement. "Affidavits are not required to use magic words[.]" United States v. Allen , 211 F.3d 970, 975 (6th Cir. 2000) (en banc). Because our job is not to reweigh the assertions in an affidavit but to ask whether the magistrate had a substantial basis for his conclusion, United States v. Perry , 864 F.3d 412, 415 (6th Cir. 2017), the later phrase in the affidavit cannot be read out of existence. Rather, the deferential nature of our review means that we should take that later statement—i.e., that Thomas’s denying that he was at 618 Grandville was "contrary to observations of the law enforcement officers"—to reconcile any doubt about where the officers saw Thomas walk away from.

Under that proper view of the affidavit, and paying the appropriate "great deference" to the magistrate’s probable-cause determination, Gates , 462 U.S. at 236, 103 S.Ct. 2317, the surveillance evidence provided a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed. Argument to the contrary is unavailing. Any possible contradiction between "from the area of" and "contrary to observations of the officers" is more readily attributable to the "haste of a criminal investigation" under which officers often draft an affidavit supporting a search warrant. See id. at 235, 103 S.Ct. 2317. Such haste was certainly present here: Officer Bush applied for and received the warrant on the same day of the purportedly infirm surveillance and search. To boot, police officers are mostly non-lawyers who must draft search-warrant affidavits "on the basis of nontechnical, common-sense judgments." Id. at 235–36, 103 S.Ct. 2317. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps the affiant could have been more precise. But our precedents do not require such an exacting degree of specificity. For example, in our recent published opinion in United States v. Tagg , 886 F.3d 579 (6th Cir. 2018), we held that probable cause existed to search the defendant’s home for child pornography despite the supporting documents’ failure to state that the defendant had actually...