United States v. Peterson
| Decision Date | 06 January 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 19-2278 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DEMARIO M. PETERSON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Following a three-day trial, a jury convicted Demario Marcellis Peterson of various drug and firearms crimes. The district court sentenced Peterson to 420 months imprisonment. On appeal, Peterson challenges the magistrate judge's factual findings in approving a search warrant, the jury's conclusion that Peterson was guilty of the bulk of the charges against him, and the sentence imposed by the district court. The underlying record coupled with the deferential standards governing our review, however, lead us to affirm the judgment.
Mother's Day 2017 ended tragically for one young mother named Madison. (For privacy reasons, only Madison's first name has been used in these proceedings.). Madison had battled a heroin addiction for many years. Two days before the holiday weekend, Madison and her boyfriend (and her child's father), Kevin Kellahan, were on the hunt for their latest fix. Their search brought them to Jackson, Michigan, where the pair obtained escalating amounts of heroin from various dealers. The couple eventually returned home and fell asleep around midnight. Madison woke early the next morning to again inject herself with heroin. When Kellahan awoke hours later, he found Madison nearly lifeless, struggling to breathe. Paramedics rushed her to the hospital where she persisted in a vegetative state before passing away on Mother's Day. Toxicology tests revealed that Madison died of a fentanyl overdose, likely combined with the heroin she had used.
Officers interviewed Kellahan. He disclosed that the couple's main heroin source was "Moe," a dealer they had bought from many times before. Kellahan told police that Madison arranged for the buy from an individual listed in her phone as "Moe's New Number," with the buy facilitated by one of Moe's runners. Using this number, officers arranged for a controlled drug purchase whereby Kellahan would seek to purchase from Moe's runner $50 worth of heroin.
The undercover buy worked as planned. Jamaris Payne, who Kellahan confirmed as the runner for the fatal supply, greeted Kellahan with a baggie of a heroin/fentanyl mixture. Following his arrest, Payne disclosed that his supplier, Peterson, was in fact "Moe." Payne further explained that Peterson operated out of an apartment at 4524 Westbrook Drive. When officers began surveilling the apartment, they witnessed short-term traffic consistent with drug-trafficking activity. Using this information as well as the fact that Peterson's number was associated with another overdose death in the area, officers obtained and executed a search warrant of the apartment.
The search and subsequent investigations revealed Peterson's role at the forefront of an extensive drug-trafficking operation. In the apartment, officers discovered thousands of dollars in cash, $40,000 worth of heroin and crack cocaine, two firearms, and a swath of drug-trafficking paraphernalia, such as scales, sale-size baggies identical to the one in Payne's possession during the controlled buy, and hide-a-cans. Officers later learned that Peterson also stashed drugs at other locations. And through Peterson's social media accounts, officers learned that he was not shy about his work—Peterson proudly bestowed upon himself the nickname "pusher man," posting photographs of himself and his children with firearms and stacks of cash. A grand jury later indicted Payne and Peterson for violating various federal drug and weapons laws, including distributing the fentanyl that resulted in Madison's death. Payne pleaded guilty to two charges, while Peterson proceeded to trial.
Trying Peterson, however, was no easy feat. Peterson repeatedly disrupted pre-trial proceedings. And the trial itself ended in a mistrial when a juror refused to continue deliberations. During the second trial, recent dental work forced Payne to testify with his jaw wired shut. Parts of his testimony were difficult to understand, resulting in 41 "indiscernible" transcriptions by the court reporter. Through his testimony, Payne confirmed that Peterson was his source for narcotics, and that Payne was part of a larger "crew" that would receive drugs from Peterson for sale. Payne also testified as to his and Peterson's involvement in Madison's overdose. Jurors heard from Kellahan, who recounted the events leading to Madison's death and the couple's prior interactions with Peterson. In addition, various state and federal officers testified as to the results of their investigation of Peterson, including what was found in Westbrook as well as in Peterson's other stash houses. Ultimately, the jury acquitted Peterson of the death-results charge, but convictedhim on all other counts, including conspiring to distribute heroin, possessing heroin and cocaine, maintaining a drug premises, and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime.
At sentencing, the district court imposed several enhancements when calculating the Guidelines range, including ones for managing a drug-trafficking operation and obstruction of justice. Collectively, the enhancements together with Peterson's criminal history and a mandatory minimum resulted in a Guidelines range of 248 to 295 months. The district court then granted the government's motion for an upward variance in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), sentencing Peterson to 420 months' imprisonment. Peterson's timely appealed followed.
Motion to Suppress Evidence. Peterson first argues that the affidavit used to support the warrant to search Westbrook lacked probable cause sufficient to satisfy the Fourth Amendment. "Probable cause 'is not a high bar.'" See District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 586 (2018) (quoting Kaley v. United States, 571 U.S. 320, 338 (2014)). It exists when an affidavit shows a "fair probability" that criminal evidence will be found in the place to be searched. See United States v. Hines, 885 F.3d 919, 923 (6th Cir. 2018) (quoting United States v. Dyer, 580 F.3d 386, 390 (6th Cir. 2009)). On review, we pay great deference to the issuing judge, see United States v. McLevain, 310 F.3d 434, 439 (6th Cir. 2002), and ask only whether the judge had a "substantial basis" for finding probable cause, see Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 236 (1983) (citation omitted).
The affidavit relied on here passes constitutional muster. It detailed officers' investigation of Madison's death, noting everything from Kellahan's revelations about his past purchases from Peterson and the recent purchase from Payne to the controlled buy with Payne and Payne's disclosures about Peterson's use of Westbrook for drug-trafficking activity. Additional evidence independently corroborated these disclosures. For instance, Peterson, through his phone number,was associated with another overdose case from the prior year. And based on a March arrest, a police database showed that Peterson resided at Westbrook, a fair indicator that evidence of drug trafficking might exist there. See United States v. Jones, 159 F.3d 969, 975 (6th Cir. 1998) . Finally, officer surveillance corroborated Payne's description of the house and showed short-term visits consistent with drug-trafficking activity. Adding all of this together, the warrant application demonstrated a fair probability that evidence of Peterson's drug trafficking would exist at Westbrook.
Peterson resists this conclusion on several fronts. He first maintains that the information relied on in the affidavit did not concern a "presently existing condition," rendering it stale. See United States v. Abboud, 438 F.3d 554, 572 (6th Cir. 2006) (citations omitted). He takes particular umbrage at Payne's assertion that he observed heroin at Westbrook "on a prior occasion." But even if that statement is a stale one, including that evidence in a warrant affidavit is not fatal when, as here, recent information corroborates the stale information. See United States v. Thomas, 605 F.3d 300, 310 (6th Cir. 2010). Two witnesses told officers that Peterson was actively involved in trafficking heroin in the days and weeks before the warrant issued. Peterson too had identified Westbrook as his residence less than two months before officers searched the apartment. And officers witnessed short-term traffic from Westbrook consistent with drug trafficking just prior to securing the warrant. Today's case is thus unlike United States v. Hython, 443 F.3d 480, 483-85 (6th Cir. 2006), where the warrant at issue was supported only by an anonymous tip that drugs were purchased at an unknown time at the place to be searched.
Beyond staleness concerns, Peterson questions Payne's reliability as well as the evidence used to corroborate Payne's statements to the police. Peterson would require robust corroborationof those statements. But we set that high bar only in the context of warrants based on anonymous tips or confidential informants. See, e.g., United States v. Neal, 577 F. App'x 434, 441 (6th Cir. 2014); United States v. Coffee, 434 F.3d 887, 893 (6th Cir. 2006). "[N]amed informants," on the other hand, "require little corroboration." United States v. Williams, 544 F.3d 683, 690 (6th Cir. 2008). Their statements are "generally sufficient to establish probable cause without further corroboration because the legal consequences of lying to law enforcement officials tend to ensure reliability." United States v. Hodge, 714 F.3d 380, 384-85 (6th Cir. 2013).
Even if corroboration was needed, it existed here. Consistent with...
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