United States v. Stephenson
| Decision Date | 22 October 1979 |
| Docket Number | Crim. A. No. 78-80788. |
| Citation | 490 F. Supp. 625 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. William STEPHENSON, Kathline Marria, Wendy Courech, Timothy Greening, Rudolpho Longo, Robert Vukson and Orville Walters, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan |
James K. Robinson, U.S. Atty., Samuel C. Damren, Asst. U.S. Atty., Detroit, Mich., for plaintiff.
Kenneth M. Mogill, Philip F. Colista, Detroit, Mich., for defendants.
This case charges conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, to distribute and to manufacture, phencyclidine (PCP) in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846 (1975). There are also six ancillary substantive counts in the Indictment. The Motion before the Court challenges the sufficiency of the arrest and search warrants and affidavits appertaining thereto. The claim is that there was not sufficient probable cause to issue these warrants and that they are, therefore, defective under minimal Fourth Amendment standards as announced in Aguilar v. Texas,1 and Spinelli v. United States.2
The current Indictment supercedes a prior Indictment in Case No. 78-80590, the case pursuant to which the warrants in question were issued.
Special Agent Patrick Mueller filed a Complaint on August 8, 1978, charging the Defendants, Stephenson, Marria, Courech, Greening, Vukson and Longo with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, to distribute and to manufacture or attempt to manufacture PCP. That Complaint is appended to this Opinion. On the same day, and pursuant to that Complaint, the Honorable Chris E. Stith, a Magistrate of this District, signed arrest warrants for Defendants Stephenson, Marria, Courech, Vukson and Longo. The file does not reflect that a warrant for the arrest of Defendant Greening was issued, and the reason for such is unknown to the Court. The United States Marshal's Service, apparently accompanied by D.E.A. agents, executed these warrants on the next day, August 9, 1978.
These arrest warrants were executed on the three challenging Defendants, Stephenson, Marria and Courech at 6297 Washburn Road, Goodrich, Michigan (the home of these Defendants). The affidavit submitted in support of these warrants was the Complaint referred to above. The Defendants allege that (1) from the face of the Complaint, there were not sufficient facts to justify the issuance of the arrest warrants, and (2) arguendo, the Complaint did aver sufficient facts to justify issuance of the arrest warrants, the Court must nevertheless invalidate those warrants because the averments were made with knowledge of their falsity or in reckless disregard for the truth.
When the arrest warrants were executed at the Washburn Road address, the Defendants claim several officers seized items which were not in plain view and justified such seizures on the ground that the items were in "open view." The Defendants further claim that these seizures were the products of a general exploratory search.
After the arrests, Agent Mueller sought and obtained a search warrant for the 6297 Washburn residence from the Honorable Warren F. Kraphol, the Federal Magistrate located at Flint. The warrant was issued to search for "narcotics, narcotics paraphernalia, books, records, chemicals, glassware, precursors relative to the illicit manufacture of phencyclidine and other controlled substances which are in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)." The affidavit in support of that search warrant is also appended to this opinion. Mueller reiterated many of the averments made in the Complaint.3 He also stated that, when the arrest warrants were executed, the following items were in "open view": (1) plastic bags containing a leafy substance looking like marijuana; (2) job cigarette papers, which are often used in rolling marijuana cigarettes; and (3) two chemicals known to be precursors to the manufacture of PCP.4
The Defendants challenge this search on multiple grounds: (1) the items mentioned in ¶ 2 of the Affidavit were not, in fact, in "open view" when the arrest warrants were executed; (2) the warrant was not supported by probable cause because (a) the items mentioned in ¶ 2 were not sufficient in themselves to justify issuance of a warrant and because (b) the other averments (¶¶ 1, 3-10) were not sufficient to justify issuance of a warrant since such were insufficient to justify issuance of the arrest warrants; (3) arguendo, the affidavit was sufficient on its face, the items seized pursuant to the warrant must be suppressed because the averments were made with knowledge of their falsity or in reckless disregard for the truth.
When Mueller executed the search warrant at Washburn, he claims to have found a driver's license bearing the name of Janet Barber in the bedroom of Defendant Courech, and also a note on a calendar in that room which read "rent due on garage on Dort." He then proceeded to a garage located at G-51805 Dort Highway in Grand Blanc, Michigan and determined from the garage manager that a storage unit A-12 was being rented by a Janet Barber. Mueller went to the place where the unit was located and smelled chemicals. Subsequent to this, he sought, and obtained, a search warrant for storage unit A-12.
The affidavit in support of this search warrant reiterated the same averments as the Washburn warrant, ¶¶ 1-10 of the Dort storage bin affidavit being identical to ¶¶ 1-10 of the Washburn affidavit.5 Additionally, ¶¶ 11-15 of the Dort storage bin affidavit related the facts capsulized above regarding the driver's license and subsequent events. The Dort affidavit is appended to this opinion.
The Defendants state that the affidavit is insufficient for the same reasons that the Complaint and the Washburn affidavit were defective. They also allege that the items seized were fruits of a poisonous tree and, thereby, inadmissible under Wong Sun v. United States,6 and its progeny.
Let us look first to the challenge made by the Defendants to the arrest warrants. The procedure for obtaining an arrest warrant is outlined in Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.7 Cases regarding the sufficiency of search warrants as to probable cause are clearly analogous to situations where the sufficiency of an arrest warrant is in question. The Constitution makes no distinction between arrest and search warrants. It simply provides, "no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the person or things to be seized."8
The Complaint in this case contains statements made by unidentified informants. The challenge to the warrants, therefore, clearly comes within the purview of Aguilar v. Texas. The Court granted certiorari in Spinelli v. United States,9 to further explicate Aguilar. Aguilar, read in conjunction with Justice Harlan's opinion in Spinelli v. United States,10 has established criteria for determining if minimal constitutional standards have been met when the affidavit contains hearsay information from tipsters. Although both Aguilar and Spinelli involved challenges to search warrants, courts have consistently applied their teaching to similar claims directed at arrest warrants.11
Aguilar held that to pass minimal constitutional muster, an affidavit must reflect (1) some underlying circumstances from which the informant could make the claim and (2) some underlying circumstances from which the affiant (law enforcement official) could conclude that the unidentified informant was "credible" or his information "reliable."
Although an Affidavit may be based on hearsay information and need not reflect the direct personal observation of the Affiant ... 1 the Magistrate must be informed of some underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded that the narcotics were where he claimed they were, and 2 some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer concluded that the informant whose identity need not be disclosed .. was "credible" or his information "reliable."12
Justice Harlan coined this the "two-pronged" test of Aguilar in Spinelli13 and it is often referred to as such by lawyers and judges.
Spinelli held that, although an affidavit might not meet the requirements of Aguilar, it still could be constitutionally viable in light of other averments in the affidavit which corroborate the information received from the informant. In considering the corroborative averments, however, the Aguilar standard must be considered by the reviewing Magistrate or Judge. To wit, "he must ask: Can it fairly be said that the tip, even when certain parts of it have been corroborated by independent sources, is as trustworthy as a tip which would pass Aguilar's test without independent corroboration?"14
The issue before the Magistrate, therefore, was whether the Complaint signed by Patrick Mueller on August 8, 1978, was sufficient to establish probable cause that a conspiracy had been committed and that the named Defendants had committed that conspiracy.
The court will look at the first prong of Aguilar to determine whether the Magistrate was informed of underlying circumstances from which the informants concluded that certain acts had been committed, which, individually or in the aggregate, spelled the probable commission of a conspiracy. The following excerpts from the Complaint relevant to resolving that issue are reported below (the statements are arbitrarily numbered by the Court for future reference).
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