West v. State

• Decision Date: 07 March 2001
• Docket Number: No. 663,663
• Parties: Tyrone Antonio WEST v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

768 A.2d 150

137 Md. App. 314

Tyrone Antonio WEST v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 663, Sept. Term, 2000.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

March 7, 2001.

James K. Smith (Student Attorney/Rule16) (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender and Bradford C. Peabody, Assistant Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Jason F. Trumpbour, Staff Attorney (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General, Gary E. Bair, Assistant Attorney General and Patricia Jessamy, State's Attorney for Baltimore City, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before JAMES R. EYLER, CHARLES E. MOYLAN, Jr. (Ret'd, Specially Assigned) and RAYMOND G. THIEME, Jr. (Ret'd, Specially Assigned), JJ. RAYMOND G. THIEME, Jr., Judge, Retired, Specially Assigned.

We are once again called upon to weigh, along that often enigmatic continuum we refer to as probable cause, the objectives of crime prevention and law enforcement against the individual protections provided to us through the guarantees of the Fourth Amendment.

A jury for the Circuit Court for Baltimore City convicted appellant Tyrone Antonio West of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possession of cocaine, and possession of marijuana. West was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment, the first ten years without parole, and to a concurrent term of one year. West appeals his convictions and presents the following questions for our review:

1. Did the trial court err in denying the motion to suppress the items seized from appellant's apartment?

2. Was the evidence sufficient to sustain appellant's convictions?

Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

Facts

At approximately 2:30 p.m. on September 3, 1998, police officers executed at 4416 Marble Hall Road, Apartment 340, in Baltimore City, a search warrant that had been issued on August 21, 1998. As the officers entered the apartment, appellant and another suspect were spotted exiting the apartment through a bathroom window located at the rear of the apartment. Several officers pursued appellant, eventually apprehending him several blocks away, while other officers involved in the execution of the search warrant searched the apartment and discovered the following: a plastic bag containing one hundred vials of a "white rock substance" in a pair of trousers in the bedroom closet; four bags of marijuana in a pair of sneakers above the bed's headboard in the bedroom; a plastic bag containing sixteen vials of a "white rock substance" in the bathroom toilet; two hand-rolled cigarettes containing marijuana on the dining room table; appellant's Identification Card; and a gas and electric bill in appellant's name. Chemical analysis determined that the "white rock substance[s]" contained a cocaine base.

Discussion

I. Motion to Suppress

Appellant contends that the trial court erred by denying his Motion to Suppress the items seized. He argues that "[t]he information supplied in the affidavit to support the issuance of the search warrant was not sufficient to establish probable cause." We begin our analysis by turning to the affidavit that was utilized in obtaining the warrant in issue. It provided:

During the last week of July your affiant received numerous complaints from several different concerned citizens about the narcotic activity going on inside of 4416 Marble Hall Road apt # 340 by an individual known as Tyrone Antonio West. Your affiant initiated an investigation. Your affiant received several complaints that there was heavy foot traffic into and out of 4416 Marble Hall Road, apt #340 and that this type of foot traffic is going on during the early hours of the morning between 1:00 a.m.—4:00 a.m. Additional information was received from a different concerned citizen that an individual known as Tyrone West was selling cocaine and crack from his apartment at 4416 Marble Hall Road # 340. During this same time period there were additional compaints [sic] received that an individual known as Tyrone West, who goes by the street name of "James" who lives at 4416 Marble Hall Road, apt # 340 was selling narcotics from his apartment and his vehicle. The complaint also revealed that Tyrone West drives a grey [N]issan, Maryland registration ETA-931.

On 30 July 98 Officer Jon Foote interviewed a concerned citizen in reference to Tyrone West. The information obtained from this individual was that Tyrone West was dealing narcotics from his apartment at 4416 Marble Hall Road apartment # 340 and from his 1985 Nissan, Maryland registration # ETA931. Furthermore, Tyrone West was known to carry and keep a gun in his residence and vehicle. This information was already received by your affiant and was consistent with other numerous complaints....

Additionally, the affidavit contained appellant's arrest record, which indicated that he had been arrested on ten separate occasions between July of 1987 and May of 1998. His last two arrests had been for possession of marijuana in August of 1997 and attempted murder in May of 1998.

We turn to the trial court's findings at the suppression hearing:

The Court has looked on the face of the affidavit and sees that there are at least two officers involved at two different times in obtaining information. There is a reference at the beginning of the affidavit to the last week of July. The primary affiant, Officer Ahern[,] refers to numerous complaints from several different concerned citizens about narcotic activity. They refer to a specific address and a specific apartment and complain that there is information from different concerned citizens, unnamed that an individual known as Tyrone West was selling cocaine and crack from his apartment at 4416 Marble Hall Road. They refer to a street name or his alleged street name and a vehicle. A second officer interviews a concerned citizen on July 30th, again unnamed and who is reported to have said that Tyrone West was dealing narcotics.

Furthermore, that Tyrone West was known to carry a gun and that this information was consistent with other numerous complaints. The officers corroborated the ownership of the Nissan, corroborate [sic] the Marble Hall Apartment rental complex that Mr. West lived at these specific premises. They checked with the gas and electric company and they learned that there was an existing arrest warrant for assault and hand gun violations as well as according to the information that they corroborated, a previous connection with Mr. West and guns and drugs based on his record. And on the basis of this information, the officers affirm that there was probable cause to believe that there was evidence of a commission of a crime in the application being at these premises....

The Court finds that looking under the totality of the circumstances here and a practical standpoint of what the citizens have said, of what they have identified, the information that has been corroborated as to the Defendant of living, his vehicle, his previous experience with narcotic [sic] in this Court was sufficient under the totality of the circumstances to warrant the issue of the warrant.... The Court further finds after reviewing the case of Miner v. State that even had the search warrant not been sufficient as the Court has found, the officer[']s objective would have had a reasonable objective basis to execute the warrant and so for those reasons, the Court denies the [motion to suppress].

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Its counterpart on the state level, Article 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, also requires that no search warrant shall issue without probable cause. Probable cause means a "fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place." Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983); Birchead v. State, 317 Md. 691, 700, 566 A.2d 488 (1989).

The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. Any assumption that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate's disinterested determination to issue a search warrant will justify the officers in making a search without a warrant would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people's homes secure only in the discretion of police officers.... The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is also a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent.

Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948).

Standard of Review

Our first issue concerns what standard of review should be employed by us to scrutinize the ruling of the suppression hearing judge. The authoritative word on that subject is found in Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317. Reviewing courts (at the suppression hearing level or at the appellate level) do not undertake de novo review of the magistrate's probable cause determination but, rather, pay "great deference" to that determination. Id. at 236, 103 S.Ct. 2317; Ramia v. State, 57 Md. App. 654, 655, 471 A.2d 1064 (1984). Reflecting a preference for the warrant process, the traditional standard...