Drug Dealers, Their Homes and PC to Search

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by: Ryan Scott • June 29, 2016 • no comments

Good federal case on the failure of the search warrant to connect the alleged dealer's residence with his drug activity.

Key quote:

We have never held, however, that a suspect’s “status as a drug dealer, standing alone, gives rise to a fair probability that drugs will be found in his home.” United States v. Frazier, 423 F.3d 526, 533 (6th Cir. 2005). Rather, we have required some reliable evidence connecting the known drug dealer’s ongoing criminal activity to the residence; that is, we have required facts showing that the residence had been used in drug trafficking, such as an informant who observed drug deals or drug paraphernalia in or around the residence. Compare Jones, 159 F.3d at 974-75 (finding probable cause to issue a warrant where confidential informant made drug purchases from defendant, was at defendant’s residence during monitored drug transactions, and observed defendant in possession of cocaine), United States v. Ellison, 632 F.3d 347, 349 (6th Cir. 2011) (inference was proper because reliable confidential informant had “observed someone come out of [the defendant’s] residence, engage in a drug transaction, and then return into the residence”), and Berry, 565 F.3d at 339 (“Although a defendant’s status as a drug dealer, standing alone, does not give rise to a fair probability that drugs will be found in defendant’s home, there is support for the proposition that status as a drug dealer plus observation of drug activity near defendant’s home is sufficient to establish probable cause to search the home.” (internal citation omitted)), with Frazier , 423 F.3d at 532 (inference was not proper because affidavit failed to establish informants’ reliability and informants had not “witnessed [the defendant] dealing drugs from his [new] residence,” just his old residence). Our emphasis on the fact-intensive nature of the probable cause inquiry in known drug dealer cases accords with the Supreme Court’s rejection of “rigid rules, bright-line tests, and mechanistic inquiries in favor of a more flexible, all-things-considered approach” when evaluating probable cause. Florida v. Harris, 133 S. Ct. 1050, 1055 (2013).

This emphasis likewise comports with the Supreme Court’s instruction that “[t]he critical element in a reasonable search is not that the owner of property is suspected of crime but that there is reasonable cause to believe that the specific ‘things’to be searched for and seized are located on the property to which entry is sought.” Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547, 556 (1978). Finally, our totality-of-the-circumstances probable cause inquiry for search warrants for the home of an allegedly “known drug dealer” honors the Fourth Amendment’s safeguards against unreasonable governmental intrusion into the home.

In sum, our cases teach, as a general matter, that if the affidavit fails to include facts that directly connect the residence with the suspected drug dealing activity, or the evidence of this connection is unreliable, it cannot be inferred that drugs will be found in the defendant’s home—even if the defendant is a known drug dealer. The affidavit here lacks that necessary nexus.