MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Amit
P. Mehta United States District Judge
On
February 1, 2018, law enforcement executed a search warrant
on a two-story building located at 2408 Martin Luther King,
Jr. Avenue, S.E., in Washington, D.C. (“the
Premises”). Inside officials found and seized various
types of narcotics in distribution-level quantities, multiple
weapons, and items used to weigh, prepare, and package
narcotics for sale. Two Defendants- Anthony Fields and
Lonnell Tucker-now move to suppress that evidence. Defendants
raise a host of reasons why the court should suppress the
evidence, but none have merit. For the reasons that follow,
Defendants' motions are denied.
I.
At the
most general level, Defendants argue that the warrant is
deficient because it authorized law enforcement to search the
Premises as an indivisible whole, when in fact the Premises
is two “separate structures.”[1] Defendants'
“separate structures” argument is based on the
fact that first floor of the Premises houses a commercial
enterprise-a barbershop-and the second floor contains a
warren of rooms that Defendants assert are residential in
character. The barbershop and the second floor are accessible
by two different entrances. There is a door to the barbershop
that opens directly onto the sidewalk, and there is a
separate “red door” that leads to the second
floor that also opens directly onto the sidewalk.
See Def. Fields' Mot. to Suppress Search
Warrant, ECF No. 69 [hereinafter Def.'s Mot.], at
13-14[2]; Def.'s Tucker's Mot. to Adopt,
ECF No. 76. Defendants argue that “[t]o say that
probable cause exists to search the adjacent property merely
by virtue of evidence regarding the barbershop allows the
government to sidestep the [] requirement of specificity and
the duty to ensure probable cause exists as to each specific
location to be searched.” Def.'s Mot. at 13-14.
Stated differently, according to Defendants, law enforcement
should have obtained two separate warrants, one for the
barbershop and one for the second floor.
Defendants'
argument suffers from two problems. For starters, it rests on
the false premise the second-floor rooms constitute a
separate “place to be searched” for purposes of
the Fourth Amendment. U.S. Const. amend. IV. All the evidence
is to the contrary. According to the warrant affidavit, the
Premises is identified by one address-2408 MLK, Jr. Ave.,
S.E.- and is owned as a unitary whole by a single person.
See Gov't Resp., Ex. 1, ECF No. 95-1
[hereinafter Gov't Ex.], at 42 ¶ 42. The Premises is
zoned for a business purpose. See Id. And the
electric utility, PEPCO, bills “for the entirety”
of the Premises. See Id. In addition, a photograph
of the Premises shows it to be a two-story brick building
with only one set of numerals-“2408”-appearing on
the façade. See Id. at 5. These facts are
unchallenged. To be sure, the Premises has two different
doors, each of which opens directly onto the sidewalk-one for
the barbershop and one for the second floor- but that feature
alone, without more, does not establish separate
“places” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.
Defendants cite no authority and present no facts that would
cause the court to conclude otherwise. Accordingly, law
enforcement did not violate the Fourth Amendment by seeking
only a single warrant for the Premises.
Even if
each floor of the Premises did demand its own warrant, the
“good faith” exception would foreclose
suppression. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S.
897, 913, 920-22 (1984). The magistrate judge signed a
warrant for the entirety of the Premises and, absent an
applicable exception, law enforcement was entitled to rely on
that determination. See Id. Defendants seek to rebut
the good-faith exception in two ways. First, they argue that
the affidavit contains a dishonest statement about the
Premises, and they ask the court to hold an evidentiary
hearing to consider the alleged dishonesty, i.e., a
Franks hearing. See Def. Fields' Reply
to Gov't Resp., ECF No. 104 [hereinafter Def.'s
Reply], at 10-11, 15. See Leon, 468 U.S. at 926
(stating that the good-faith exception does not apply if
“the officers were dishonest or reckless in preparing
their affidavit”). Second, they contend that the
warrant was overbroad insofar as it sweeps in the second
floor of the Premises, and a reasonable officer would have
understood, based on the facts presented in the affidavit,
that the Premises was in fact two separate places requiring
separate warrants. Def.'s Reply at 6-11, 14. See
Leon, 468 U.S. at 926 (stating that the good-faith
exception does not apply where officers “could not have
harbored an objectively reasonable belief in the existence of
probable cause”); United States v. Griffin,
867 F.3d 1265, 1278 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (declining to apply
good-faith exception to obviously overbroad warrant). Neither
of these exceptions to the good-faith principle applies.
As to
the first, Defendants claim that the affiant
“recklessly disregarded the truth” when she wrote
by hand on the affidavit that “no additional businesses
or residences have been identified [as being inside]
Premises-1.” Def.'s Mot. at 10 (citing Gov't
Ex. at 42 ¶ 43 (emphasis added)). Apparently, the
affiant added this sentence following an inquiry from the
magistrate judge. See Gov't Resp. to Def.'s
Reply, ECF No. 108, at 3. The suggestion seems to be that the
affiant deceived the magistrate by not identifying “a
locked residential premises adjacent to the
barbershop”-in other words, that the second floor was a
residential space. Def.'s Mot. at 10. But there is
nothing evidently false or misleading about the affiant's
statement. Defendants offer no evidence to establish that
anyone used the second floor as a “residence.”
Indeed, Defendant Fields admits that he used the second
floor, at most, “to store objects, such as condoms and
a mattress, . . . for his personal recreational use.”
Id. at 5. Additionally, even if anyone did use one
of the rooms as a residence, Defendants supply no proof that
law enforcement was aware, or should have been aware, of such
use. Indeed, based on an inquiry of the Premises' lessee
and a government-records search, law enforcement had reason
to believe that the Premises was zoned only for commercial
use. See Gov't Ex. at 42 ¶ 42. There is
simply no evidence before the court that would support
applying the dishonesty/recklessness-disregard exception of
Leon. For the same reason, Defendants are not
entitled to a Franks hearing. See Franks v.
Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 155-56, 171 (1978) (stating that
a hearing is warranted only if the defendant “makes a
substantial preliminary showing that a false statement
knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for
the truth, was included by the affiant in the warrant,
” and that such allegation must be “accompanied
by an offer of proof”).
Defendants'
second argument for why this search falls outside of
Leon is related to the first. They contend that
“the affidavit in this case was so facially deficient
in failing to particularize the place to be searched, that
the executing officers could not have reasonably presumed it
to be valid as to the adjacent premises that was clearly not
operated as a commercial location, or a barbershop.”
Def.'s Mot. at 14. The court understands Defendants to
argue that the warrant was overbroad because it included the
second floor as part of the Premises, and any reasonable
officer would have understood that the second floor was a
separate location requiring its own warrant. The court
already has found that the Premises was a single
“place” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, so
this argument does not even get out of the starting block.
But even if the court is wrong, Defendants have not come
forward with evidence, or identified a defect in the
affidavit, that would have put a reasonable officer on notice
that the second floor required a warrant of its own to
conduct a search. The good-faith exception therefore applies.
II.
Next,
Defendants maintain that the warrant is not supported by
probable cause to justify a search of the second floor. This
contention takes multiple forms. Defendants argue that the
search warrant affidavit (1) “fail[s] to connect the
controlled buys [to] the ‘red door' residence at
all, ” Def.'s Reply at 13; (2) presents “no
evidence . . . that a gun, or guns, would be located”
there, id.; (3) offers no evidence that the second
floor “is the scene of drug activity, ”
id. at 14; and (4) lacks a description of “any
actual criminal activity observed” in relation to the
second floor, id. at 15. None of these claims is
borne out by a close reading of the affidavit.
For
starters, the proper question is not whether law enforcement
had probable cause to believe that the second floor would
contain evidence of drug trafficking and other criminal
activity, but whether the Premises as a whole would
yield such evidence. The warrant sought, and was issued, to
search the entire Premises. As to that question, there was
ample evidence of drug trafficking occurring in and near the
barbershop to justify the search warrant. Indeed, on six
dates in the summer of 2017, a confidential informant working
for law enforcement (“CI”) made or attempted to
make narcotics purchases from persons who operated in and
near the barbershop. See Gov't Ex. at 25-32
¶¶ 10-19. Those events alone provided probable
cause to search the Premises.
Even if
specific evidence is needed to tie the second floor to both
drug activity and Defendant Fields, the affidavit provides
it. During the controlled buy that occurred on June 22, 2017,
the CI informed law enforcement that an unknown male entered
the red door and returned with three zips of narcotics, which
the CI purchased for $60. See Id. at 27-29
¶¶ 12-15. Officers also observed the unknown male
enter the red door on that date and return with money in his
hands. See Id. at 28 ¶ 14. This transaction
alone establishes that the second floor was a probable
location used to store narcotics. Additionally, law
enforcement had reason to suspect Fields was carrying out
drug activities on the second floor. On November 28, 2017,
law enforcement in Prince George's County arrested Fields
for possession with intent to distribute cocaine, after
recovering 83 grams of suspected cocaine and $7, 300 in U.S.
currency from his person and a car in which he was the sole
occupant. See Id. at 36 ¶ 29. Fields did not
reside above the barbershop. See Id. at 21-22 ¶
35. Yet, within days of his arrest, on November 30, 2017, law
enforcement observed Fields with a key opening the red door
and remaining inside for a period of time, see Id.
at 30 ¶ 30; and then made the same observations again on
December 29, 2017, see Id. at 21 ¶ 34; and,
January 18, 2017, see Id. at 22 ¶ 37. Given the
substantial evidence of narcotics trafficking in and near the
barbershop, the suspected retrieval of narcotics from the
second floor during a controlled buy, and Fields' recent
arrest for trafficking, law enforcement marshalled enough
evidence to establish probable cause that the second floor
would contain evidence of narcotics trafficking and that
Fields was connected to such activity.
Even if
this evidence falls short of probable cause, the good-faith
exception once more applies. A magistrate judge authorized a
search of the entire Premises, including the second floor.
Defendants do not argue that the affiant was “dishonest
or reckless” in establishing that narcotics trafficking
was taking place at the Premises, including on the second
floor. Leon, 469 U.S. at 926. To the extent they
contend that a reasonable officer “could not have
harbored an objectively reasonable belief in the existence of
probable cause” to search the second floor, the
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