09-1758 U.S. v. Mitten

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Search and Seizure
Good faith

Even if the affidavit supporting a search warrant lacked information about the informant's history of providing truthful information, the executing officer reasonably relied on the validity of the warrant.

"We agree with the district court that Mitten failed to rebut the presumption that Officer Connelly relied on the warrant in good faith. The deficiencies noted in the affidavit are not so egregious as to render his belief in the warrant's validity unreasonable. Mitten argues that Connelly's affidavit recites only two instances in which drug dealing is alleged to have taken place at Phillips' apartment, and that both are based upon information provided by two separate confidential informants 'whose conclusory accounts of criminal activity at the premises are wholly uncorroborated, and whose reliability, veracity and basis for knowledge are unestablished.' Brief of Defendant-Appellant at 24. But this is not true. Although only two confidential informants provided information about drug dealing taking place at Phillips' apartment, the information was about more than two occurrences. CS-1 stated that he made all of his crack purchases over the three-month period he was dealing crack at Apartment H14 at the Maple Ridge Apartments. He positively identified Mitten as his source from a photograph, and described the kind of car he had seen Mitten driving. CS-2 likewise stated he had purchased a distribution quantity of crack from an apartment in Building H sometime during the month of May 2008. The additional facts that a woman named Krystal was the renter of the apartment and that White was present during the transaction are sufficient to give rise to a reasonable inference that this transaction also took place in Apartment H14."

Affirmed.

09-1758 U.S. v. Mitten

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Mihm, J., Griesbach, J.

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