United States v. Arthur Thornton

559 F. App'x 176
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedFebruary 25, 2014
Docket13-1665
StatusUnpublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 559 F. App'x 176 (United States v. Arthur Thornton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Arthur Thornton, 559 F. App'x 176 (3d Cir. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION

CHAGARES, Circuit Judge.

Arthur Thornton appeals the District Court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained from a search of a house where he was staying. For the reasons that follow, we will affirm.

I.

Because we write solely for the benefit of the parties, we will only briefly summarize the facts relevant to our decision. On November 3, 2010, a confidential informant (“Cl”) met Thornton on a street corner in Philadelphia for the purpose of buying drugs. The Philadelphia Police had supplied the Cl with one hundred and thirty dollars in recorded buy money to make the transactions. Police Officers Brian Myers and Richard Woertz observed the Cl meet with Thornton and exchange the money for four tablets of a substance that turned out to be oxycodone. Thornton performed his end of the transaction while sitting in his vehicle, a tan Hummer.

*178 After the transaction, Officer Jamie Brown followed Thornton as he left the location in his Hummer. Officer Brown observed Thornton perform what looked like another drug transaction with an unknown man. After that transaction, Thornton drove to a house located at 855 Brill Street in Philadelphia, parked, and entered the house.

On November 16, 2010, Officer Woertz observed Thornton leave the residence at 855 Brill Street. The police then had the Cl call Thornton and arrange another drug transaction. Thornton drove to meet the Cl, who again purchased oxycodone from Thornton while Thornton remained in his Hummer.

Officer Myers executed an affidavit and obtained search warrants for Thornton’s Hummer and for the house at 855 Brill Street on November 18, 2010. In his affidavit, Officer Myers recounted the above facts, and noted that based on his narcotics experience, Thornton was likely storing or selling narcotics out of the house, even though the police had only seen him transact from his Hummer. The search warrant also sought items used in the manufacturing and distribution of drugs, including cash. In the course of the police executing the search warrant at 6:80 a.m. the following day, they found a loaded hand gun with an obliterated serial number, ammunition, cocaine, oxycodone, alprazolam, a scale, a box of sandwich bags, and almost two thousand dollars in cash. Based in large part on this search and seizure, a grand jury indicted Thornton with numerous drug and weapon offenses.

Thornton moved to suppress the physical evidence obtained in the search of the house. 1 He argued that the search was not supported by probable cause because there were no facts in the sworn affidavit that the police or the Cl had ever seen him selling drugs out of his house. He also argued that the warrant was stale because two days elapsed between the most recent drug transaction and the time the police obtained the warrant.

After an evidentiary hearing at which Officers Myers and Brown testified, the District Court denied Thornton’s motion. It found that the evidence that Thornton returned to 855 Brill Street immediately after the November 3, 2010 transaction, and left that same house immediately before the November 16, 2010 transaction, provided a sufficient basis to support the notion that Thornton possessed drugs in his residence. The District Court also rejected Thornton’s argument that the warrant was stale. Thornton then pled guilty to eight counts of various drug and weapon offenses but preserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. He was sentenced to a total term of 216 months of imprisonment. Thornton timely appealed.

II.

The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3281. We have appellate jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. In the suppression context, we “review the factual findings of the District Court for clear error, and exercise plenary review over the application of law to those facts.” United States v. Pierce, 622 F.3d 209, 210 (3d Cir.2010).

III.

Thornton advances three arguments on appeal. He continues to contend that the *179 search warrant was not supported by probable cause and that it was based on stale facts. He also argues (for the first time) that the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant was supported by a material misstatement of fact. All three contentions fail.

A. '

A finding of probable cause is based on the totality of the circumstances. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 230, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). “To find probable cause to search, there needs to be a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” United States v. Burton, 288 F.3d 91, 103 (3d Cir.2002) (quotation marks and citation omitted). A court may draw “reasonable inferences about where evidence is likely to be kept, based on the nature of the evidence and the type of offense.” United States v. Whitner, 219 F.3d 289, 296 (3d Cir.2000) (quotation marks omitted).

“Direct evidence linking the place to be searched to the crime is not required for the issuance of a search warrant.” United States v. Hodge, 246 F.3d 301, 305 (3d Cir.2001) (quotation marks omitted). We have long recognized that evidence associated with drug dealing “needs to be stored somewhere,” and a drug dealer’s dwelling is often “the best, and probably the only, location to store [such] items.... ” Whitner, 219 F.3d at 298. We have held that there is a sufficient basis to infer that evidence of drug dealing might be found in a residence when the affidavit is based on evidence that (1) “the person suspected of drug dealing is actually a drug dealer;” (2) “the place to be searched is possessed by, or the domicile of, the dealer;” and (3) “the home contains contraband linking it to the dealer’s activities.” United States v. Stearn, 597 F.3d 540, 559 (3d Cir.2010).

There was sufficient evidence to link the residence at 855 Brill Street to Thornton’s drug activities here. Police officers observed Thornton engage in several drug transactions, supporting the notion that he was, in fact, a drug dealer. He was seen entering and exiting this dwelling immediately before and after selling drugs on two separate occasions. These facts, combined with Officer Myers’s opinion that evidence of drugs was likely to be found in the residence, provide a substantial basis from which the issuing magistrate could conclude that evidence of drug dealing was likely to be found at 855 Brill Street.

B.

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Bluebook (online)
559 F. App'x 176, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-arthur-thornton-ca3-2014.