United States v. Myers

354 F. Supp. 3d 785
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Michigan
DecidedJanuary 23, 2019
DocketCase Number 18-20633
StatusPublished

This text of 354 F. Supp. 3d 785 (United States v. Myers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Myers, 354 F. Supp. 3d 785 (E.D. Mich. 2019).

Opinion

DAVID M. LAWSON, United States District Judge *788Defendant Delmal Myers, charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, has filed motions to suppress two categories of evidence: firearms recovered from his residence during a search by police conducted with a warrant; and statements he made to state and federal police following his arrest and before he was brought before a federal magistrate. He contends that the search warrant was not supported by probable cause, and the delay in presenting him to a judicial officer violates Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a) and the McNabb - Mallory rule. Although the search warrant affidavit failed to establish probable cause to search the defendant's residence, the officer's good faith reliance on the warrant precludes the application of the exclusionary rule. The delay in bringing the defendant before a judicial officer was not unreasonable, when measured from the time the defendant was taken into federal custody. Therefore, the Court will deny both motions.

I. Facts

City of Roseville police officers obtained a warrant to search two single-family residences on Moross Road in Detroit, Michigan in September 2018. Both are associated with Myers. The record does not indicate how far one residence was from the other - although map data puts them about two miles apart (about a five-minute drive) - and the parties mostly have redacted the addresses from the documents. The affidavits supporting the warrant requests identify one of the homes - labeled in this record as the "1st Premises" - as the defendant's "trap house" (a house where illegal drugs "are stored, sold, bought, used and even produced at times"). The "2nd Premises" appears to be where Myers lived. Myers does not contest the search warrant for the 1st Premises. He argues, however, that the warrant to search the 2nd Premises is invalid because the affidavit does not establish probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime would be located there. He says that the affidavit contains no facts establishing a nexus between the evidence sought and the 2nd Premises.

A. Investigation, Search Warrant Issuance, and Arrest

Roseville Police Detective Sergeant Jason Otto applied to a state magistrate for the search warrants on September 5, 2018. He suspected that Myers was involved in drug trafficking. The next day at 6:55 a.m., Roseville police officers and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents executed the warrants. At the 2nd Premises, they discovered two handguns. At approximately 8:45 a.m., Roseville police officers obtained a third warrant from the same state magistrate to search the 2nd Premises again. The scope of that warrant was expanded to cover contraband and substances in violation of the Michigan Public Health Code, including heroin. The follow-up search conducted at the 2nd Premises recovered no additional evidence.

According to the government, while the first search was underway and after being advised of and waiving his Miranda rights, Myers made admissions to Roseville police officer Burley that he resided at the 2nd premises and that the firearms were his. Myers was taken to the St. Clair Shores Police Department on an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in traffic court. He posted a $600 bond shortly before noon, but at the request of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Myers was taken into custody at the Roseville police department, where he and the firearms were held overnight. The next day at approximately 11:00 a.m., ATF

*789agents transported Myers to the federal courthouse in Detroit, where a criminal complaint had been issued that morning alleging a single charge of felon in possession of a firearm. A federal magistrate judge had issued an arrest warrant earlier that morning.

While en route to his initial appearance hearing and after being advised of and waiving his Miranda rights for a second time, Myers made recorded admissions to the ATF agents that he possessed the firearms recovered from the search at the 2nd Premises. According to the docket sheet, Myers was presented to the magistrate judge no later than 4:15 p.m. on September 7.

B. Affidavit for Warrant to Search 2nd Premises

In his affidavit, Detective Otto averred that he had been employed by the Roseville Police Department for fourteen years. At the time, he was assigned to a special investigations unit that investigated drug trafficking. He attended a police academy, had received 32 hours of training in narcotics investigation, and participated in about two weeks of training put on by the DEA. He participated in "many" narcotics investigations that resulted in "multiple" arrests.

Otto wrote that in August 2018, Roseville city police officers began investigating a drug-trafficking lead. Roseville's Special Investigation Unit received a tip from a confidential informant ("CI 1050") that a tall black male with a dark complexion using the street name "Owei" was selling marijuana and heroin in Macomb and Wayne Counties. CI 1050 provided Owei's phone number to Otto, who identified it as belonging to defendant Delmal Lamar Myers. After viewing a photograph of Myers that the police obtained from the Michigan Digital Image Retrieval System, CI 1050 confirmed that "Owei" in fact was Myers.

CI 1050 had "intimate" knowledge of Myers's drug operation, which Otto said he corroborated. Otto deemed CI 1050 a reliable source. The informant reported that Myers previously had fronted him illegal narcotics that he sold from the 1st Premises, which Otto characterized as a trap house. The informant was indebted to Myers for these fronted drugs.

The police instructed CI 1050 to set up a series of meetings with Myers to pay down his debt using recorded funds provided to him. Otto was with CI 1050 on one occasion during the first week of August 2018 when a call was placed to Myers to set up one of the meetings. After Myers agreed to meet CI 1050, Roseville police detective Saier observed him leave the 1st Premises driving a gray, 2004 Infinity FX35 ("Infinity"). Once he collected the funds, Myers was seen driving in an erratic manner, speeding, and making prohibited or multiple unnecessary turns - a detection avoidance tactic known to law enforcement personnel as "cleaning."

The following week the surveillance team observed heavy traffic at the 1st Premises when Myers was present, an occurrence Otto averred is typical at a trap house. Individuals would arrive in vehicles, step into the house for a couple minutes, and then drive away. Sometimes Myers walked out to the vehicles as they arrived and performed a hand-to-hand exchange through the window. These interactions were brief, lasting only a couple minutes. Myers also was observed driving the Infinity, as well as a silver, 2006 Mercedes Benz R-Class ("Mercedes"), to and from that location. Roseville police ran a search of the license plates and found that both were registered to Jwan Shnita Ellison, who also lives on Moross Road.

That same week, CI 1050 arranged another meeting with Myers to pay down his debt. This time Myers informed CI 1050 *790that he would bring a sample of some new product for CI 1050.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

McNabb v. United States
318 U.S. 332 (Supreme Court, 1943)
Mallory v. United States
354 U.S. 449 (Supreme Court, 1957)
United States v. Calandra
414 U.S. 338 (Supreme Court, 1974)
United States v. Janis
428 U.S. 433 (Supreme Court, 1976)
Zurcher v. Stanford Daily
436 U.S. 547 (Supreme Court, 1978)
Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York
442 U.S. 319 (Supreme Court, 1979)
Payton v. New York
445 U.S. 573 (Supreme Court, 1980)
Illinois v. Gates
462 U.S. 213 (Supreme Court, 1983)
United States v. Leon
468 U.S. 897 (Supreme Court, 1984)
Illinois v. Krull
480 U.S. 340 (Supreme Court, 1987)
Corley v. United States
556 U.S. 303 (Supreme Court, 2009)
United States v. Steven Carter
910 F.2d 1524 (Seventh Circuit, 1990)
United States v. Edward M. Czuprynski
46 F.3d 560 (Sixth Circuit, 1995)
United States v. Kenneth Eugene Allen
211 F.3d 970 (Sixth Circuit, 2000)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
354 F. Supp. 3d 785, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-myers-mied-2019.