United States District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania
MEMORANDUM OPINION
MATTHEW W. BRANN UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Before
the Court for disposition is Defendant Edwin Vaquiz's
Motion to Suppress Evidence. For the following reasons, this
motion will be denied.
I.
Factual Background[1]
This
Motion seeks the suppression of 280 bags of heroin seized
during a search incident to arrest on January 29, 2016. The
crux of this motion is whether probable cause to arrest, and
thus search, Edwin Vaquiz (“Mr. Vaquiz”) was
lacking because it was premised on information gleaned from
an informant alleged to be both unreliable and otherwise
suspect. The background of Mr. Vaquiz's arrest and the
investigation leading thereto is as follows.
In
January 2016, at the genesis of this case's
investigation, confidential informant, J.F., was facing
charges related to lying on a permit to purchase a
firearm.[2] J.F.'s criminal history includes prior
convictions for theft by deception and possession of
narcotics.[3] In order to receive positive consideration
in her case, J.F. sought to assist authorities by providing
information concerning ongoing criminal
activity.[4] Specifically, J.F. informed police that
she knew a drug user named T.L., who could supply her with
heroin.[5] T.L. was already known to Borough of
Berwick Police, including testifying Officer Gregory Martin,
as a “middle-man” for drug transactions, i.e.
someone who facilitates a purchase of narcotics in exchange
for a portion of the drugs obtained.[6] T.L. also had prior
drug-related convictions.[7] Based on this information concerning
T.L., detectives believed that J.F. would likely be able to
obtain heroin from her, and thus lead investigators to a
source of drug supply.[8] Furthermore, despite her prior criminal
history, Detective Martin testified that he found J.F. to be
credible.[9] He specifically noted that, over the
course of 13 years and previous arrests, he had interviewed
J.F. between 6 and 12 times.[10]
A
controlled purchase by J.F. was therefore arranged for
January 22, 2016. Participating in that operation were
Berwick Police Department Officers Gregory Martin, Scott
Sienkiewicz, and Brandon Schultz.[11] Prior to this purchase,
the officers searched J.F's car and her person to confirm
that she did not have money or contraband.[12] The officers
also provided to her $80.00 to buy heroin.[13] J.F. was kept
under constant surveillance throughout the events of the day,
as the officers drove in two separate vehicles and maintained
contact with each other using cellular
telephones.[14]
First,
J.F. met T.L. at her residence and gave her the $ 80.00
provided by the officers.[15] Riding in J.F.'s car, T.L.
then directed J.F. to an alley parallel to Market Street in
Berwick.[16] Both J.F. and the officers recognized
the residence as belonging to Edwin Vaquiz.[17] The officers
established multiple angles of sight to keep both T.L. and
any drug transaction in view.[18] For instance, Detective Martin
then saw Mr. Vaquiz exit the rear of his residence and
proceed to his carport as T.L. exited the
vehicle.[19] Detective Schultz came within 50 yards
of Mr. Vaquiz and T.L., and observed their meeting
personally.[20] Following this meeting, T.L. returned to
the vehicle, and both she and J.F. drove back to T.L.'s
residence.[21]After she dropped T.L. off at her
residence, J.F. again met with the officers at the police
station and handed over five packets of drugs stamped
“Black Jack.”[22]These packets later tested
positive for heroin.[23] J.F. and her vehicle were again
searched, and no money or additional contraband was
found.[24] J.F. verbally confirmed to the officers
what they had personally seen, i.e. that she gave the $80.00
to T.L., who left the vehicle to meet with Mr. Vaquiz and
then returned and gave J.F. heroin.[25]
On
January 28, 2016, J.F. informed officers that T.L. had told
her that Mr. Vaquiz planned to travel to Philadelphia to
obtain a new supply of heroin.[26]Officers formed a plan, and
instructed J.F. to offer to drive Mr. Vaquiz to re-supply in
exchange for heroin.[27] On the morning of January 29, 2016-the
date planned for this trek to Philadelphia, the same three
Berwick officers met with J.F., searched her and her vehicle,
and provided her with funds to cover gas and
expenses.[28] The officers thereafter followed J.F. as
she drove first to pick up T.L., and then Mr.
Vaquiz.[29] Now surveilling a car occupied by J.F.,
T.L., and Mr. Vaquiz, the officers followed the car to an
A.T.M. where Mr. Vaquiz withdrew cash.[30] The vehicle
then proceeded toward Route 80, and onto the Northeast
Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.[31] Agents
followed the vehicle a majority of the way to Philadelphia
before turning back toward Berwick.[32]
However,
in Philadelphia, J.F. kept in contact with Detective Schultz
via cellular telephone to let him know what was going
on.[33] Detective Schultz instructed J.F. to
send him a text message on the return trip when she was ten
minutes away from Berwick, and to park at the gas station on
Market Street in Berwick.[34] While in Philadelphia, J.F.
testified that she witnessed Mr. Vaquiz meet with a supplier
who provided him with both a large and small
package.[35] As directed, J.F. texted Detective
Schultz when they were ten minutes away from Berwick, and
then, once in the borough, parked at the designated gas
station and entered the store as instructed.[36]
At the
Berwick gas station, the six officers and agents swarmed the
vehicle with guns drawn, and removed Mr. Vaquiz and T.L. from
the car.[37] Two officers then placed Mr. Vaquiz on
the ground to apply handcuffs.[38] Officer Schultz thereafter
conducted a search incident to arrest and seized a wrapped
package containing 280 bags of suspected heroin, stamped
“Transformers.”[39] Officer Schultz located an
additional 28 bags of heroin from beneath the back seat next
to where Mr. Vaquiz was sitting.[40] Detective Martin
testified that, when he and other officers arrested Vaquiz,
they did so based on what they had observed first-hand, along
with everything J.F. had told them, including that 1) Mr.
Vaquiz had distributed heroin to T.L. on January 22; and 2)
Mr. Vaquiz had obtained and was in possession of heroin at
the time of his arrest.[41]
On
October 25, 2016, Edwin Vaquiz was indicted by a grand jury
sitting in the United States District Court for the Middle
District of Pennsylvania with (1) distribution of a
controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. §
841(a)(1), and (2) possession with intent to distribute a
controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. §
841(a)(1).[42] A jury trial is scheduled in this matter
for July 23, 2018.[43]
On
April 27, 2018, Mr. Vaquiz filed a Motion to Suppress, asking
this Court to suppress the 280 bags of heroin seized from his
person during the January 29, 2016 arrest.[44] This Court
held a hearing on this issue on May 30, 2018.[45] This motion
has since been fully briefed, including post-hearing
briefing, and is now ripe for disposition.[46]
II.
Analysis
The
instant motion asks that the Court suppress 280 bags of
heroin seized from Defendant Mr. Vaquiz's person during a
search incident to arrest on January 29, 2016. Mr. Vaquiz
specifically argues that officers lacked probable cause to
arrest him because they relied upon the unreliable and
suspect information of informant, J.F. However, because the
factual record demonstrates that J.F. proved her reliability
on numerous occasions and that the information provided by
her was often independently corroborated by the officers in
this case, I disagree. My reasoning follows.
The
Fourth Amendment protects individuals “against
unreasonable searches and seizures.”[47] The Supreme
Court has held that a search “conducted outside the
judicial process, without prior approval by a judge of
magistrate, [is] per se unreasonable-subject only to a few
specifically established and well-delineated
exceptions.”[48] In one such example, law enforcement
officers do not need a warrant to arrest an individual in a
public place if they have probable cause to believe that the
person has committed or is committing a crime.[49] Probable
cause for a warrantless arrest exists when, at the time of
the arrest, the facts and circumstances known to the police
are “sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing
that the [suspect] had committed or was committing an
offense.”[50]
Here,
the parties dispute whether the facts known to the officers
and agents on January 29, 2016 established probable cause
that Mr. Vaquiz had committed or was committing a criminal
offense. With knowledge drawn from the confidential informant
J.F, the parties specifically disagree as to whether the
officers effectuating Mr. Vaquiz's arrest improperly
relied upon J.F.'s suspect and unreliable word. To the
extent that such probable cause was lacking, any evidence
seized in a search incident to that arrest[51]-here, 280
bags of heroin-would be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous
tree.[52]
In
Illinois v. Gates, the Supreme Court of the United
States abandoned a separate, two-pronged test known as the
Aguilar-Spinelli test concerning confidential
informants in favor of the totality-of-the-circumstances
approach general to the probable cause
analysis.[53] The Gates Court held that,
while an informant's “veracity” and
“reliability” are still relevant to a probable
cause analysis, “these elements should [not] be
understood as entirely separate and independent elements to
be rigidly applied in every case.”[54] Rather,
“a deficiency in one [element] may be compensated for,
in determining the overall reliability of a tip, by a strong
showing as to the other, or by some other indicia or
reliability.”[55] “In particular, Gates
endorsed independent ‘[police] corroboration of details
of an informant's tip' as an important method for
establishing a tip's reliability.”[56]
Defendant
essentially argues that, because J.F. had prior convictions
for crimen falsi offenses, probable cause, to the
extent based on her word, was lacking. The Government
responds that, despite these convictions, an independent
factual basis confirmed the reliability of J.F.'s
provided information and supported the officers' probable
cause determination on January 29, 2016.
Having
reviewed the factual record of this case as ably developed by
counsel at the suppression hearing, I find that probable
cause existed to arrest Mr. Vaquiz on January 29, 2016.
First, I note that, despite the troubling criminal
convictions of J.F., she was nevertheless known to Detective
Martin over the course of his 13 years as a police officer as
reliable and forthcoming.[57] Indeed, at the suppression
hearing held in this matter, Detective Martin stated as
follows:
Q. Got it. So about [J.F.]; are you familiar with [J.F.]?
A. Yes, sir, I am.
Q. How are you familiar with her?
A. Within the first year or two of my career, responding to
her house for normal patrol calls as well as a narcotics
arrest that the narcotics officer at the time had facilitated
purchases out of that house.
Q. So you have arrested [J.F.] in the past?
A. Yes.
Q. Have you ever interviewed her?
A. Yes.
Q. How many times?
A. Half a dozen to a dozen on certain things and spoken to
her.
Q. Okay. So have you had occasion over that time, the half a
dozen to a dozen times that you have interviewed her in your
professional capacity or spoken to her in your professional
capacity, have you formed any kind of judgment as to her
credibility?
A. Yes. I have found her forthcoming with information when
directly confronted with evidence. She would not offer up
anything above and beyond that. But she would -- as we like
to say, she would take credit for the things that she had
done and own her misdeeds.
Q. To your knowledge, has [J.F.] ever lied to you over the
course of that 13 years or so that you said you have known
her?
A. No, sir.[58]
Moreover,
despite Detective Martin's long standing knowledge of
J.F. and his general belief that she was credible and
forthcoming, the facts demonstrate that her word was not
merely blindly followed. Rather, the record confirms that the
officers assigned to this case independently corroborated the
information supplied.[59] First, Detective Martin testified
that, when J.F. indicated that she could buy heroin from
“middle man” T.L. and thus lead them to a coveted
supplier, that information was corroborated by the
officers' own knowledge of T.L. Specifically, at the
suppression hearing, Detective Martin testified that T.L. was
well known as a “middle man, ” or someone who
“obtained narcotics from dealers for
users.”[60] Therefore, given T.L.'s previous
convictions for this same type of activity and the
“regular” nature of drug activity in the area,
Detective Martin and his colleagues found J.F.'s
insistence that T.L. could lead her to a supplier to be
credible.[61]
Prior
to the controlled purchase of January 22, 2016, officers also
searched both J.F. and her vehicle to confirm that they
contained neither money nor contraband.[62] The officers
thereafter followed J.F.'s vehicle at all times during
this purchase and, most pertinently, to a residence known to
them as belonging to Mr. Vaquiz.[63] Outside Mr. Vaquiz's
residence, Detective Martin testified that he and his fellow
officers set up a perimeter and viewed a transaction in which
T.L. gave Mr. Vaquiz money in return for a substance later
confirmed to be heroin.[64]Detective Martin specifically stated
that he had known of Mr. Vaquiz over his fifteen years as a
Berwick police officer[65] and saw him leave his home and walk
towards the carport to meet T.L.[66] Detective Schultz, a mere
50 yards from the carport, corroborated that he saw Mr.
Vaquiz and T.L. meet in the carport.[67]
Following
T.L.'s return to the car, the officers followed J.F. as
she dropped off T.L. and, at the police station, again
searched her person and car. Other than heroin which she
turned over to them labeled “Black Jack, ”
officers found no additional contraband on her person or in
her vehicle.[68] The Government argues that probable
cause to arrest Mr. Vaquiz on January 29, 2016 existed based
on this controlled purchase of heroin alone. Indeed, courts
have found that “a closely supervised and controlled
purchase of narcotics establishes ample probable
cause.”[69] For example, and in the context of
controlled purchases facilitated by a confidential informant,
this Court has found probable cause to arrest where a
detective coordinated three controlled buys from a Defendant,
and each time “met with the informant, searched his
person and vehicle for drugs, provided him with cash to buy
the narcotics, observed him meet with Defendant, and
established that the informant emerged from the transaction
in possession of crack cocaine and without the vice
funds.”[70] The Court noted that “[t]he
strength of this evidence, obtained through
carefully-executed police procedure, trumps any alleged
failings of the informant.”[71]
Like
the above case, police here had an additional basis for
probable cause to arrest beyond the facts of January 22,
2016. Indeed, following the closely monitored controlled
purchase of that date, J.F. again contacted officers to
inform them that T.L. had told her that Mr. Vaquiz planned to
travel to Philadelphia to obtain a new supply of
heroin.[72] J.F. then drive both T.L. and Mr. Vaquiz
to Philadelphia on January 29, 2016, but only after officers
again searched J.F. and her vehicle for evidence of
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