Facts
Law enforcement recovered methamphetamine and cocaine from a residence in Aberdeen, Mississippi, occupied by Ray Charles Lenoir and his brother. Lenoir’s trial took place on October 8, 2024. The morning before trial began, Lenoir unsuccessfully moved to suppress the drugs and other evidence collected by law enforcement from the residence, asserting that these items were obtained based upon a search warrant that was not supported by probable cause. We address the hearing on this motion in detail below.
The State’s first witness was Michael Loden, a deputy with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department and a member of the North Mississippi Narcotics Unit task force. After investigation and surveillance of the home located at 603 Clayton Street in Aberdeen, Mississippi, Agent Loden determined that Lenoir lived in the home. For ease of reference, we will refer to the home as Lenoir’s residence, although we recognize that during Agent Loden’s cross-examination it was brought out that Lenoir’s mother held actual title to the home.
Agent Loden requested a search warrant for the residence on January 18, 2024, and the justice court judge issued the search warrant the same day. The next day, the Monroe County SWAT team went to Lenoir’s residence, entered it, and made contact with Lenoir and his brother, James, who were both at the home when the SWAT team arrived. Agent Loden, together with other agents with the North Mississippi Narcotics Unit, then entered the home and conducted a search.
The agents searched the bedroom that Lenoir identified as his and found “several narcotic items, including suspected “methamphetamine, powder cocaine and crack cocaine.” The methamphetamine and powder cocaine were in a “zip-up” leather pouch on the floor in front of the bedside night stand. The crack cocaine was found in a jacket pocket hanging near the night stand. Agent Loden testified that several documents in Lenoir’s bedroom had his name on them, including Lenoir’s business card and mail stamped “OFFICIAL LEGAL CORRESPONDENCE – PRIVATE” addressed to Lenoir at the home’s address (603 Clayton Street in Aberdeen, Mississippi 39730). The agents also found a prescription pill bottle with Lenoir’s name on it. Agent Loden testified that law enforcement searched the entire house. Suspected illegal narcotics were found only in Lenoir’s bedroom.
In the course of his investigation, Agent Loden interviewed Lenoir after advising him of his Miranda rights. Lenoir provided a written statement. His statement read: “Today drugs were found at 603 Clayton Dr. Officers arrested me and my brother. I’m now sitting in County Jail. Awaiting for bond. I hope and pray I can get off these drugs before I kill [myself].”
During cross-examination, Agent Loden acknowledged that he did not know that Lenoir’s mother held the actual title to the house located at 603 Clayton Street, and he also acknowledged that no fingerprints were taken off the bags of drugs found on the premises. During his re-direct examination, however, Agent Loden explained that when he testified 603 Clayton Street was Lenoir’s residence, he meant that Lenoir lived there. Agent Loden also testified that of the hundreds of narcotics cases he has worked on, none ever had a positive result for fingerprints.
Forensic scientist Alicia Waldrop testified that testing confirmed the substances found in Lenoir’s bedroom were 42.51 grams of methamphetamine, 25.92 grams of powder cocaine, and 3.70 grams of crack cocaine.
A unanimous jury found Lenoir guilty as charged. The trial judge sentenced Lenoir to serve forty years in the custody of the MDOC for Count I (trafficking a controlled substance)and twenty years suspended for Count II (possession of a controlled substance). The trial judge ordered that the sentences be served consecutively. The next day, during the same term of court, the trial judge amended Lenoir’s sentence on Count II to twenty years suspended, with five years of post-release supervision. On appeal, Lenoir stated the search warrant was invalid. MCOA affirmed.
Analysis
According to Lenoir, the search warrant was issued without probable cause because it was “based on the unverified and unreliable observations of a confidential informant,” and therefore, the drugs and other evidence obtained during the search were “inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree.” We are not persuaded by Lenoir’s arguments for the reasons addressed below.
Lenoir filed and served his motion to suppress on the morning of trial. The trial court heard the motion before trial began. Attached to Lenoir’s motion was the search warrant, with Agent Loden’s affidavit delineating the “Underlying Facts and Circumstances” establishing grounds for issuance of the search warrant. In relevant part, Loden’s affidavit provided:
I, Agent Michael Loden, the undersigned affiant, do hereby swear and affirm to this Honorable Court the following Underlying Facts and Circumstances: That within the past 72 hours, Agents Michael Loden and Warren Smith sent a confidential informant (CI) to Ray Lenoir’s residence at 603 Clayton Street in Aberdeen to purchase alleged methamphetamine. CI arrived at the residence, Ray Lenoir came from inside the residence and made contact with the CI in the driveway. Ray Lenoir handed the CI approximately one ounce of alleged methamphetamine and the CI handed Ray Lenoir the U.S. currency that was provided by Agent Warren Smith for the transaction.
At the hearing, as he does on appeal, Lenoir asserted that in obtaining the search warrant, Agent Loden relied upon a confidential informant who was not reliable, and therefore the search warrant lacked probable cause. The trial judge asked the State’s counsel for his response to Lenoir’s assertions, and the following exchange transpired:
THE COURT: Response, Mr. Gault? I realize you just got served this.
[STATE’S COUNSEL]: Yes, sir. Of course, understand I am not a witness; however, I would relay to the Court, I think the testimony would be from the narcotic’s agents is that the CI was made credible. Again, I can’t say that. I would anticipate that would be the testimony. More importantly, . . . one of the other indicted cases was from a sale made on January 18, I believe at the defendant’s residence, which is where the search warrant was executed. Yes, that was a CI. It was also on video. Narcotic’s agents did a prebuy meeting to make sure the CI was clean. I think the whole interaction . . . from when the CI left the prebuy and returned to the post-buy meeting, I think was 14 minutes, Your Honor. Of course, only the narcotics officers can—
THE COURT: Testify to that.
[STATE’S COUNSEL]: —turn the camera off and could testify. But it was a sale, the basis. Not only had they made several sales or several buys from Lenoir, but particularly they had made a buy from him the previous day, January 18. And I think, I don’t know if that’s 151. I don’t have the other files in front of me, but it is one of the indicted sales that’s a video sale. And the CI returned to the post-buy location promptly and turned over what at the time was alleged methamphetamine and ultimately was confirmed to be methamphetamine.
The trial judge issued his ruling:
Having some period of time now to review the motion. . . the Court is hereby ready to rule on the defendant’s motion to suppress all evidence. The Court hereby denies the motion to suppress all evidence seized. The reasoning behind that is clear and essentially what [the State’s counsel] stated into the record previously. That is, the basis of the search warrant was not the CI. The basis of the search warrant, as I read it, was information provided by Agents Michael Loden and Warren Smith, not the CI. Those agents indicated what I would call a controlled purchase was made at the residence of Ray Lenoir and requested that a . . . justice court judge issue a search warrant as a result and that there was probable cause as a result. I see nowhere in the affidavit that a CI was relied upon by any judge . . . so it doesn’t matter whether the CI was reliable, non-reliable, a liar, telling the truth, it doesn’t matter, the search warrant was issued based on the information provided by an officer, not through a CI, but through personal observations of an officer.
Citing MSC Woods, Lenoir asserts that when law enforcement uses a confidential informant (CI) to obtain a search warrant, the informant’s observations must be shown to be “truthful or reliable.” In Woods, the MSC found probable cause lacking for the issuance of the search warrant in that case “because the information given to the [Natchez/Adams Metro Narcotics] Unit by the CI was not independently corroborated, because the CI was unknown to the Unit, and because no indicia of veracity or reliability was either included in the affidavit or presented orally to the issuing judge. Lenoir asserts the same indicia of reliability is lacking here.
We disagree. Unlike the circumstances in Woods, the trial judge in the case before us found that the search warrant was issued based on Agent Loden’s personal knowledge of a controlled drug buy. Agent Loden’s affidavit specifically provides “that within the past 72 hours, Agents Michael Loden and Warren Smith sent a confidential informant (CI) to Ray Lenoir’s residence at 603 Clayton Street in Aberdeen to purchase alleged methamphetamine.” As Agent Loden’s affidavit further provides, this controlled buy resulted in Lenoir selling methamphetamine to the CI. Based upon the totality of the circumstances, we find that the justice court judge had a “substantial basis . . . for concluding” that there was “a fair probability that contraband . . . [would] be found” at 603 Clayton Street in Aberdeen, Mississippi. See Roach v. State, 7 So. 3d 911 (Miss. 2009) (recognizing that an agent was “able independently to corroborate the CI’s reliability when the controlled buy resulted in [the defendant] selling cocaine to the CI”).
In any event, even if probable cause for issuing the search warrant arguably did not exist in this case, we point out that the exclusionary rule does not apply automatically, as even a search pursuant to an invalid search warrant may be found to be reasonable under the good-faith exception.
As we explained in Holloway, under the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule, if police officers relied on a facially valid search warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate, and the officers’ reliance on the warrant was objectively reasonable, a later finding that the warrant was invalid will not require exclusion of the evidence obtained as a result of the search. Indeed, in the absence of an allegation that the magistrate abandoned his detached and neutral role, suppression is appropriate only if the officers were dishonest or reckless in preparing their affidavit or could not have harbored an objectively reasonable belief in the existence of probable cause.
In this case, Lenoir does not even assert that the justice court judge abandoned his detached and neutral role, that Agent Loden was dishonest or reckless in preparing the affidavit, or that Agent Loden could not have harbored an objectively reasonable belief that probable cause existed, and we find no such evidence in the record.
In most cases, the mere existence of a warrant will be sufficient to show that the officers conducted the search in objectively reasonable (i.e., good faith) reliance on the validity of the warrant. As such, the exclusionary rule will apply only if the warrant was based on an affidavit so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable. We find no such indication here. Accordingly, we find that even if probable cause was lacking in this case, the exclusionary rule does not apply. Thus, we find that the trial court did not err in denying Lenoir’s motion to suppress the drugs and other evidence obtained in the search.