United States v. Burney

When police officers executed a search warrant at a Dayton residence, they found Burney, several handguns, and several ounces of crack cocaine inside. Convicted of possessing crack cocaine with intent to distribute it, Burney challenged the warrant underlying the search as not supported by probable cause. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The affidavit supporting the warrant provided several strong indications that the residence was used as a stash house by a drug trafficking operation, and that the house had been unoccupied for more than eight months when Burney, a repeat drug convict, moved in a few weeks before officers obtained the warrant. Because the warrant affidavit presented sufficient evidence tying the property, if not Burney himself, to an ongoing drug trafficking and money laundering operation, and because that evidence, taken as a whole, was sufficiently reliable, the district court properly denied Burney’s motion to suppress. View "United States v. Burney" on Justia Law