Background
Police obtained a warrant to search the Grandview Towers apartment where Matthew Scott Fields reportedly lived with his mother. The supporting affidavit cited information from confidential informants, Secretary of State records, surveillance showing Fields coming and going from the complex, and two controlled drug purchases after which officers saw him return there. During the search, officers found methamphetamine in Fields’s shorts pocket, amphetamine pills, drug paraphernalia, and packaging material.
Fields moved to suppress the evidence and requested a hearing under Franks v Delaware. He argued that the affidavit omitted an officer’s alleged entry into the apartment earlier that day and inadequately established the reliability of the informant who connected him to the residence. The trial court denied both requests. A jury later acquitted Fields of possessing methamphetamine with intent to deliver and maintaining a drug house but convicted him of methamphetamine possession and amphetamine possession.
At sentencing, the trial court assessed 10 points under Offense Variable 14 after finding that Fields was a leader in a multiple-offender situation because he supplied methamphetamine to his girlfriend to foster their relationship. That score produced a guidelines range of 19 to 38 months, and the court imposed prison terms of 3 to 20 years for methamphetamine possession and 2 to 4 years for amphetamine possession.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and upheld the denial of suppression and a Franks hearing. The affidavit established probable cause by explaining the informant’s reliability and independently corroborating Fields’s connection to the apartment through records, surveillance, and two controlled purchases. Even accepting Fields’s account of the officer’s earlier visit, the omission was immaterial because the affidavit already supported probable cause to believe that drugs or related evidence would be found in the apartment.
The court nevertheless held that the trial court impermissibly relied on acquitted conduct when scoring OV 14. Fields’s acquittal of possession with intent to deliver meant the sentencing court could not use an alleged delivery, or intent to deliver methamphetamine to his girlfriend, to find that he led a multiple-offender situation. A sentencing court may not rely even partly on acquitted conduct to score an offense variable.
Removing the 10 OV 14 points reduced Fields’s total offense-variable score from 15 to 5 and changed his applicable minimum-sentence range from 19 to 38 months to 10 to 23 months. The court therefore vacated both sentences and remanded for resentencing without retaining jurisdiction.
Key Takeaways
- An affidavit established probable cause where it described an informant’s prior reliability and police independently corroborated the suspect’s connection to the searched residence.
- An alleged omission from a warrant affidavit does not require suppression or a Franks hearing unless it was material to the probable-cause determination.
- A sentencing court may not use conduct underlying an acquitted possession-with-intent-to-deliver charge to score a defendant as the leader of a multiple-offender situation.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the distinction between uncharged conduct and conduct that a jury rejected. Although Michigan’s sentencing guidelines permit consideration of the entire criminal transaction for OV 14, that rule does not authorize a court to revive an acquitted delivery theory when sentencing a defendant convicted only of possession.
The opinion also illustrates that a claimed omission from a search-warrant affidavit is not material merely because it concerns police contact with the searched location. The decisive question remains whether adding the omitted information would undermine the affidavit’s existing showing of probable cause.