Middleman's word not enough to secure search warrant.

Byline: Bill Cresenzo

A divided North Carolina Court of Appeals panel has reversed the conviction of a Brunswick County woman because the police officer who applied for a search warrant to raid the woman's home had relied on the accounts of middleman that the officer had never met, and had made no effort to assess the middleman's reliability before applying for the warrant.

In April 2017, agents secured a search warrant and raided the home of Ashleigh Williams and found heroin. She was later convicted of his six related drug charges and sentenced to a minimum of 90 months in prison.

Williams appealed the trial court's denial of her motion to suppress evidence collected during the search. In a Sept. 17 decision authored by Judge Donna Stroud, the Court of Appeals remanded the case back for retrial.

The search warrant was based on information provided to a magistrate by a narcotics agent. The agent said that an informant, "Ms.Smith," "in the past year" had provided "correct and accurate information leading to the arrests of narcotics dealers."

On the day the warrant was issued, Smith, equipped with a recording device, picked up the go-between, known only by a nickname, "Vaughn," and drove to an "unknown destination." Vaughan left the car and returned with heroin, which the narcotics officer claimed came from Williams' home.

However, the Court of Appeals noted that the video taken did not show Williams or her home, and Vaughn did not say on the video, at least, that he had bought the heroin from Williams.

Williams contended that Smith had done only one controlled drug buy for the Brunswick County Vice Narcotics Unit in the previous few months before she offered to buy heroin from "Vaughn," who would ostensibly buy it from Williams, and that although Smith was known to the agent, nearly all of the material information used to secure the warrant came from "Vaughn."

"Even if we assume the trial court did find that the (agent's) statements regarding the length of time Ms. Smith had worked as an informant, and the number of arrests made with her assistance were not intentional misrepresentations, and were made in good faith, most of the substantive allegations...