United States of America v. Jaaviaid Alan McCarley-Connin

Toledo, Ohio criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with drug trafficking.



On February 8, 2021, a package was shipped through the Cleveland United States Postal

Service distribution center. It was addressed to Adrian Garcia in South Gate, California, from a

D. McCarley at a Tiffin Street address in Fostoria, Ohio. The package raised postal inspectors'

suspicions. The cross-country trajectory was the first red flag. Then there was the package's

size and weight—less than four pounds. And the postage—about $70—was paid in cash. The

sender had also declined a signature at delivery, a tactic commonly used by those mailing

narcotics or their proceeds. So Postal Inspector Brandon Holestine ran the names Adrian Garcia

and D. McCarley through Clear—an electronic database that matches names, addresses, and

phone numbers—and he couldn't match either individual to the addresses listed on the package.



At that point, Holestine had worked with the USPS for four years and was assigned to a

DEA drug interdiction task force. Based on his experience and training in these roles, he was

familiar with how drug dealers use the postal service to ship their product and proceeds across

the country. And given this knowledge and experience, the red flags suggested to Holestine that

the package could contain illicit goods. So he requested a drug-detection canine to take a sniffThe next day, Detective Michael Twombly of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office placed the suspect package in a line-up for his certified canine, Ciga, to investigate.1 Ciga alerted to the package, prompting Holestine to apply for a search warrant based on his suspicions and Ciga's alert. With the search warrant in hand, he opened the package and discovered

$19,660 in currency obscured in magazines and a bubble mailer, but no drugs.



Later, Holestine reviewed internal postal records and found another package headed to,

instead of from, the same Tiffin Street address. Only this time, it was addressed to Lilly Roberts,

and its return addressee was Brandon Garcia in Lynwood, California. It bore many of the same

suspicious features from the first package. First was its trajectory—again Ohio and California.

Then its size—about six pounds. And again, its postage fee—about $90—was paid in cash and

the sender again declined a signature on delivery. Holestine looked up the sender and recipient

names in Clear and neither was affiliated with the addresses on the package.



So when postal inspectors interdicted the package on February 24, they again asked

Detective Twombly and Ciga to investigate. And Ciga again alerted. Based on his suspicions

and Ciga's alert, Holestine applied for and received another search warrant for this second

package. This time, he discovered over 1,000 grams of white powder inside a plastic bag,

wrapped in duct tape, and hidden in a bag of dog food. Lab tests later identified the powder as

fentanyl.



On March 24, officers conducted a sting at the Tiffin Street address. An undercover

officer delivered a package near the front door with one kilogram of sham narcotics and noticed

a male, later identified as Jaavaid McCarley-Connin, peering outside. A few minutes later,

Rebecca Roberts picked up the package and carried it inside. About ten minutes after that,

Roberts got in one car with a bag, while McCarley-Connin got in another. Officers followed and

arrested them both.



The officers had also received a warrant to search the Tiffin Street house. Inside, they

found $3,500, three firearms, ammunition, and several cell phones. McCarley-Connin was

indicted on three counts for violating federal drug laws, and one count for being a felon in

possession of a firearm.



McCarley-Connin requested an evidentiary hearing and moved to suppress the evidence

that resulted from the canine sniffs of the two packages. In his view, under Harris, 568 U.S.

237, because a sniff was the basis of probable cause, he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing

because he had presented extrinsic evidence undermining the dog's reliability. For the same

reason, he argued that the warrant was not supported by probable cause and so the court should

have suppressed the results of the two package searches.



The government countered that Harris's rule applies only to warrantless searches, so did

not dictate the outcome. It claimed that to receive a hearing on a canine's reliability attested to

in a warrant affidavit, the defendant must make the showing required by Franks v. Delaware,

438 U.S. 154 (1978). And the district court agreed. It denied the requested evidentiary hearing

because McCarley-Connin had not invoked Franks. Because the affidavit had enough evidence

to support a finding on Ciga's reliability, the court found the warrant was supported by probable

cause. So McCarley-Connin pleaded guilty to all four counts but reserved the right to appeal the

trial court's denials of his motions.

The court sentenced McCarley-Conni to a 120-month term of imprisonment followed by five years of supervised release.



Affirmed