Background
Police searched an apartment belonging to Matthew Scott Fields’s mother after confidential informants linked Fields to illegal drugs and the apartment complex. The warrant affidavit stated that an informant had reliably reported that Fields lived with his mother at Grandview Towers, Secretary of State records confirmed his mother’s address there, surveillance showed Fields coming and going from the complex, and officers saw him return there after two controlled drug buys.
Officers found methamphetamine in Fields’s shorts, amphetamine pills, drug paraphernalia, and packaging material. A jury acquitted him of possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house but convicted him of the lesser included offense of methamphetamine possession and of amphetamine possession. The trial court imposed 10 points under Offense Variable 14 after finding that Fields supplied methamphetamine to his girlfriend and acted as a leader in a multiple-offender situation, producing a guidelines range of 19 to 38 months.
Fields challenged both the search and his sentences. He argued that the warrant affidavit materially omitted an officer’s alleged entry into the apartment earlier on the day of the search and inadequately established the informant’s reliability. He also argued that OV 14 was scored using conduct underlying the charge of which the jury acquitted him.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals upheld the denial of Fields’s suppression motion and request for a Franks hearing. The affidavit established the informant’s reliability and independently corroborated Fields’s connection to the apartment through records, surveillance, and his observed returns after two controlled buys. Even assuming an officer entered the apartment before the affidavit was submitted, adding that fact would not undermine probable cause, which concerned whether evidence of a crime would be found there—not whether Fields was present.
The court nevertheless held that the trial court improperly assessed 10 points for OV 14. The sentencing court expressly relied on its belief that Fields delivered or intended to deliver methamphetamine to his girlfriend, even though the jury acquitted him of possession with intent to deliver. Because Michigan law prohibits a sentencing court from relying even partly on acquitted conduct, that conduct could not establish either Fields’s leadership status or a multiple-offender situation.
Removing the OV 14 points reduced Fields’s total OV score from 15 to 5 and changed his guidelines range from 19–38 months to 10–23 months. The court therefore affirmed the convictions, vacated the sentences, and remanded for resentencing without retaining jurisdiction.
Key Takeaways
- A warrant affidavit established probable cause where it described an informant’s record of accurate information and police independently corroborated the defendant’s connection to the search location.
- An alleged omission from a warrant affidavit does not justify suppression or a Franks hearing when adding the omitted information would leave probable cause intact.
- A sentencing court may not score OV 14 based on delivery or intent-to-deliver conduct after the jury acquits the defendant of possession with intent to deliver.
- Resentencing was required because correcting OV 14 changed the applicable minimum-sentence guidelines range.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the boundary between permissible consideration of conduct beyond the sentencing offense and impermissible reliance on acquitted conduct. Although OV 14 ordinarily permits consideration of the entire criminal transaction, that instruction does not allow a court to revive conduct the jury rejected.
The opinion also illustrates the materiality requirement governing alleged omissions from search-warrant affidavits: even a disputed police entry does not invalidate a warrant when the affidavit’s independently corroborated facts already establish probable cause to search the location.