United States v. Gwaine Collins

Gwaine Collins was indicted with five others and charged with conspiracy to retain and deliver, and retaining and delivering, stolen United States treasury checks. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 , 510(b). He moved to suppress evidence found in a search following his warrantless arrest. The district court concluded that Collins’ arrest violated the Fourth Amendment because federal agents did not have probable cause to believe that he was participating in the stolen treasury check “ring.” The district court consequently suppressed the fruit of the arrest. The government appeals pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731 . We affirm the district court’s order.

I

A major development in the district court frames the district court’s factual findings and our decision on appeal. The district court found inexplicable discrepancies between, on the one hand, the events as depicted in an audio recording and reports of agents nearly contemporaneous with the arrest and, on the other hand, later statements, reports and testimony of the agents. Accordingly, the district court discredited the later statements, reports and testimony, and confined its determination of probable cause to the sparse earlier evidence. The…