Appeals court vacates drug conviction

SANDPOINT — The Idaho Court of Appeals is vacating a Bonner County man’s felony drug conviction.

The case against Robin James Belden got off on the wrong foot when police raided the wrong trailer home. It was then dogged by judicial missteps in magistrate court and 1st District Court, the appeals court has ruled.

The case dates back to the spring of 2007, when Sandpoint Police began working with a confidential informant who was angling for a charge reduction in her own drug case.

The informant identified Belden as someone from whom pot could be purchased, which led to a controlled buy and the subsequent application for a search warrant for a trailer where the buy occurred.

A surveillance officer who monitored the transaction identified the location as space 23 in a Ponderay mobile home park.

A police detective went before Judge Barbara Buchanan to secure the warrant and provided her with photos of the blue and gray mobile home at space 23. But officers discovered they were at the wrong address upon forcing their way into the place.

Belden’s residence was at space 25.

The detective went back before Buchanan several hours later to get a warrant for that residence, a tan mobile with brown trim. However, the court was not given, nor did it ask for, an explanation as to why the description of the drug buy location varied between the two hearings.

Pot, packaging supplies and a scale were discovered in the second search.

Belden, 45, moved to suppress evidence gained during the search, but Senior District Judge James Michaud denied the motion. Belden proceeded to trial, where he was convicted and sentenced to up to two years in prison.

Jurisdiction in Belden’s case was retained, which qualified him for release after serving six months, court records indicate.

Belden appealed Michaud’s denial of the suppression motion. Belden argued that Buchanan did not have sufficient probable cause to justify the second search.

The appeals court reviewed whether Buchanan had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause to search existed. Probable cause to search requires there to be a connection between the criminal act, the location to be searched and the items to be seized.

But appellate Judge John Melanson found no such nexus.

“Indeed, the information presented to the magistrate at the second warrant hearing demonstrated only that Belden lived at space 25. No additional evidence was introduced to show that a drug transaction occurred at space 25,” Melanson wrote in a Nov. 16 opinion.

Appellate judges Sergio Gutierrez and David Gratton concurred with Melanson’s finding. The appeals court further ruled that Michaud erred in denying the motion to suppress.