Tralvis Edmond v. United States ( 2018 )


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  •                                In the
    United States Court of Appeals
    For the Seventh Circuit
    ____________________
    No. 17-2734
    TRALVIS EDMOND,
    Petitioner-Appellant,
    v.
    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
    Respondent-Appellee.
    ____________________
    Appeal from the United States District Court for the
    Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
    No. 1:15-cv-03566 — Matthew F. Kennelly, Judge.
    ____________________
    ARGUED FEBRUARY 6, 2018 — DECIDED AUGUST 3, 2018
    ____________________
    Before RIPPLE, SYKES, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.
    RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. A jury convicted Tralvis Edmond of
    possession of heroin with the intent to distribute, in violation
    of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and possession of a firearm as a con-
    victed felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). The Govern-
    ment’s case was based largely on evidence that the police had
    recovered while executing a search warrant at a Chicago
    apartment. The warrant was supported by the tip of a
    2                                                   No. 17-2734
    confidential informant who reported purchasing heroin from
    Mr. Edmond at the apartment.
    Following his conviction, Mr. Edmond filed a motion un-
    der 28 U.S.C. § 2255, seeking collateral relief from federal cus-
    tody. He claimed that he had been deprived of the effective
    assistance of counsel because his trial attorney had not filed a
    motion to exclude the evidence obtained from the search. The
    district court evaluated this claim under the familiar two-part
    analysis of Strickland v. Washington, 
    466 U.S. 668
    (1984). The
    court held that Mr. Edmond’s trial attorney had performed
    below an objective standard of reasonableness. It then con-
    cluded that, although the search warrant was not supported
    by probable cause, the good-faith exception to the exclusion-
    ary rule saved the evidence from exclusion. Therefore, the
    court reasoned, Mr. Edmond had not shown that he was prej-
    udiced by his attorney’s deficient performance, and his claim
    of ineffective assistance failed.
    Mr. Edmond now challenges the district court’s applica-
    tion of the good-faith exception. We agree with the district
    court that objectively reasonable police officers could have re-
    lied in good faith on the search warrant. Because Mr. Edmond
    has not shown the requisite prejudice under Strickland, we af-
    firm the denial of his § 2255 motion.
    I
    BACKGROUND
    A.
    On May 19, 2010, Chicago Police Officer John Frano filed
    a complaint for a search warrant in the Circuit Court of Cook
    County. The complaint recounted a tip that he had received
    the day before from a confidential informant, who claimed to
    No. 17-2734                                                              3
    have purchased heroin in a basement apartment at 736 North
    Ridgeway Avenue in Chicago. According to the complaint,
    the informant had identified Mr. Edmond as the seller and
    had described the location of the drugs as hidden under a bed
    in a shoebox. The shoebox contained twenty to thirty golf
    ball-sized bags, and each bag was filled with ten to thirteen
    smaller bags of suspected heroin. The complaint also de-
    scribed Officer Frano’s efforts to corroborate this tip: he drove
    the informant past the building to confirm the location of the
    drug sale and showed the informant a photograph of Mr. Ed-
    mond to confirm the seller’s identity. Notably, although the
    complaint specified the date of the informant’s tip, it did not
    specify clearly the date of the alleged drug sale. 1
    In the complaint, Officer Frano attested to the reliability of
    the informant, who had provided dependable information
    about narcotics activities for the past five years. The com-
    plaint further explained that, “[o]n over 6 different occasions
    in the past two months[, Officer Frano] has acted upon the
    information provided by this [informant,] and on these occa-
    sions [Officer Frano] has recovered illegal narcotics.” 2 The
    complaint did not mention the informant’s criminal record,
    that he was facing felony drug charges at the time, or that a
    state court recently had revoked his bail and issued a warrant
    for his arrest. At the time, the Chicago Police Department’s
    standard practices did not require the inclusion of informants’
    1 The complaint reads, in pertinent part: “On 18 May 2010 RCI [the in-
    formant] related to R/O [Officer Frano] that RCI was at the residence of
    736 N Ridgeway and in the presence of Edmond, Tralvis E. in the base-
    ment apartment.” R.3 at 23. It then continues to describe the drug transac-
    tion.
    2   
    Id. 4 No.
    17-2734
    criminal histories in warrant applications. 3 Before presenting
    the complaint to the issuing judge, Officer Frano obtained the
    approval of the state’s attorney’s office. He did not, at any
    time, bring the informant before the judge for questioning.
    The judge issued the warrant, and the Chicago Police De-
    partment executed a search of the Ridgeway apartment on
    May 20, 2010. Officers recovered two loaded handguns, three
    grams of heroin, and eight grams of cocaine. Mr. Edmond was
    not present during the search but was arrested later. On June
    1, 2011, he was charged in a federal indictment with: (1) pos-
    session of a firearm as a convicted felon, in violation of 18
    U.S.C. § 922(g)(1); (2) possession of heroin with intent to dis-
    tribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1); and (3) possession
    of crack cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of 21
    U.S.C. § 841(a)(1).
    The case proceeded to trial. 4 The Government presented
    testimony from police officers involved in the search, includ-
    ing Officer Frano. Mr. Edmond did not testify. The jury found
    him guilty of the firearm and heroin charges but acquitted
    him of the cocaine charge. Thereafter, the district court im-
    posed a sentence of 84 months’ imprisonment. Mr. Edmond
    filed a direct appeal, at which point his attorney (the same one
    who represented him at trial) filed a motion to withdraw. We
    dismissed the appeal under Anders v. California, 
    386 U.S. 738
    ,
    3   The Chicago Police Department’s policy has since changed.
    4 Prior to the trial, Mr. Edmond filed a motion to suppress post-arrest
    statements that he had made to Officer Frano. He claimed that he did not
    waive voluntarily his Miranda rights. The court held a suppression hear-
    ing, where Officer Frano testified. The defense cross-examined Officer
    Frano but did not present any of its own witnesses. The court denied the
    motion; that ruling is not challenged in this appeal.
    No. 17-2734                                                                5
    744 (1967). See United States v. Edmond, 560 F. App’x 580 (7th
    Cir. 2014).
    B.
    On April 22, 2015, Mr. Edmond filed a pro se motion un-
    der 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to set aside his conviction and sentence.
    He claimed that he had received ineffective assistance of
    counsel at trial. In particular, he challenged his attorney’s de-
    cision not to file a motion to suppress the evidence recovered
    in the search of the Ridgeway apartment. He submitted that
    the warrant authorizing the search was not supported by
    probable cause. As a result, he claimed, the search was unlaw-
    ful and the evidence was excludable as fruit of the poisonous
    tree. 5
    The district court ordered an evidentiary hearing on
    Mr. Edmond’s claim and appointed counsel to represent him.
    The hearing had two parts, which mirrored the familiar
    two-part test for assessing claims of ineffective assistance of
    counsel under Strickland. First, the court considered whether
    Mr. Edmond’s trial attorney had performed in an objectively
    unreasonable manner. The court concluded that his attorney’s
    performance fell below the requisite standard because, based
    on a misunderstanding of the law, 6 the attorney had decided
    5 Mr. Edmond also argued that his trial attorney provided ineffective as-
    sistance by failing to call him to testify at the suppression hearing regard-
    ing his post-arrest statements. Mr. Edmond has not pursued that argu-
    ment on appeal.
    6Specifically, the attorney erroneously believed that Mr. Edmond did not
    have Fourth Amendment standing to challenge the search because he did
    not live permanently at the Ridgeway apartment, where his girlfriend and
    children lived. However, as the district court correctly noted, “the defend-
    ant’s status ‘as an overnight guest [was] alone enough to show that he had
    6                                                         No. 17-2734
    not to file a suppression motion. See Gardner v. United States,
    
    680 F.3d 1006
    , 1012 (7th Cir. 2012) (concluding that an attor-
    ney’s “misapprehension of law” is objectively unreasonable).
    The court then held the second part of the hearing to con-
    sider the other part of the Strickland inquiry: whether Mr. Ed-
    mond had suffered prejudice as a result of his attorney’s defi-
    cient performance. The parties agreed that the evidence
    seized from the search was critical to the Government’s case,
    so the court focused on “whether Edmond ha[d] shown a rea-
    sonable likelihood that a motion to suppress would have been
    successful had counsel filed it.” 7 This inquiry required a
    showing that the search warrant was not supported by prob-
    able cause and that the good-faith exception did not apply to
    save the evidence despite any constitutional infirmities with
    the warrant.
    The district court first determined that the warrant was
    not supported by probable cause. It based its decision primar-
    ily on the failure of the complaint to set forth clearly the date
    on which the informant allegedly purchased drugs from
    Mr. Edmond at the Ridgeway apartment. That omission, the
    court explained, undermined the issuing judge’s ability to de-
    termine whether the complaint “reasonably suggests that ev-
    idence of a crime might currently be found in the location to
    be searched.” 8 Although other factors weighed in favor of
    finding probable cause, such as the firsthand nature of the
    an expectation of privacy in the home’ that was reasonable and protected
    under the Fourth Amendment.” R.32 at 6–7 (quoting Minnesota v. Olson,
    
    495 U.S. 91
    , 96–97 (1990)).
    7   R.52 at 3–4.
    8   
    Id. at 6
    (emphasis in original).
    No. 17-2734                                                    7
    informant’s observations, the court did not think that these
    countervailing considerations overcame the “staleness” of the
    informant’s tip. 9
    Despite this conclusion about probable cause, the court
    found that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule
    applied. According to that exception, evidence obtained in vi-
    olation of the Fourth Amendment is nevertheless admissible
    if the officers conducting the unlawful search relied in good
    faith on a search warrant. United States v. Leon, 
    468 U.S. 897
    ,
    918–23 (1984). Because the receipt of a warrant constitutes
    prima facie evidence of good faith, Mr. Edmond had the bur-
    den to show that the exception should not apply. See United
    States v. Pappas, 
    592 F.3d 799
    , 802 (7th Cir. 2010). In an effort
    to shoulder that burden, he advanced two arguments: first,
    that the complaint was so lacking in indicia of probable cause
    as to render official reliance on it entirely unreasonable; and
    second, that Officer Frano had acted in reckless disregard of
    the truth by omitting from the complaint damaging infor-
    mation about the informant’s criminal history and pending
    criminal charges.
    The court rejected both of these arguments. First, it held
    that the complaint contained sufficient indicia of probable
    cause to justify good-faith reliance on the warrant. The court
    noted that the warrant contained detailed information about
    the location and packaging of the drugs, Officer Frano’s cor-
    roboration of both the apartment’s location and the seller’s
    identity, and evidence of the informant’s recent reliability.
    Second, the court concluded that Officer Frano had not acted
    with reckless disregard for the truth. It credited
    9   
    Id. (alteration omitted).
    8                                                    No. 17-2734
    Officer Frano’s testimony that he had omitted the informant’s
    criminal history based on the then-common practice of the po-
    lice department and that he was unaware of the informant’s
    recent bail revocation and arrest warrant. The court also con-
    sidered the informant’s proven reliability and that Of-
    ficer Frano had obtained the approval of the state’s attorney
    before applying for the warrant. Taken together, this evidence
    persuaded the court that Officer Frano “did not intend to mis-
    lead the judge regarding the informant’s credibility.” 10 Hav-
    ing rejected both of Mr. Edmond’s arguments, the court de-
    nied his § 2255 motion.
    Mr. Edmond now challenges the district court’s determi-
    nation that the good-faith exception applies to defeat his
    showing of prejudice. He maintains that the trial judge would
    have granted a motion to suppress and that, therefore, he was
    deprived the effective assistance of counsel under Strickland.
    II
    DISCUSSION
    We review de novo the district court’s legal conclusions,
    including its determination that the good-faith exception ap-
    plies. United States v. Koerth, 
    312 F.3d 862
    , 865 (7th Cir. 2002).
    We review the court’s underlying factual findings and credi-
    bility determinations for clear error. 
    Id. To establish
    ineffective assistance of counsel, a petitioner
    must show (1) that his trial attorney’s performance fell below
    an objective standard of reasonableness, and (2) that he suf-
    fered prejudice as a result. 
    Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687
    –96. The
    focus of the present appeal is whether Mr. Edmond suffered
    10   
    Id. at 15.
    No. 17-2734                                                           9
    any prejudice from his attorney’s failure to file a motion to
    suppress the evidence seized from the Ridgeway search. 11
    The parties agree that this evidence was critical to the prose-
    cution’s case. Therefore, in order to demonstrate prejudice,
    Mr. Edmond must show a reasonable likelihood that, but for
    his counsel’s error, a motion to suppress the evidence would
    have been granted. See 
    id. at 694
    (requiring “a reasonable
    probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the
    result of the proceeding would have been different”).
    The Government contends that “even if [Mr. Edmond’s]
    attorney had filed a motion to suppress, he would have
    lost.” 12 The Government urges us to apply the good-faith ex-
    ception to the exclusionary rule set forth in Leon. There, the
    Supreme Court explained that the exclusionary rule is a judi-
    cially created remedy designed to protect Fourth Amendment
    rights by deterring police misconduct. 
    Leon, 468 U.S. at 906
    .
    Given the rule’s prophylactic purpose, “evidence obtained in
    violation of the Fourth Amendment is nonetheless admissible
    if the officer who conducted the search acted in good faith re-
    liance on a search warrant.” 
    Pappas, 592 F.3d at 802
    (citing
    
    Leon, 468 U.S. at 922
    –23). Because the receipt of a search war-
    rant is prima facie evidence of good faith, the burden falls on
    the defendant to demonstrate one of the following scenarios:
    (1) the issuing judge wholly abandoned his ju-
    dicial role and failed to perform his neutral and
    detached function, serving merely as a rubber
    11 Because we affirm based on the good-faith exception, we need not con-
    sider the Government’s alternative argument that Mr. Edmond’s trial at-
    torney performed in an objectively reasonable manner.
    12   Government’s Br. 12.
    10                                                            No. 17-2734
    stamp for the police; (2) the affidavit supporting
    the warrant was so lacking in indicia of proba-
    ble cause as to render official belief in its exist-
    ence entirely unreasonable; or (3) the issuing
    judge was misled by information in an affidavit
    that the affiant knew was false or would have
    known was false except for his reckless disre-
    gard of the truth.
    
    Id. (quoting United
    States v. Elst, 
    579 F.3d 740
    , 744 (7th Cir.
    2009)). Mr. Edmond contends that he has shown both that the
    complaint was fatally lacking in indicia of probable cause and
    that Officer Frano acted in reckless disregard of the truth. For
    the reasons set out below, we cannot accept these contentions.
    A.
    Mr. Edmond first claims that Officer Frano’s complaint
    was so wanting in indicia of probable cause as to render offi-
    cial reliance on the search warrant unreasonable. Mr. Ed-
    mond primarily contends that Officer Frano’s complaint was
    “plainly deficient” due to its omission of a “specific ‘temporal
    guidepost’ in order to establish probable cause.” 13 He main-
    tains that no reasonable officer could have relied in good faith
    on the warrant, given the complaint’s lack of temporal infor-
    mation about the alleged drug sale. Other indicia of probable
    cause, he submits, fail to overcome the staleness of the infor-
    mation in the complaint. Although we agree that staleness can
    undermine an officer’s otherwise reasonable reliance on a
    warrant, the complaint here contained sufficient evidence of
    13 Appellant’s Br. 12, 15 (quoting United States v. Koerth, 
    312 F.3d 862
    , 869
    (7th Cir. 2002)).
    No. 17-2734                                                                 11
    timeliness, as well as other indicia of probable cause, to justify
    application of the good-faith exception.
    “Probable cause is established when, considering the to-
    tality of the circumstances, there is sufficient evidence to
    cause a reasonably prudent person to believe that a search
    will uncover evidence of a crime.” United States v. Harris, 
    464 F.3d 733
    , 738 (7th Cir. 2006). When a complaint is based on an
    informant’s tip, the probable cause analysis turns on five fac-
    tors: (1) whether the informant acquired firsthand knowledge
    of the reported events, (2) the amount of detail provided,
    (3) the extent of corroboration by the police, (4) the interval of
    time between the reported events and the warrant applica-
    tion, and (5) whether the informant appeared before the issu-
    ing judge. United States v. Glover, 
    755 F.3d 811
    , 816 (7th Cir.
    2014). Because probable cause is based on the totality of cir-
    cumstances, “a deficiency in one [factor] may be compensated
    for … by some other indicia of reliability.” 
    Id. (second altera-
    tion in original) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 
    462 U.S. 213
    , 233
    (1983)); see also United States v. Johnson, 
    655 F.3d 594
    , 600 (7th
    Cir. 2011) (“[N]o one factor necessarily dooms a search war-
    rant.”).
    The focus of the parties’ disagreement is the fourth factor:
    the interval of time between the reported events and the war-
    rant application. The district court believed that probable
    cause did not exist largely because the complaint did not spec-
    ify when the informant was at the Ridgeway apartment. As the
    court noted, “[s]taleness is highly relevant to the legality of a
    search for a perishable or consumable object, like cocaine.”14
    14R.52 at 6 (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Seiver, 
    692 F.3d 774
    , 777 (7th Cir. 2012)).
    12                                                              No. 17-2734
    This approach makes good sense; probable cause measures
    the likelihood of uncovering evidence of a crime at the time of
    the search. We also have explained, however, that an issuing
    judge should not withhold a warrant due to the age of the re-
    ported information “[i]f other factors indicate that the infor-
    mation is reliable and that the object of the search will still be
    on the premises.” United States v. Lamon, 
    930 F.2d 1183
    , 1188
    (7th Cir. 1991) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v.
    Batchelder, 
    824 F.2d 563
    , 564 (7th Cir. 1987)). Accordingly, if a
    complaint indicates “ongoing, continuous criminal activity,
    the passage of time becomes less critical.” 
    Id. (quoting United
    States v. Shomo, 
    786 F.2d 981
    , 984 (10th Cir. 1986)). 15
    Although the district court found that the lack of a precise
    time stamp for the drug sale undermined probable cause, the
    complaint was not entirely lacking in indicia of timeliness. A
    reasonable officer, reading the complaint in its entirety, could
    have interpreted the complaint as timely. Although the dis-
    trict court read the complaint as silent about the date of the
    alleged sale, it is not objectively unreasonable to read it differ-
    ently. The complaint states that “[o]n 18 May 2010[, the in-
    formant] related to [Officer Frano] that [the informant] was at
    the residence of 736 N Ridgeway and in the presence of Ed-
    mond.” 16 While certainly not a model of clarity, this statement
    15 See also United States v. Mitten, 
    592 F.3d 767
    , 775 (7th Cir. 2010) (applying
    good-faith exception, despite lack of date for one reported drug sale and
    imprecise date for another reported sale, because complaint indicated pat-
    tern of ongoing drug dealing); United States v. Prideaux-Wentz, 
    543 F.3d 954
    , 958–59, 963 (7th Cir. 2008) (finding no probable cause where com-
    plaint relied on stale information, but applying good-faith exception in
    part because complaint indicated “ongoing continuous criminal activity”).
    16   R.3 at 23.
    No. 17-2734                                                               13
    could be interpreted reasonably to mean that the informant
    was at the Ridgeway apartment on May 18, 2010—not just
    that the informant passed the information to Officer Frano on
    that day.17
    The complaint also contains other indicia of timeliness.
    For example, in describing the informant’s reliability, Of-
    ficer Frano explained that the informant had provided infor-
    mation leading to the recovery of narcotics on more than six
    different occasions in the prior two months. This suggests that
    Officer Frano was meeting regularly with the informant and
    that the informant’s tips had been timely. Officer Frano ap-
    plied for the Ridgeway warrant on May 19, 2010, one day after
    the informant told him about the transaction with Mr. Ed-
    mond. When combined with the informant’s history of
    providing timely tips, this time frame could support a
    good-faith belief that the information in the complaint was
    not incurably stale.
    Furthermore, although the district court found that the
    complaint did not evidence ongoing criminal activity, the
    complaint could be understood as conveying that a certain
    amount of future drug deals beyond the single reported sale
    would occur at the Ridgeway apartment. Indications of “on-
    going, continuous criminal activity” render “the passage of
    time … less critical” to the probable cause analysis. Lamon, 930
    17 We note parenthetically that we cannot accept the Government’s argu-
    ment for applying the good-faith exception based on Officer Frano’s intent
    to communicate the date of the drug sale. See United States v. Koerth, 
    312 F.3d 862
    , 871 (7th Cir. 2002) (noting that the good-faith analysis is “objec-
    tive” and “based solely on facts presented to the” issuing judge, without
    reference to an officer’s “subjective intentions or knowledge” (quoting
    United States v. Hove, 
    848 F.2d 137
    , 140 (9th Cir. 1988))).
    14                                                            No. 17-2734
    F.2d at 1188 (quoting 
    Shomo, 786 F.2d at 984
    ). The complaint
    here did not report multiple drug sales and thus is not com-
    parable to the affidavits in United States v. Mitten, 
    592 F.3d 767
    (7th Cir. 2010), and United States v. Prideaux-Wentz, 
    543 F.3d 954
    (7th Cir. 2008). 18 However, it did describe a significant
    quantity of drugs at the apartment: twenty to thirty golf
    ball-sized bags, each containing ten to thirteen smaller bags of
    suspected heroin. Although this fact alone does not establish
    a pattern of ongoing criminal activity, 19 such a significant
    quantity of individually wrapped drugs reasonably suggests
    that Mr. Edmond planned multiple further drug deals.
    In the context of the good-faith analysis, we have re-
    marked that issuing judges “do not operate in a vacuum,
    shielded from knowledge of drug operations in the real
    world.” 
    Koerth, 312 F.3d at 870
    (quoting United States v. Perry,
    
    747 F.2d 1165
    , 1169 (7th Cir. 1984)). Just as judges can infer
    that “evidence is likely to be found where [drug] dealers live,”
    
    id. (quoting Lamon,
    930 F.2d at 1188), they also can infer that a
    significant quantity of individually packaged drugs is likely
    to be distributed over time through multiple drug deals, cf.
    United States v. Hython, 
    443 F.3d 480
    , 489 (6th Cir. 2006) (“[I]n
    some cases, a warrant may be issued on the basis of an infer-
    ence.”). Assessing the staleness of information in a complaint
    is never a mechanical process. See 
    Prideaux-Wentz, 543 F.3d at 958
    (“There is no bright-line test for determining when
    18   See supra note 15.
    19 Cf. United States v. Lamon, 
    930 F.2d 1183
    , 1188–89 (7th Cir. 1991) (finding
    a pattern of ongoing criminal activity when an informant recounted drug
    sales from both the defendant’s residence and automobile and indicated
    that the defendant had retained more than an ounce of cocaine after the
    latest sale).
    No. 17-2734                                                              15
    information is stale … .” (alteration omitted) (quoting United
    States v. Koelling, 
    992 F.2d 817
    , 822 (8th Cir. 1993))); see also
    
    Hython, 443 F.3d at 485
    (acknowledging that drug-distribu-
    tion crimes “exist[] upon a continuum ranging from an indi-
    vidual who effectuates the occasional sale … to an organized
    group operating an established … drug den”). Given these
    practical realities, a reasonable officer could have believed
    that the complaint indicated a likelihood of multiple future
    drug sales at the Ridgeway apartment. Accordingly, an officer
    could have concluded within reasonable bounds that the tem-
    poral deficiencies in the complaint were less critical to the
    probable cause analysis than they would have been under
    other circumstances.
    The other factors informing probable cause cut in both di-
    rections. On the one hand, the informant’s entire tip was
    based on firsthand knowledge, and the complaint provided
    ample detail about where the drugs were hidden and how
    they were packaged. These facts support a reasonable belief
    in probable cause.
    On the other hand, Officer Frano’s efforts to corroborate
    the tip were minimal; rather than verifying the informant’s
    account through independent means, he sought confirmation
    from the informant himself. See United States v. Robinson, 
    724 F.3d 878
    , 884–85 (7th Cir. 2013) (affording little probative
    value to corroboration where police drove the informant past
    the location of a reported crime and showed the informant a
    photograph of the suspect from a police database, which
    “shed[] little light on the central question” whether the re-
    ported crime was committed). 20 But see United States v. Sims,
    20See also United States v. Radovick, No. 2:13-CR-112-PPS-PRC, 
    2014 WL 1365434
    , at *5 (N.D. Ind. Apr. 7, 2014) (describing similar corroboration as
    16                                                         No. 17-2734
    
    551 F.3d 640
    , 644 (7th Cir. 2008) (considering an informant’s
    identification of an implicated location as one of many factors
    weighing in favor of probable cause); United States v. Jones, 
    208 F.3d 603
    , 607 (7th Cir. 2000) (same). Lastly, the informant did
    not appear before the issuing judge when Officer Frano ap-
    plied for the warrant.
    The lack of meaningful corroboration and the unavailabil-
    ity of the informant for questioning generally weigh against a
    finding of probable cause. 
    Glover, 755 F.3d at 816
    . That said,
    these factors are primarily relevant to check the informant’s
    credibility and, accordingly, do not undermine good-faith re-
    liance when there is strong, countervailing evidence that the
    informant is reliable. Cf. 
    id. at 818
    (noting that omissions about
    an informant’s reliability are less important when the com-
    plaint is extensively corroborated).
    Here, there was significant evidence of the informant’s re-
    liability. In the prior two months, the informant had provided
    six tips that led to the recovery of illegal narcotics. Cf. United
    States v. Searcy, 
    664 F.3d 1119
    , 1123 (7th Cir. 2011) (finding in-
    formant reliable where “the informant’s previous dealings
    with the police led to three arrests in the past six months”).
    Furthermore, Officer Frano credibly testified that the inform-
    ant had never provided false information in the past. Given
    the informant’s positive track record, a reasonable officer
    could have thought that the complaint gave rise to probable
    cause despite the weak corroboration and the informant’s
    “a meaningless exercise because essentially all it meant was the informant
    was corroborating himself”).
    No. 17-2734                                                                  17
    absence before the issuing judge. 21 “It is also noteworthy that
    Officer [Frano] sought and obtained the approval of the …
    State’s Attorney before presenting his warrant request to the”
    issuing judge. 
    Mitten, 592 F.3d at 776
    n.4; see also 
    Pappas, 592 F.3d at 802
    .
    When assessed in its entirety, the complaint was not so
    lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render a police of-
    ficer’s reliance on the validity of the warrant objectively un-
    reasonable. A litigant “establishes unreasonable reliance [on
    a warrant] if ‘courts have clearly held that a materially similar
    [complaint] previously failed to establish probable cause’ or
    the [complaint] is ‘plainly deficient’” on its face. 
    Glover, 755 F.3d at 819
    (quoting United States v. Woolsey, 
    535 F.3d 540
    , 548
    (7th Cir. 2008)). We do not have here the kind of stale and
    conclusory complaint that we have held cannot support
    good-faith reliance. See, e.g., Owens v. United States, 
    387 F.3d 607
    , 608 (7th Cir. 2004) (declining to apply the good-faith ex-
    ception where a “barebones affidavit” stated merely that
    “three months earlier an informant had bought ‘a quantity of
    crack’ … at a house believed to be [the petitioner’s] resi-
    dence,” with no indication of the quantity of drugs or the re-
    liability of the informant). Even though the district court in-
    validated the warrant due to temporal deficiencies in the
    21 Contrary to Mr. Edmond’s arguments, the informant’s criminal history
    and pending criminal charges do not necessarily undercut the reliability
    of his tip. See 
    Mitten, 592 F.3d at 774
    (“A motive to curry favor[] … does
    not necessarily render an informant unreliable.” (quoting United States v.
    Olson, 
    408 F.3d 366
    , 371 (7th Cir. 2005))); 
    Koerth, 312 F.3d at 870
    (indicating
    that “statements against [one’s] penal interest” tend to be reliable and that an
    informant with a motive “to strike a bargain with the police[ may have] a
    strong incentive to provide accurate and specific information” (emphasis
    in original)).
    18                                                             No. 17-2734
    complaint, those deficiencies were “not so egregious as to ren-
    der [the officer’s] belief in the warrant’s validity unreasona-
    ble.” 
    Mitten, 592 F.3d at 773
    . We therefore cannot accept
    Mr. Edmond’s first argument. 22
    B.
    Mr. Edmond next submits that the good-faith exception
    should not apply because Officer Frano acted in reckless dis-
    regard of the truth. He emphasizes that the complaint does
    not mention the informant’s criminal history, pending
    22 Mr. Edmond encourages us to follow United States v. Doyle, 
    650 F.3d 460
    (4th Cir. 2011), and United States v. Hython, 
    443 F.3d 480
    (6th Cir. 2006),
    where the Fourth and Sixth Circuits declined to apply the good-faith ex-
    ception to save evidence from tainted searches. Mr. Edmond fails to rec-
    ognize, however, the critical differences between the warrant applications
    in those cases and the complaint here. Unlike Officer Frano’s complaint,
    which included some indicia of timeliness, the applications in both Doyle
    and Hython did not include any indication of the time frame in which the
    reported events occurred. See 
    Doyle, 650 F.3d at 463
    , 475 n.16 (noting that
    the warrant application provided “zero indication as to when [the alleged
    crime] was committed,” and the lieutenant who drafted the application
    admitted that “no time frame whatsoever” was given to the issuing judge);
    
    Hython, 443 F.3d at 486
    (“[T]he affidavit offers no clue as to when this single
    controlled buy took place.” (emphasis added)).
    Furthermore, in both Doyle and Hython, there was scant other evidence
    of probable cause to compensate for the lack of temporal information. See
    
    Doyle, 650 F.3d at 463
    (noting that the affidavit “failed to indicate that the
    pictures allegedly possessed … were in fact pornographic,” thus omitting
    an important “indication that the [alleged] crime had been committed”);
    
    Hython, 443 F.3d at 486
    n.1 (noting that affidavit did “not establish the re-
    liability of either the tipster or the … supplier” and did not “make sure
    that they were not carrying drugs at the time of the controlled buy”). Not
    only did Officer Frano’s complaint include some indicia of timeliness, it
    also included detailed information about the alleged crime and a proven
    record of the informant’s past reliability.
    No. 17-2734                                                      19
    criminal charges, or recent bail forfeiture and arrest warrant.
    These omissions, he claims, distorted the issuing judge’s un-
    derstanding of the informant’s credibility and, therefore, the
    finding of probable cause.
    “We review the district court’s determinations of fact, in-
    cluding the determination of deliberate or reckless disregard
    for the truth, for clear error.” United States v. Williams, 
    718 F.3d 644
    , 649 (7th Cir. 2013). “A showing of reckless disregard re-
    quires more than a showing of negligence and may be proved
    from circumstances showing obvious reasons for the affiant
    to doubt the truth of the allegations.” 
    Id. at 6
    50. Here, in eval-
    uating Officer Frano’s testimony, the district court was con-
    ducting “a subjective inquiry [into] the officer’s state of
    mind.” 
    Id. On appeal,
    our task is not to repeat this same in-
    quiry; rather, we must “determine whether, based on the to-
    tality of the circumstances, it was reasonable for the district
    court to conclude that law enforcement did not doubt the
    truth of the [complaint].” 
    Id. As part
    of the hearing on Mr. Edmond’s § 2255 motion,
    Officer Frano testified about his preparation of the complaint
    and explained why he had omitted the challenged infor-
    mation. Officer Frano readily admitted that, when preparing
    the complaint, he knew about the informant’s criminal history
    and pending drug charges. He explained, however, that the
    Chicago Police Department did not require officers to include
    this information at the time and that he had no reason to ques-
    tion the informant’s credibility. See United States v. Taylor, 
    471 F.3d 832
    , 840 (7th Cir. 2006) (“[A]n informant’s criminality
    20                                                         No. 17-2734
    does not in itself establish unreliability.”). 23 Notably, the in-
    formant never had given him false information, and the in-
    formant’s prior convictions and pending charges did not re-
    late to crimes of untruthfulness. 24
    Officer Frano also testified that, at the time of the probable
    cause hearing, he was unaware of the informant’s recent bail
    revocation and outstanding arrest warrant. 25 Although
    Mr. Edmond presented a criminal history report that indi-
    cated that an arrest warrant had been issued for the informant
    days before the probable cause hearing, the court believed Of-
    ficer Frano’s testimony that he was unaware of the outstand-
    ing warrant at that time. The court also took account of the
    fact that Officer Frano did not “get [the informant] off the
    hook” after obtaining the warrant; indeed, the informant was
    sentenced to one year in prison for the felony drug charges.26
    The court credited these explanations and found that Of-
    ficer Frano did not act in reckless disregard of the truth.
    The district court did not clearly err in crediting Of-
    ficer Frano’s testimony that “he was not trying to hide
    23We do not suggest, however, that such information is not relevant and
    probative in the overall assessment of an application for a warrant. See
    United States v. Glover, 
    755 F.3d 811
    , 817–18 (7th Cir. 2014).
    24 It is again noteworthy that Officer Frano obtained the approval of the
    state’s attorney before applying for the warrant, even though the com-
    plaint did not mention the informant’s criminal history. See United States
    v. Pappas, 
    592 F.3d 799
    , 802 (7th Cir. 2010).
    25 Evidence of the arrest warrant “bore directly” on the informant’s cred-
    ibility. United States v. Williams, 
    718 F.3d 644
    , 653 (7th Cir. 2013).
    26   R.52 at 13.
    No. 17-2734                                                   21
    anything from the judge” 27 or “mislead the judge regarding
    the informant’s credibility.” 28 We have considered the totality
    of the circumstances, including the informant’s proven relia-
    bility, the standard practices of the police department at the
    time, and the officer’s plausible testimony. Based on this rec-
    ord, it was entirely reasonable for the court to conclude that
    Officer Frano did not doubt the truth of the allegations in the
    complaint. Accordingly, we reject Mr. Edmond’s claim that
    Officer Frano acted in reckless disregard of the truth.
    Conclusion
    Despite the temporal deficiencies in Officer Frano’s com-
    plaint, we are confident that an objectively reasonable officer
    could rely in good faith on the resultant search warrant. The
    complaint contained some indicia of timeliness, and, when
    combined with the other evidence of probable cause, it justi-
    fied good-faith reliance by the officers executing the search.
    Furthermore, the district court did not commit clear error in
    assessing Officer Frano’s state of mind when he prepared the
    complaint.
    Because the court properly applied the good-faith excep-
    tion, Mr. Edmond has failed to demonstrate any prejudice re-
    sulting from his attorney’s failure to file a motion to suppress.
    He therefore has not satisfied the test under Strickland for es-
    tablishing ineffective assistance of counsel. Accordingly, we
    affirm the district court’s denial of his § 2255 motion.
    AFFIRMED
    27   Id.
    28   
    Id. at 15.