OGDEN — A federal appeals court has thrown out a challenge to a search warrant obtained against Michael Ray Howard, who was convicted of drug charges after police found large amounts of methamphetamine in his car in March 2008.
The appeal stemmed from a police search of Howard’s car and home. Officers found several items of drug paraphernalia inside his home and 164 grams of methamphetamine in the car.
Howard was indicted on federal drug charges as a result of the search.
Howard tried to suppress the evidence of the methamphetamine obtained from his vehicle, saying police did not have probable cause to search the car.
The affidavit attached to the search warrant listed several reasons for the search, including that the vehicle was observed in a drug transaction that had occurred at Howard’s previous home and that it was registered to Howard and was parked in front of his current home.
It also said officers had learned from an anonymous source that they had missed a large amount of methamphetamine hidden in the engine compartment of the vehicle after a search was done of the house a month earlier.
Howard argued that the three facts connecting his vehicle to his drug activity listed in the affidavit were not sufficient evidence to warrant probable cause. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver denied the appeal, finding the reasons for the search warrant were enough to establish probable cause to search Howard’s vehicle.
Howard’s drug case ran almost simultaneously with another case in which he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of aggravated animal cruelty charges in 2nd District Court in Ogden.
Howard left 14 terrier-mix puppies to die, wrapped in a sheet and a plastic bag, in a bin behind a Riverdale fabric store.
One of the puppies survived and was adopted by a fabric store employee.
Howard was sentenced to a year in the county jail on the animal cruelty charges.
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