State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A24-0949

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Joseph Manasseh Johnson,
Appellant.

Filed June 16, 2025
Reversed
Ross, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-21-19838

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Mary F. Moriarty, Hennepin County Attorney, Linda M. Freyer, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, John Donovan, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Bratvold, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and Cleary,
Judge.
∗

∗ Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
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NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Police officers were watching Joseph Johnson and planning to take him into custody
on arrest warrants when they saw him approach but not enter one car and then drive away
in a different car. Police stopped Johnson, arrested him, and found drugs and drug
paraphernalia inside the car. The district court issued a warrant to search the other car, and
police searched it and found a handgun. Appealing from his consequent illegal-possession-
of-a-firearm conviction, Johnson argues that the search of that car violated his
constitutional rights. Because the circumstances did not give the warrant-issuing judge a
substantial basis to determine probable cause that police would find evidence of a crime
inside the car where they found the handgun, we reverse Johnson’s firearm conviction.
FACTS
Osseo police officer Nicholas Englund went to an apartment building one night in
October 2021 looking for Joseph Johnson, who the officer knew was the subject of arrest
warrants. Officer Englund saw two vehicles that were parked in the lot near each other and
that he associated with Johnson: a Chevrolet Tahoe and a Mercedes-Benz sedan. The
events that followed led police to arrest Johnson in the Mercedes, obtain a warrant to search
the Tahoe, and find a handgun in the Tahoe le ading to Johnson’s being charged with and
convicted of possession of a firearm by an ineligible person. The warrant to search the
Tahoe rested on the affidavit of Osseo police officer Adrianne Lamers, Officer Englund’s
partner.
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Officer Lamers’s affidavit testimony, in relevant part, included the following “facts
establishing the grounds for issuance of a search warrant” for the Tahoe:
On 8/18/21 Osseo Police Officers were dispatched
to . . . 1st Ave NE on a report of a disturbance where a male,
later identified as Joseph Manasseh Johnson . . . had threatened
his girlfriend and attempted to light her doormat outside of her
apartment on fire inside a multi-unit complex. Since that time,
a felony warrant has been issued for that offense, and Officers
have been attempting to locate Johnson since this date due to
the actions during this event as well as for the multiple warrants
that were out for his arrest. Officers were receiving information
from other residents that the male was frequently returning to
the apartment and driving three vehicles described as a Chevy
Silverado . . . , a Chevy Tahoe . . . and a Mercedes sedan . . . .
Officers would frequently see these vehicles at the apartment
complex but were refused entry into the apartment during
multiple attempts at contact and were unable to actively catch
the vehicles being driven.

On 10/23/21 Osseo Police Officers observed both the
Tahoe and Mercedes parked in the apartment complex parking
lot and officers began to observe the vehicles. At
approximately 2307 hours, a male matching Johnson’s general
description was seen walking out into the otherwise empty
parking lot to the driver side of the Tahoe, at which time the
lights came on inside the Tahoe. Shortly thereafter, the lights
to the Mercedes parked nearby, came on and the Mercedes left
the lot where an attempted traffic stop was made at the on ramp
to Hwy 169 southbound. As Officers approached the
Mercedes, the vehicle sped off and a pursuit was initiated. The
vehicle had items thrown from the car multiple times during
the pursuit as it made a broad circle back towards the . . . 1st
Ave address. The Mercedes stopped in front of the apartment
building where the male surrendered. The male was positively
identified as Johnson. Large amounts of cash and marijuana
was smelled and located and in plain view while taking
Johnson into custody. A search of the vehicle produced a large
amount of marijuana, large sum of cash, multiple cell phones,
drug packaging and paraphernalia used in the sale of illegal
drugs [were] located in the passenger compartment. Also in the

passenger compartment was a key ring that contained a key that
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was later determined to belong to the Tahoe that Johnson had
accessed just prior to the traffic stop.

The affidavit identified the evidence that Officer Lamers suspected would be found
in the Tahoe, specifically: marijuana or other drugs and related paraphernalia and
packaging, cellphones, documents containing drug-sale, -use, or -possession information,
money, and firearms. And it closed by requesting a search warrant “[d]ue to the frequent
use of the Tahoe and the Mercedes by Johnson, as well as the activity seen at the Tahoe
just prior to the initiation of the pursuit.”
The officers who executed the search warrant found, among other things, a loaded
Taurus 9mm handgun beneath the Tahoe’s front passenger seat. Johnson moved the district
court to suppress the evidence resulting from the search. The district court denied the
motion, reasoning that the warrant-issuing judge had properly “found sufficient probable
cause to sign a warrant for the search of the Chevrolet” because “Defendant was seen
approaching the Chevrolet, Chevrolet lights came on while defendant was observed to
approach the vehicle, and the keys of the vehicle were located in the Mercedes driven by
Defendant (where drugs and drug paraphernalia were also found).”
The district court sentenced Johnson to serve 60 months in prison following his
consequent conviction of possession of a firearm as an ineligible person. Johnson appeals.
DECISION
Johnson asks us to reverse his conviction, arguing, among other things, that the
warrant to search the Tahoe was not supported by probable cause. We need address only
his search-warrant challenge to resolve this appeal.
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Johnson contends that because the search warrant was not supported by probable
cause, the district court erroneously failed to suppress the evidence seized during the
vehicle search. Both the federal and state constitutions require that a search warrant be
supported by probable cause. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. This
constitutional requirement obligates the judge who issues the warrant “to make a practical,
common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit
before him, . . . there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be
found in a particular place.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983). We give
considerable deference to the issuing judge’s determination of probable cause, reviewing
the determination by assessing whether he “had a substantial basis for concluding that
probable cause existed. ” State v. Rochefort, 631 N.W.2d 802, 804 (Minn. 2001). For the
reasons that follow, we conclude that the probable-cause determination lacked an adequate
basis.
We agree with Johnson’s contention that the district court lacked a substantial basis
to see a nexus between the evidence that police allegedly suspected would be found in the
Tahoe and the Tahoe itself. Probable cause requires that a search-warrant affidavit establish
that a sufficient nexus exists “between the evidence sought and the place to be searched.”
See State v. Yarbrough, 841 N.W.2d 619, 622 (Minn. 2014). We look only to the warrant’s
application affidavit to determine if the issuing judge had a sufficient basis to determine
probable cause to issue the warrant. Novak v. State, 349 N.W.2d 830, 831 (Minn. 1984);
see Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 564–65, 568 (1971). We conclude that the affidavit
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at most supplied reasonable suspicion to believe that the described evidence might be in
the Tahoe, but not probable cause.
The affidavit does not offer evidence to support a connecting rationale, going no
further than to reference “the frequent use of the Tahoe and the Mercedes by Johnson, as
well as the activity seen at the Tahoe just prior to the initiation of the pursuit.” Johnson’s
frequent use of both cars and the “activity” referenced (Johnson’s approaching but not
apparently entering the Tahoe before entering and leaving in the Mercedes) is certainly not
enough of a connection to justify the warrant. But we can look further into the affidavit and
see that it includes four basic circumstances that arguably connect the drug-related and
gun-related evidence sought to be found in the Tahoe with the Tahoe itself.
The first circumstance arguably making the connection was that the officers “were
receiving information from other residents that the male was frequently returning to the
apartment and driving three vehicles,” including the Tahoe. The second is that the interior
lights of the Tahoe illuminated when Johnson walked to the driver’s side of the Tahoe. The
third is that police found drug- sale evidence inside the Mercedes after they caught and
arrested Johnson in that car. And the fourth is that the key to the Tahoe was located inside
the Mercedes. The state would have us reason that the drug-related evidence found inside
the Mercedes after Johnson’s arrest implies that Johnson sells drugs; that the location of
the evidence leading to the suspicion that Johnson sells drugs leads to the suspicion that he
sells drugs particularly from the Mercedes; that the suspicion that Johnson sells drugs from
the Mercedes leads to the suspicion that he also sells drugs from other cars he had access
to, including the Tahoe; and finally that the suspicion that Johnson sells drugs from the
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Tahoe leads not only to a suspicion but to probable cause to believe that drugs, drug-dealing
documentation, or a firearm would be recovered in a search of the Tahoe. This
hopscotching rationale simply requires too much speculation and too many hops. The
Tahoe’s interior illumination and the location of its key inside the Mercedes certainly
established probable cause that Johnson sometimes drives the Tahoe. And the quantity and
nature of the drugs and drug-related evidence inside the Mercedes likely also established
probable cause to believe that Johnson sells drugs. But we doubt that the evidence
established probable cause to believe that Johnson sold drugs specifically from the
Mercedes, and we are certain that it does not provide probable cause to believe further that
he sold drugs from the Tahoe.
We are not persuaded otherwise by the supreme court’s holding that “[i]t may be
reasonable to infer that drug wholesalers keep drugs at their residences.” Yarbrough, 841
N.W.2d at 623. The state unconvincingly suggests that we apply similar reasoning here.
While it “may be” reasonable to infer that drug-dealing evidence would be found inside a
drug dealer’s home, it is far less reasonable to infer that drug-dealing evidence would be
found inside all a drug dealer’s multiple cars. As the Yarbrough court observed, simply
seeing a suspect with contraband away from his residence “would ordinarily not be enough
to establish a nexus to search [the] residence.” Id. The warrant affidavit here included no
information, and therefore supported no inference, that drug-dealing evidence in the
Mercedes created “a fair probability that the evidence” identified in the warrant affidavit
would be found inside the Tahoe. Id. at 622.
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Despite our deference to the warrant-issuing judge’s probable-cause determination,
we hold that the affidavit did not provide a substantial basis to establish probable cause to
search the Tahoe for evidence of drugs, drug dealing, or weapons. We therefore reverse
Johnson’s conviction. And because we reverse the conviction on these grounds, we do not
address his other arguments.
Reversed.