Filed: May 21, 2007
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: Opinions of the United 2007 Decisions States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit 5-21-2007 USA v. Smith Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential Docket No. 06-1788 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2007 Recommended Citation "USA v. Smith" (2007). 2007 Decisions. Paper 1082. http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2007/1082 This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the United States
Summary: Opinions of the United 2007 Decisions States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit 5-21-2007 USA v. Smith Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential Docket No. 06-1788 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2007 Recommended Citation "USA v. Smith" (2007). 2007 Decisions. Paper 1082. http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2007/1082 This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the United States ..
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Opinions of the United
2007 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
5-21-2007
USA v. Smith
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 06-1788
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2007
Recommended Citation
"USA v. Smith" (2007). 2007 Decisions. Paper 1082.
http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2007/1082
This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit at Villanova
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_______________
No: 06-1788
_______________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
DANIEL SMITH,
Appellant
_______________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 05-cr-00227)
District Judge: Honorable Mary A. McLaughlin
_______________
Submitted Under Third Circuit 34.1(a)
May 8, 2007
Before: RENDELL and JORDAN, Circuit Judges
and VANASKIE*, District Judge.
(Filed May 21, 2007)
_______________
OPINION OF THE COURT
_______________
_______________
*Honorable Thomas I. Vanaskie, District Court Judge for the Middle District of
Pennsylvania, sitting by designation
JORDAN, Circuit Judge.
Daniel Smith appeals the decision of the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained, in
part, as a result of a warrantless entry into a residence at 512 High Street in Norristown,
Pennsylvania. Smith contends that the warrantless entry was improper because the police
lacked both probable cause and exigent circumstances. Smith also argues that a search
warrant that subsequently issued for 512 High Street was invalid because it was based on
evidence obtained as a result of the initial warrantless entry. Smith finally asserts, in a
single sentence, that statements elicited from him by the police must be suppressed
because they were obtained without his first being given the warnings required by
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). For the reasons that follow, we will affirm the
decision of the District Court.
I.
On the morning of April 20, 2003, multiple law enforcement agencies executed
over forty search warrants throughout Philadelphia County and Montgomery County,
thirteen of them in Norristown, as part of an extensive investigation into illegal drug
dealing. Because members of the targeted drug organization were in constant
communication with one another, the police were concerned that, if the warrants were
executed at different times, news of the searches would spread quickly to the other
members and evidence would be destroyed. Therefore, more than one hundred law
enforcement officers attempted to execute the warrants at approximately the same time.
2
One of the search warrants was for 1222 Green Street in Norristown, which the
police believed to be Smith’s residence. However, when police entered the house, Smith
was not there. The owner of the home, Smith’s former girlfriend, informed the police that
she had thrown him out of the house earlier that week and that he was now living with his
mother at 512 High Street in Norristown. The owner also told the police that, while she
had never seen Smith sell drugs, he often kept a white powdery substance in the house
and packaged it in small bags. According to her, when she kicked Smith out of her house,
she threw into the street a bottle containing white powder and a bottle marked acetone,
both of which belonged to Smith, and she also threw out his electronic scale. She showed
the police an area near her house where some of the white powdery substance was still
left on the ground, along with the batteries that had fallen out of the scale when she threw
it.
Based on that information, several officers went to 512 High Street to see if Smith
was there. When one of the officers knocked on the door, Smith looked out a window
and immediately closed the curtains. The officers became concerned that Smith would
destroy evidence, so they forcibly entered the home. They searched the house to the
extent necessary to ensure that everyone inside the house was gathered in one location,
and that no weapons were within reach. Smith was found in the living room, and, in plain
view, an officer saw what he believed to be a bag of marijuana and a bag of cocaine. The
officers then waited for a search warrant. Without any solicitation from the officers,
Smith told them that the contraband they had found in the house belonged to him.
3
After a search warrant for 512 High Street was issued, the officers conducted a full
search of the premises. They seized a large amount of cocaine packaged in individual
plastic bags, a small amount of marijuana, a handgun, and a shotgun. During the search,
an officer provided Smith with a copy of the search warrant and informed him of his
constitutional rights. Smith reiterated that the contraband belonged to him. He was then
arrested and transported to the County Detectives’ Office, where an officer again read
Smith his rights and took a statement from him. Smith admitted that he sold cocaine, and
that the cocaine, the marijuana, the handgun, and the shotgun seized from 512 High Street
were his.
II.
The District Court held that the warrantless entry into 512 High Street was
justified because the police officers had probable cause to believe that drugs and other
evidence were present and because they had reasonably concluded that Smith would
destroy the evidence before a search warrant could be obtained. The District Court found
that the information used to obtain the warrant for 1222 Green Street, along with the
statement given by Smith’s former girlfriend, provided probable cause with respect to 512
High Street. More specifically, the affidavit attached to the warrant for 1222 Green Street
stated that a confidential informant had told police that Smith sold cocaine, that the police
had observed Smith sell cocaine, and that Smith had been in communication with one of
the main targets of the Norristown drug investigation. And, as discussed above, Smith’s
former girlfriend told police that she believed Smith was a drug dealer and that, while
4
they lived together, he often kept a white powdery substance, small bags, and an
electronic scale in her home.
The District Court concluded that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless
entry because the police had reasonably determined that evidence would be destroyed
during the time needed to obtain a warrant. Because numerous warrants involving
members of the same drug faction were being executed within a two-square-mile area of
Norristown on the same morning, the District Court found that the police had reason to
believe that Smith would learn of the other searches and dispose of any contraband in his
possession. In addition, Smith’s former neighbors saw police officers execute the warrant
at 1222 Green Street, and Smith might therefore have been warned of an impending
search by those neighbors.
The District Court held that the search warrant issued for 512 High Street was
valid because Smith had already conceded that, if the warrantless entry was proper, then
the evidence obtained during that entry would be sufficient to establish probable cause.
As a result, the court denied Smith’s motion to suppress with respect to the evidence
seized from 512 High Street.
With respect to Smith’s motion to suppress statements he made to the police
officers, the District Court concluded that Smith’s pre-arrest comments were unsolicited,
and thus admissible, and that his post-arrest statement was given after he was duly
informed of his constitutional rights, and thus also admissible. Accordingly, the court
denied Smith’s motion to suppress those statements.
5
Following the denial of his motion to suppress, Smith pleaded guilty to all four
charges in the indictment. Therefore, on appeal, Smith only challenges the District
Court’s denial of his suppression motion. The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to
18 U.S.C. § 3231, and we have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. “We
review the denial of a suppression motion for clear error as to the underlying facts, but
exercise plenary review as to its legality in light of the district court’s properly found
facts.” United States v. Coles, 437 F.3d 361, 365 (3d Cir. 2006) (citing United States v.
Givan,
320 F.3d 452, 458 (3d Cir. 2003)).
III.
Smith argues that the search warrant issued for 1222 Green Street was invalid
because the affidavit upon which it was based does not demonstrate probable cause.
Smith admits that he lacks standing to challenge that warrant because he had already been
evicted from the residence and, thus, had no reasonable expectation of privacy. However,
Smith contends that the issue must still be addressed because, if the warrant for 1222
Green Street lacked probable cause, then the government is precluded from arguing that
exigent circumstances justified the warrantless entry at 512 High Street. Smith appears to
be arguing that, if the warrant for 1222 Green Street is found to have lacked probable
cause, then there is also no probable cause for the entry into 512 High Street, which
would make the exigent circumstances analysis irrelevant. While his logic is faulty,1 to
1See infra at section IV, A.
6
the extent Smith’s argument is a challenge to the entry into 512 High Street and not 1222
Green Street, we address the circumstances surrounding the entry of the latter residence,
as well as the entry of the former.
IV.
The crux of Smith’s appeal is his position that the warrantless entry into 512 High
Street was improper. “Warrantless searches and seizures inside someone’s home . . . are
presumptively unreasonable unless the occupants consent or probable cause and exigent
circumstances exist to justify the intrusion.” Coles, 437 F.3d at 365-66. No one argues
that the entry into 512 High Street was consensual. Therefore, we must determine
whether the District Court correctly concluded that the entry was justified by both
probable cause and exigent circumstances.
A.
In finding that the police had probable cause to believe Smith was storing drugs at
512 High Street, the District Court relied in part on the information contained in the
warrant for 1222 Green Street. That warrant was based on a confidential informant’s
statement that Smith sold cocaine, an officer’s observation of Smith selling cocaine in a
controlled buy, and evidence that Smith had been in communication with one of the main
targets of the Norristown drug investigation. Despite Smith’s contentions to the contrary,
we need not decide whether that information alone creates probable cause, because we
agree with the District Court that the decision to enter 512 High Street was not predicated
solely upon the warrant for 1222 Green Street. After executing the warrant at 1222 Green
7
Street, but before entering 512 High Street, the police obtained a statement from his
former girlfriend, who had been living with Smith until she evicted him earlier that week.
She told the police that she believed Smith was a drug dealer. Also, she said that, right
before she evicted Smith from her home, she found a bottle containing a white powder, a
bottle labeled acetone, small bags, and an electronic scale, which she claimed belonged to
Smith.
Smith argues that the information obtained from the girlfriend adds nothing that
would establish probable cause with respect to 512 High Street. First, Smith attempts to
cast doubt upon her credibility by pointing out that she was angry with him and had
recently thrown him out of her home. However, her statement is corroborated by other
evidence. Her belief that Smith was selling drugs is consistent with the evidence the
police had obtained in order to procure the warrant for 1222 Green Street. Also, her
statement that she emptied a bottle of white powder in the street and threw away Smith’s
electronic scale is corroborated by the remnants of those items that the police found near
her home. Therefore, we find that there was a sufficient basis for the police to conclude
that the former girlfriend’s statements were credible.
Smith also contends that, because his former girlfriend had disposed of all the drug
paraphernalia she found, there is no probable cause to believe that Smith was storing any
contraband at 512 High Street. In other words, Smith claims that the police had no
evidence that Smith had obtained replacements for the items she threw away. His
argument is not persuasive. We have repeatedly held that “direct evidence linking the
8
residence to criminal activity is not required to establish probable cause.” United States
v. Burton, 288 F.3d 91, 103 (3d Cir. 2002) (citing United States v. Hodge,
246 F.3d 301,
305 (3d Cir. 2001); United States v. Whitner,
219 F.3d 289, 297 (3d Cir. 2000)). Instead,
probable cause can be based on circumstantial evidence which indicates there is a fair
probability that contraband is present at the suspect’s home.
Id.
Specifically, in the case of drug dealers, this Court, and several other courts of
appeal, have recognized that “evidence of involvement in the drug trade is likely to be
found where the dealers reside.”
Whitner, 219 F.3d at 297-98 (citing cases from other
circuits); see also
Burton, 288 F.3d at 103-04;
Hodge; 246 F.3d at 306. It is reasonable
for the police to infer that evidence of drug dealing is present in a person’s home if they
have evidence of three preliminary facts: “(1) that the person suspected of drug dealing is
actually a drug dealer; (2) that the place to be searched is possessed by, or the domicile
of, the dealer; and (3) that the home contains contraband linking it to the dealer’s drug
activities.”
Burton, 288 F.3d at 104. In this case, the police had evidence of all of those
facts before they entered 512 High Street.
First, the evidence used to obtain the warrant for 1222 Green Street and the
information provided by the former girlfriend adequately support the premise that Smith
was actually a drug dealer. Next, after the former girlfriend told the police that Smith was
currently residing at 512 High Street, they knocked on the door at that address, and a man
whom one of the officers identified as Smith looked out a window. That, along with the
girlfriend’s statement, was sufficient evidence for the police to conclude 512 High Street
9
was Smith’s domicile. Lastly, evidence, including the girlfriend’s statements, showed
that Smith had stored drugs at his home in the past, which supports the premise that
Smith’s new residence would contain evidence of his drug activity. The fact that Smith
looked out the window when the police knocked, but refused to open the door, also
suggests that there was contraband inside. Cf. Whitner, 219 F.3d at 299 (holding that the
suspect’s attempt to conceal his address logically suggests that he was storing some
evidence of illegal activity which he did not want to be discovered).
Therefore, the information that the police had acquired provided a substantial basis
from which it was reasonable to infer that evidence of Smith’s drug activity was being
stored at 512 High Street. Under our precedent, that is enough to establish probable
cause. See Burton, 288 F.3d at 103-04;
Hodge, 246 F.3d at 306-07;
Whitner, 219 F.3d at
298-99.
B.
Smith contends that, even if probable cause did exist, the warrantless entry into
512 High Street was nonetheless improper because the exigent circumstances exception
to the warrant requirement did not apply. “[E]xigent circumstances include, but are not
limited to, hot pursuit of a suspected felon, the possibility that evidence may be removed
or destroyed, and danger to the lives of officers or others.” Coles, 437 F.3d at 366. The
District Court determined that the entry was justified on the basis that evidence of Smith’s
drug activity would be removed or destroyed in the time needed to get a warrant.
10
Smith argues that the District Court’s decision is contrary to this Court’s holding
in United States v. Coles, 437 F.3d 361 (3d Cir. 2006), because, according to Smith, the
police created the exigency in this case by knocking on his door and announcing their
presence. In Coles, a hotel manager informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(“FBI”) that he believed Coles had drugs in his hotel room.
Id. at 362-63. After
establishing surveillance of Coles’s hotel room, law enforcement officers observed Coles
and another man entering the hotel room.
Id. at 363. The officers then attempted to gain
access to the room by knocking on the door and claiming that they were hotel employees.
Id. When that failed, the officers identified themselves as the police, and demanded that
Coles let them in the room.
Id. The officers then heard sounds of rustling and running
footsteps, so they tried to open the door with an electronic key provided by the hotel
manager, but were prevented from doing so by a bar latch over the door.
Id. at 364.
Coles eventually opened the door, and the officers found crack cocaine, cash, and a
firearm in the room.
Id. This Court held that the exigent circumstances exception to the
warrant requirement did not apply in Coles because “the police impermissibly created the
very exigency which they claim permitted the warrantless search.”
Id. at 362.
Coles is distinguishable from this case. In Coles, we emphasized that there was no
urgency until the officers’ decided to knock and announce their presence, because Coles
had not detected the police surveillance. Id. at 371. In contrast, here the exigent
circumstances existed before the police arrived at Smith’s home. The police were in the
process of executing more than forty warrants at the same time, in a coordinated effort to
11
obtain evidence before members of a drug conspiracy could warn one another of the
investigation. After executing the warrant at 1222 Green Street and discovering that
Smith no longer lived there, the police reasonably believed that, in the time needed to
obtain a warrant for 512 High Street, Smith would learn of the other searches that
morning and destroy evidence of his criminal activity. Therefore, the police did not
create an exigency in order to gain entry into 512 High Street. The exigency was the
result of an unforeseen circumstance – that Smith no longer lived at 1222 Green Street –
and not the officers’ decision to knock and announce.
Smith argues that the police officers’ perceived exigency is insufficient to justify
the warrantless entry because there was no evidence that he had actually been alerted to
the other searches conducted that morning. However, the exigent circumstances
exception does not require an officer to have knowledge that evidence is actually being
removed or destroyed. United States v. Rubin, 474 F.2d 262, 266 (3d Cir. 1973). It is
sufficient that the police officers reasonably believed, under the circumstances, that the
delay necessary to obtain a warrant would result in the destruction of evidence.
Id. at
269. In this case, it was entirely reasonable for the police to conclude, based on their
extensive experience and common sense, that other members of Smith’s drug conspiracy
would try to alert him to a possible search. Cf.
id. (holding that the warrantless entry into
a suspect’s home was justified after the suspect yelled, “Call my brother,” even though
the police did not know whether other individuals in the suspect’s home were actually
notified).
12
For the reasons discussed, we find that the police had a reasonable belief that
Smith would destroy evidence of his drug activity in the time needed to procure a warrant
for 512 High Street. Also, we conclude that our holding in Coles is inapplicable because
the exigency in this case was not deliberately created by the officers in order to gain entry
into Smith’s residence. Therefore, the warrantless entry into 512 High Street was proper
because of the existence of both probable cause and exigent circumstances.
V.
Smith admits that the evidence that was in plain view during the warrantless entry
of 512 High Street was sufficient to establish probable cause for the warrant to search that
residence. As a result, Smith concedes that, if we find the warrantless entry to have been
justified, his challenge to that warrant must fail. Because we cannot fault the warrantless
entry into 512 High Street, we find that the warrant, and the corresponding search of that
residence, was valid.2
VI.
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the decision of the District Court.
2As noted above, Smith asserts that the District Court should have suppressed the
statements he made to the police. However, Smith fails to articulate any basis for that
conclusory assertion. Therefore, we will uphold the District Court’s decision denying his
motion to suppress those statements.
13
