U.S. v. Stevenson

• Citation: 396 F.3d 538
• Decision Date: 01 February 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-4227.,04-4227.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Lee Ronald STEVENSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

396 F.3d 538

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Lee Ronald STEVENSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 04-4227.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: December 3, 2004.

Decided: February 1, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED: Brian Joseph Kornbrath, Federal Public Defender, Office of The Federal Public Defender, Clarksburg, West Virginia, for Appellant. Robert H. McWilliams, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Wheeling, West Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Thomas E. Johnston, United States Attorney, Wheeling, West Virginia, for Appellee.

Before WILKINS, Chief Judge, and NIEMEYER and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge NIEMEYER wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge WILKINS and Judge DUNCAN joined.

OPINION

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

Lee Ronald Stevenson was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), and sentenced to 84 months' imprisonment, 48 months to be served consecutively to a sentence of imprisonment he is currently serving in Michigan. On appeal, Stevenson challenges the district court's denial of his motion to suppress the firearms seized without a warrant from an apartment that he had leased on a week-to-week basis in Weston, West Virginia.

The district court found as a fact that prior to the search of Stevenson's apartment and the seizure of the firearms, Stevenson was in custody on an unrelated charge and had formed an intention not to return to the apartment, as manifested principally by a letter he wrote to his girlfriend, giving her ownership of the personal property in his apartment and referring to himself as the "former renter." The court concluded, based on its finding as to Stevenson's intentions, that "Stevenson waived any reasonable expectation of privacy in his former apartment" and therefore that "the search of the apartment... did not violate Stevenson's Fourth Amendment rights."

Deferring to the district court's factual findings, even though they were based principally on documentary evidence, we conclude that the district court did not clearly err; and we agree with the district court's legal conclusion that, as a matter of law, Stevenson's Fourth Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures was not violated. Accordingly, we affirm.

I

On January 20, 2003, Stevenson was arrested in Lewis County, West Virginia, on a fugitive warrant that issued from Michigan when he failed to appear there for sentencing on a felony criminal sexual conduct conviction. The day after Stevenson's arrest, while he was still in police custody, Stevenson wrote his one-time girlfriend, Connie Blake, a letter transferring to her all of his personal property in his apartment and referring to himself as the "former renter" of the apartment. The letter, which Blake received on January 22, 2003, reads in relevant part:

Receipt for Personal Property:

On this day, Jan. 21, 2003, I Lee R. Stevenson, a.k.a. Levi Yoder, former renter of the apt. on 642 Court St. Weston W. Va. owned by Greg Floyd, hereby transfer/give, Ms. Connie Blake, full rights to possession and ownership of all my personal property in apt. 642.

Stevenson had rented the apartment on a week-to-week basis for $100 per week from Greg Floyd in late November or early December 2002. After making the first two payments and moving into the apartment, Stevenson immediately fell behind in the rent. When Floyd and Stevenson discussed the situation in January 2003, Floyd indicated that he was willing to work with Stevenson to pay back the rent. They discussed the possibility of Stevenson's working for Floyd or Stevenson's accumulating money through odd jobs and paying the back rent as soon as possible. Stevenson never completed that arrangement, however, because he was arrested on January 20, 2003. By the time of his arrest, Stevenson was $500 in arrears.

On January 24, 2003, Sergeant David Parks of the Lewis County Sheriff's Department received a fax from Michigan, asking for help gathering evidence relating to an arson investigation involving Stevenson. That same day, Parks obtained a search warrant to search a motor home owned by Stevenson, but found no evidence there. After learning of Stevenson's apartment at 642 Court Street in Weston, Sergeant Parks called Floyd, Stevenson's landlord, to obtain Floyd's permission to search the apartment. Floyd consented to the search and told Parks how to enter the apartment. Parks, accompanied by Floyd's father and brother, searched the apartment without a warrant, discovering two firearms — a Winchester Model 94 30-30 caliber rifle, and an Iver Johnson .32 caliber revolver — and seized them, aware that Stevenson had previously been convicted of a felony.

After the government indicted Stevenson with being a felon in possession of a firearm, Stevenson moved to suppress the firearms, contending that the search of his apartment was illegal because Sergeant Parks had failed to obtain a search warrant. Concluding that Stevenson lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment, the district court denied the motion to suppress. Thereafter, Stevenson was convicted by a jury and sentenced by the district court.

Stevenson appeals his judgment of conviction, contending that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress based on Sergeant Parks' violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.

II

At the outset, we address our standard of review on motions to suppress evidence.

Motions to suppress fall into the class of issues that are decided by the court and not the jury. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(b)(3)(C), 12(d); see also Fed.R.Evid. 104(a). In the course of deciding a motion to suppress, the district court may make findings of fact, as well as rulings of law, and the standard for our review is well-established: We defer to the district court's factual findings and do not set them aside unless clearly erroneous; and we review legal conclusions de novo. See United States v. Ickes, No. 03-4907, 2005 WL 14907, at *2 (4th Cir. Jan.4, 2005); United States v. Holmes, 376 F.3d 270, 273 (4th Cir.2004); United States v. Kitchens, 114 F.3d 29, 31 (4th Cir.1997).

A factual finding is clearly erroneous when we are "left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed." Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). But "[i]f the district court's account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety," we will not reverse the district court's finding simply because we have become convinced that we would have decided the fact differently. Id. at 573-74, 105 S.Ct. 1504. Thus, when "there are two permissible views of the evidence, the [district court's] choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous." Id. at 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504.

In this case, the district court received some testimony from witnesses, but it relied most heavily on the letter written by Stevenson to his girlfriend to make its factual finding that the letter "clearly indicated" Stevenson's intention to relinquish his interest in the apartment. In making this finding, the court stated:

[T]he court concludes that Stevenson lost any reasonable expectation of privacy in his apartment when, on his own volition, he wrote Blake to give her his property. That fact alone suggests that he had no intention of returning to his apartment, where the property was located. More importantly, however, Stevenson declared in the letter that he was the "former renter" of the apartment. The reasonable import of this statement is plain: Stevenson no longer considered himself a resident of the apartment. Indeed, his own words clearly indicate that he had no possessory interest in the apartment and that he was no longer obliged to pay rent in the future. Thus, any subjective expectation of privacy he may have had in the apartment was certainly not reasonable.

... Stevenson asserts that it is "hyper-technical and unjustified" to conclude he abandoned his privacy interests in the apartment by referring to himself as the "former renter." To the contrary, the language which Stevenson used in his letter is the only direct evidence of his contemporaneous intent and knowledge. Moreover, the statement is particularly probative because it was completely voluntary.

Because we can read Stevenson's letter and draw inferences from it just as the district court did, Stevenson argues that we should review the district court's finding with respect to the letter de novo, and not for clear error. The assumption underlying this argument is that an appellate court reviewing documentary evidence can make a factual finding as well as a district court can, and, to the extent that an appellate court draws an inference inconsistent with a finding of the district court, the appellate court should follow its own finding. The argument, of course, recognizes that appellate courts defer to district court findings when they are based on credibility because credibility can only be determined by the district court, which is in a position to observe witnesses.

It is indeed true that only the trial court can observe "the variations in demeanor and tone of voice that bear so heavily on the listener's understanding of and belief in what is said," which is important to the determination of whether a witness is to be believed. Anderson, 470 U.S. at 575, 105 S.Ct. 1504. But any assertion that this is the governing principle for appellate court deference to a district court's factual findings is too limited and has been explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court. As that Court explained in Anderson,

[t]he rationale for deference to the original finder of fact is not limited to the superiority of the trial judge's position to make determinations of credibility. The trial judge's major role is the...