U.S. v. McClain

• Citation: 444 F.3d 556
• Decision Date: 02 December 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-5887.,04-5887.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kevin McCLAIN; George Brandt, III; Jason Davis, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

444 F.3d 556

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kevin McCLAIN; George Brandt, III; Jason Davis, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 04-5887.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: July 20, 2005.

Decided and Filed: December 2, 2005.

As Revised March 31, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED: Thomas M. Gannon, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Richard L. Gaines, Eldridge & Gaines, Knoxville, Tennessee, Peter J. Strianse, Tune, Entrekin & White, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Thomas M. Gannon, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Richard L. Gaines, Eldridge & Gaines, Knoxville, Tennessee, Peter J. Strianse, Tune, Entrekin & White, Nashville, Tennessee, R. Price Nimmo, Nimmo, Hoehn & Nimmo, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellees.

Before: BOGGS, Chief Judge; BATCHELDER and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.

BATCHELDER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which GIBBONS, J., joined. BOGGS, C.J. (pp. 566-569), delivered a separate opinion concurring in the judgment.

OPINION

ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge.

On July 25, 2002, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Defendants-Appellees Kevin McClain, George Brandt III, and Jason Davis with conspiracy and substantive marijuana trafficking in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. The defendants moved to suppress all evidence obtained during and as a consequence of a warrantless search of McClain's residence on October 12, 2001, including evidence seized during execution of search warrants issued on the basis of evidence obtained as a result of that initial warrantless search. The district court granted the motions, holding that the warrantless search of McClain's residence was not justified by exigent circumstances, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule did not apply to these circumstances, and the derivative evidence must be suppressed. Although we agree with the district court's conclusion that there was neither probable cause nor exigency to justify the warrantless search of McClain's residence, we find that, under the particular facts of this case, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies. We will therefore reverse the judgment granting the motions to suppress.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

At around 9:30 p.m. on October 12, 2001, the dispatch operator for the Hendersonville, Tennessee Police Department received a phone call from a concerned neighbor who reported seeing a light on in a house located at 123 Imperial Point, which had been vacant for several weeks. The police dispatcher contacted Officer Michael Germany and notified him of a possible "suspicious incident" at that address. Upon arriving near the scene a couple minutes later, Officer Germany parked his police cruiser about 100 yards away and took up a position behind a tree across the street from the residence. From that vantage point, Officer Germany watched the house for a few moments and confirmed that lights were on in a bedroom on the west side of the house and in the dining area in the center of the house.

Moving to a position behind a tree closer to the house, Officer Germany watched the house for several more minutes but observed no movement either inside or outside the house. He then performed a complete inspection of the outside of the house and found no open or unlocked windows, doors or gates, and no sign of forced entry or illegal activity, until he reached the front of the house. There, he found that the front door was slightly ajar; that is, the wooden door was touching the door frame, but the door was not fully secured, the dead bolt lock was visible, and he could see a sliver of light showing through the crack, which he estimated to be less than an inch wide.

Although Officer Germany had seen no movement in or around the house, or any signs of forced entry or vandalism, or any kind of criminal activity, he was nevertheless concerned that the open door and the lights might be signs that a burglary was in progress or that juveniles had entered the house to vandalize or engage in underage drinking. He therefore sent out a general call for back-up, and within a few minutes, Officer Jason Williams arrived at the house. Officer Germany suggested that they "clear" the house because the open door could indicate a crime in progress, and the officers walked up to the front porch and pushed the wooden door the rest of the way open. Officer Germany announced their presence loud enough so that anyone inside could hear him, and after waiting for "approximately two to five minutes" and receiving no response from inside the house, they entered with their guns drawn. Moving from room to room in order to clear it of any potential perpetrators, the officers found no furniture in the house except a television set on the living room floor. They found fast food wrappers on the kitchen counter and a piece of luggage and a child's toy in one of the bedrooms in the house. After securing the upstairs rooms, the officers moved to the basement where they observed that the windows were covered with inward-facing reflective paper and that a large room contained a substantial amount of electrical wiring connected to a junction box and what appeared to be plant stimulators. The basement also contained a number of boxes marked as grow lights. While neither officer saw any marijuana in the house or observed any illegal activity, both concluded that a marijuana grow operation was being set up in the basement of the house. Following their search of the basement, the officers cleared the garage and, finding nothing, left the premises.

That same night, Officer Germany's supervisor contacted Officer Brian Murphy of the Summer County Drug Task Force concerning the search at 123 Imperial Point. Officer Murphy determined that the home was owned by Kevin and Tina McClain. The next day, after receiving Officer Germany's report on the search of 123 Imperial Point, Officer Murphy began investigating a possible marijuana grow operation at the home. He placed the property under off-and-on surveillance for several weeks and eventually determined that McClain, Brandt and Davis were engaged in setting up a marijuana grow operation at 123 Imperial Point and at several other residences.

On November 27, 2001, Officer Murphy obtained warrants to search the house at 123 Imperial Point and five other properties that he had linked to the defendants through his investigation and surveillance. The warrant affidavit explicitly relied in part on evidence obtained during the initial warrantless search of 123 Imperial Point conducted on October 12 and described the circumstances of that search. When law enforcement authorities executed the warrants on November 28, 2001, they recovered from 123 Imperial Point 348 marijuana plants and various types of plant growing equipment. The searches of the other five properties for which Officer Murphy had obtained warrants also uncovered numerous marijuana plants and plant-growing paraphernalia.

Based on information obtained during these searches, as well as post-arrest statements made to the police by Brandt and Davis, a federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment charging McClain, Brandt, and Davis with conspiring to manufacture and to possess with intent to distribute more than 1,000 marijuana plants in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846; manufacturing and possessing with intent to distribute 1,000 or more marijuana plants in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1); and possessing with intent to distribute less than 50 kilograms of marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). McClain moved to suppress the evidence found during the searches on October 12 and November 28 of his home located at 123 Imperial Point. Brandt and Davis moved to suppress evidence obtained during the searches, as well as their post-arrest statements. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court granted each defendant's motion to suppress.¹ The court found that the warrantless entry and search of 123 Imperial Point violated the Fourth Amendment, necessitating the suppression of all evidence derivative of that warrantless search, and that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule established in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), did not apply. The United States filed a timely notice of appeal.

II. DISCUSSION

A. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The government contends on appeal that the district court erred in granting the defendants' motions to suppress. In reviewing a district court's decision regarding a motion to suppress evidence, we review all factual findings for clear error and all legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Yoon, 398 F.3d 802, 805 (6th Cir.2005). In particular, we review de novo the district court's determinations that no exigency existed to justify the Hendersonville police officers' warrantless entry into McClain's home, that all subsequently seized evidence constituted the fruit of the initial illegal search, and that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply to this evidence. See United States v. Rohrig, 98 F.3d 1506, 1511 (6th Cir.1996).

B. LEGALITY OF THE WARRANTLESS SEARCH

We first address the legality of the warrantless search of McClain's residence. The Fourth Amendment protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures...." U.S. CONST. amend. IV. Because the "physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed," United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972), "a search carried out on a suspect's premises without a warrant is per se unreasonable, unless the police can show that it falls within one of a carefully defined set of exceptions based on the presence of ...