U.S. v. Parker

• Decision Date: 26 November 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-2776.,07-2776.
• Citation: 549 F.3d 5
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Quenta PARKER, Defendant, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

549 F.3d 5

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Quenta PARKER, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 07-2776.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard October 8, 2008.

Decided November 26, 2008.

William Gray Schaffer, by appointment of the court, for appellant.

Aixa Maldonado-Quiñones, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Thomas P. Colantuono, United States Attorney, was on brief for appellee.

Before TORRUELLA, BOUDIN and HOWARD, Circuit Judges.

BOUDIN, Circuit Judge.

On February 16, 2005, around eight p.m. Sergeant Duval of the Somersworth, New Hampshire, Police Department responded to a 911 call from the home of Carrie Davis. Davis told Duval that she had been threatened by three men—two black, one white—who had arrived at the apartment looking for her boyfriend, Richard Post. When told that Post was not there, one of the black males, known to Davis as "H," said that she knew what they wanted and exposed a black firearm in his waistband. The white male, whom she knew as "Jose," was holding a tool with a blade which he smacked on his hand. Davis knew the other black male only as "Q."

The three men, Post's sister told Duval, were looking for Post because he had been dealing drugs, including crack cocaine, and had "ripped off" his suppliers. Post's sister also gave Duval the license plate number of the pickup truck the three men were using, and Duval put out an alert for the truck. Shortly thereafter, Officer Gould of the Dover, New Hampshire, Police Department located the truck, still warm, at a Dover motel just over the line from Somersworth. Duval and another Somersworth officer joined Gould and another Dover officer at the motel.

The night clerk told the officers that three men matching Davis' description had entered the motel shortly before and had gone to Room 419, rented for cash by Kimberly Holland. The clerk also said that Holland had previously rented rooms at the motel and that the clerk suspected the group members of drug dealing. Arriving on the fourth floor, the officers smelled marijuana coming from the room. Their knock produced the sound of movement and whispering inside the room, but no answer.

Gould then left to consult with a supervisor and Duval knocked again; a black male, Anthony Burnett, opened the door. The other men in the room were later identified as Quenta Parker, a black male, and Juan Feliciano, a light-skinned Hispanic. Duval questioned the men while waiting for Gould to return; this questioning lasted approximately ten to fifteen minutes. Asked by Duval about the incident at Davis' home, Burnett said that they had been visiting a friend; the address he gave was quite near Davis' house. In response to questions about the smell of marijuana, Feliciano admitted that he had "smoked a joint, but it's all gone." All refused the police request for consent to search the room.

Gould returned and one of the officers asked all four occupants (the men and Holland) for identification and to step outside the room. Gould then spoke privately to Holland, viewing her as having authority to consent to a search. This discussion lasted approximately ten minutes, during which Holland admitted to smoking marijuana but asked to consult with her boyfriend, "Q" (Parker). Parker then allegedly admitted that they had smoked marijuana and that there was still some inside the room. But he told Holland not to consent to a search, and she then denied consent.

The occupants were held at the motel until around midnight when a search warrant was finally secured; this was roughly three to three and a half hours after the decision was made to seek the warrant. A search of the room turned up a small safe—later found marked with Parker's fingerprints—containing a black .32 caliber handgun, two loaded magazines, a holster and ammunition pouch, two knives, several pills, $3000 cash, and approximately 550 grams of crack cocaine. More cash ($2750) was found in a leather jacket in the room. Parker and the two other men were then formally arrested.

A federal grand jury indicted Parker for conspiring with Burnett and others to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 846 (2006), for possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, id. § 841(a)(1), and for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of drug trafficking, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A) (2006). After an evidentiary hearing, Parker's request to suppress the physical evidence was denied. Parker then pled guilty on all counts, reserving his right to appeal from the denial of his suppression motion, and was sentenced to 195 months in prison.¹

Parker's first claim on appeal is that requiring him to leave the hotel room was a seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment, "the `fruits' of which must be suppressed." The district court's findings on the denial of a suppression motion are reviewed for clear error, but its legal determinations are reviewed de novo. United States v. Smith, 423 F.3d 25, 31 n. 4 (1st Cir.2005), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1149, 126 S.Ct. 2287, 164 L.Ed.2d 817 (2006). Here, asking Parker to step outside the room was not unlawful; nor, had it been unlawful, would the items seized in the room be suppressed as forbidden fruit.

The complication in this case is not the initial knock nor the preliminary inquiries, see United States v. Cephas, 254 F.3d 488, 493-94 (4th Cir.2001), but rather the request to step outside the room. Such a situation is at the crossroads of two different Fourth Amendment doctrines-one governing ordinary arrests and brief investigative stops; the other, entry into the home. There is some tension between the approaches taken by the Supreme Court in these situations.

Outside the home, the police can arrest without a warrant anyone who they have probable cause to believe committed a felony, see, e.g., Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 156, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925); see also United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 96 S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976); and, merely on "reasonable suspicion," the police can temporarily detain an individual for an investigative inquiry called a Terry stop, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), whether the suspect is in a car or on foot. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 881, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975).

By contrast, the strong presumption is that a warrant based on probable cause is required to justify police entrance into the home or other private quarters, whether to seize property or person. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 588-90, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980); Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 490, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964). The discrepancy in doctrine as between street and home is narrowed but not eliminated by certain exceptions licensing entry without a warrant, e.g., United States v. Samboy, 433 F.3d 154, 158 (1st Cir.2005), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1118, 126 S.Ct. 1926, 164 L.Ed.2d 676 (2006) (exigent circumstances); United States v. Luciano, 329 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir.2003) (consent).

The closest precedent in our circuit is United States v. Beaudoin, 362 F.3d 60, 69-70 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 979, 125 S.Ct. 484, 160 L.Ed.2d 357 (2004), vacated on other grounds sub. nom. Champagne v. United States, 543 U.S. 1102, 125 S.Ct. 1025, 160 L.Ed.2d 1009 (2005). In Beaudoin, we held (albeit by a divided vote) that no warrant was required for a reasonable police request that the suspect step out of his hotel room. We deemed the intrusion on privacy of such a direction to be real but modest, especially when weighed against the risk to police officers, and stressed the analogy to the Terry stop cases allowing investigative stops on the street.

Here, as in Beaudoin, the men inside the room were reasonably suspected of involvement in a felony (the threatening of Davis) and of possessing a gun. Indeed, although the crime at issue was less serious than in Beaudoin, the evidence pointing to Parker's involvement in it and the likelihood of his having a weapon were much stronger, as in Beaudoin police were acting merely on an anonymous tip. Id. at 62. Summoning Parker and the other men to step outside the hotel room was thus justified as a means of protecting the police while they pursued the investigation and of securing the weapon and other possible evidence when they decided to seek a warrant.

Having the men outside the room, the police could perhaps have arrested them on the spot. Davis' statement provided probable cause, not mere suspicion, to arrest the men who had threatened her; and the tracing of the truck to the motel and the desk clerk's identification point to the men in Room 419 as the culprits. But absent exigent circumstances, Samboy, 433 F.3d at 158, or consent, Luciano, 329 F.3d at 7, the police still needed a warrant to search the room for physical evidence. So, reasonably enough they awaited the warrant and the confirmation provided by the gun, drugs and money before making formal arrests.

Finally, even if Parker had been unlawfully seized, the later seizure of the safe would still not have been suppressible "fruits" of Parker's seizure. The warrant already in contemplation would inevitably have led to the safe being seized and searched, Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444, 446, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984), there being probable cause for the warrant without regard to anything said by Parker. United States v. Ford, 22 F.3d 374, 379-80 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 900, 115 S.Ct. 257, 130 L.Ed.2d 177 (1994). While awaiting the warrant the police were entitled to prevent the safe's removal. Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U.S. 326, 331-33, 121 S.Ct. 946, 148 L.Ed.2d 838 (2001).

Parker next argues that, quite apart from the seizure, "[t]he failure to give [him and Holland] the warnings set forth in Miranda v. Arizona [, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966)], prior to interrogating them was unlawful, and thus...