U.S. v. Huddleston

• Citation: 593 F.3d 596
• Decision Date: 27 January 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08-2895.,08-2895.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Timothy HUDDLESTON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

593 F.3d 596

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Timothy HUDDLESTON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 08-2895.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 4, 2009.

Decided January 27, 2010.

Joseph H. Hartzler, Attorney (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Springfield, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Vilija Bilaisis, Attorney (argued), Sniegowski & Bilaisis, PLC, Ludington, MI, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before KANNE and EVANS, Circuit Judges, and DOW, District Judge.^*

DOW, District Judge.

Timothy Huddleston was charged in a three-count superseding indictment with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B); possession of a firearm having previously been convicted of a felony offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1); and possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). A jury found Huddleston guilty of all three charges. Prior to Huddleston's trial, the district court denied his motion to suppress evidence seized from him without a search warrant at the time of his arrest.

Huddleston now appeals the district court's decision to allow the Government to introduce evidence seized from him. In addition, Huddleston contends that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction on both the intent to distribute charge and the possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime charge. For the following reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. Background

In December 2006, Huddleston was living with his girlfriend, Tarana White, at 1850 South Wirt Street. Tarana White rented the Wirt Street house from her parents, Walter and Dorothy White. On December 30, 2006, Dorothy White called police and reported that a man—Huddleston—was in the Wirt Street house with a gun. The responding officers arrived and stopped a few houses away, where they spoke with Dorothy White. Mrs. White told the officers that she owned the house, which she rented to her daughter, and that Huddleston did not have permission to be there. In addition, Mrs. White informed the officers that Huddleston had threatened her daughter's life earlier that evening. Mrs. White told the officers that she had found Huddleston asleep on the couch in the house holding what appeared to be a gun, and that, as far as she knew, he was still asleep. One of the responding officers testified that he knew that Huddleston had a "violent felony past" that included charges of aggravated discharge of a weapon.

Without obtaining a search warrant, the officers opened the door to the Wirt Street house and announced their presence. They observed Huddleston asleep on the couch; he did not respond. The officers then entered the house, confirmed that Huddleston had a gun in his hand, and disarmed and arrested him. The gun was a loaded .44-caliber revolver. While searching Huddleston incident to the arrest, the officers found what appeared to be crack cocaine in Huddleston's pockets. The officers removed a larger bag of the substance from Huddleston's front pants pocket and a smaller bag from his jacket pocket. Forensic analysis later confirmed that the larger bag contained 5.2 grams of cocaine base (crack), and the smaller bag contained .4 grams of cocaine base.

Huddleston was charged with (1) possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute; (2) possession of a firearm having previously been convicted of a felony offense; and (3) possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking. After an evidentiary hearing, the Magistrate Judge prepared a lengthy report and recommendation in which he recommended that Huddleston's motion to quash his arrest and suppress evidence be denied under both the apparent authority consent and exigent circumstances exceptions to the warrant requirement. The District Court overruled Huddleston's objections and adopted the Magistrate Judge's report and recommendation, finding that the warrantless entry was justified by the existence of exigent circumstances. Following a jury trial, Huddleston was convicted of all charges against him and was sentenced to a term of 180 months' imprisonment, consisting of 120 months on Count I and 85 months on Count 2, to run concurrently, and 60 months on Count 3, to run consecutively to the imprisonment for Counts 1 and 2.

II. Analysis

A. Motion to Suppress

Prior to his trial, Huddleston moved to suppress evidence of the weapon and drugs seized by officers following the warrantless entry into the Wirt Street house. The district court denied the motion, finding that exigent circumstances existed justifying an exception to the warrant requirement.

Warrantless searches and seizures within a home are considered presumptively unreasonable and a violation of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Bell, 500 F.3d 609, 612 (7th Cir.2007). However, warrantless searches are constitutionally permissible "under certain narrowly proscribed exceptions," including where exigent circumstances require officers to "step in to prevent serious injury and restore order." Id. In determining whether exigent circumstances existed, courts "analyze the situation from the perspective of the officers at the scene." Leaf v. Shelnutt, 400 F.3d 1070, 1081 (7th Cir. 2005). "Exigent circumstances exist if a[n] officer had an objectively `reasonable belief that there was a compelling need to act and no time to obtain a warrant.'" Id. at 613 (quoting United States v. Andrews, 442 F.3d 996, 1000 (7th Cir.2006)). For example, where police reasonably believe that their safety, or the safety of the public, may be threatened, exigent circumstances exist. United States v. Webb, 83 F.3d 913, 916 (7th Cir.1996). In reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to suppress, this Court reviews factual findings for clear error and legal questions de novo. Andrews, 442 F.3d at 1000. The question of whether exigent circumstances existed is a mixed question of fact and law, reviewed under a de novo standard. Id.

Here, the officers were told that Huddleston—whom they knew to have a criminal history involving the discharge of a firearm—had a gun and was trespassing in the home of a woman whom he had threatened to kill earlier that evening. Based on those facts, it was reasonable for the officers to conclude that they were dealing with an armed man poised to carry out a death threat, who would not hesitate to discharge his weapon as he had in the past. In these circumstances, the officers had reasonable grounds to believe that Huddleston posed an immediate threat to their safety and the safety of others in the neighborhood. A number of other circuits have "found the presence of guns to justify searches and seizures on the basis of exigent circumstances." United States v. Reed, 935 F.2d 641, 643 (4th Cir.1991) (holding that the presence of a sawed-off shotgun in plain view could have constituted a threat to the personal safety of the officers and thus justified the warrantless seizure); see also United States v. Rodgers, 924 F.2d 219, 222-23 (11th Cir.1991) (exigent circumstances arose when police saw handguns that suspect, a convicted felon, was not allowed to possess, lying on a couch); United States v. Lindsey, 877 F.2d 777, 780-82 (9th Cir.1989) (information about presence of guns and bombs justified warrantless entry); United States v. Hill, 730 F.2d 1163, 1170 (8th Cir.1984) (entry justified by officer's observation through a sliding glass door of a pistol on a bookcase); United States v. McKinney, 477 F.2d 1184, 1186 (D.C.Cir.1973) (sawed-off shotgun lying on night table in hotel room was exigent circumstance justifying warrantless entry and seizure).

The fact that Huddleston was asleep does not render the officers' belief that Huddleston posed an immediate threat unreasonable. As the district court concluded, there was a real risk that Huddleston—who was fully clothed, sitting up and holding the gun—could awaken at any time. Nor are we persuaded that it was unreasonable for the officers to conclude that Huddleston was trespassing without inquiring as to whether he had Tarana White's permission to be at the house. Dorothy White had informed the officers that Huddleston did not have permission to be there; that information justified their belief that he was trespassing. Again, our inquiry focuses on "the circumstances as they appeared at the moment of entry," United States v. Arch, 7 F.3d 1300, 1304 (7th Cir.1993), "from the perspective of the officers at the scene." Leaf, 400 F.3d at 1081. "Accordingly, we ask not what the police could have done," but whether their entry was justified based on what they knew at the time. United States v. Marshall, 157 F.3d 477, 482 (7th Cir.1998). Here, based on the information provided by Dorothy White, the officers' belief that Huddleston was trespassing was reasonable.¹ In short, we agree with the district court that the warrantless search fell within the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.²

B. Sufficiency of the Evidence Challenge to Count 1

Huddleston also contends that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support a finding that he intended to distribute the cocaine base. In considering a sufficiency of the evidence challenge, this Court considers the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, defers to the credibility determination of the jury, and overturns a verdict only when the record contains no evidence, regardless of how it is weighed, from which the jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Duran, 407 F.3d 828, 839 (7th Cir.2005). Thus, "[t]he standard of review facing a defendant on her claim that the jury had insufficient evidence to convict is `a daunting one.'" United States v. Seymour, 519 F.3d 700, 714 (7th Cir.2008).

Here, the Government presented sufficient evidence to support the inference of an intention to...