United States v. McManaman

• Citation: 673 F.3d 841
• Decision Date: 18 April 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11–1771.,11–1771.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Kevin McMANAMAN, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

673 F.3d 841

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Kevin McMANAMAN, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 11–1771.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: Oct. 18, 2011.Filed: March 14, 2012.Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied April 18, 2012.

Jay Elliott Denne, argued, Stanley E. Munger, on the brief, Sioux City, IA, for appellant.

Mark Tremmel, AUSA, argued, Cedar Rapids, IA, for appellee.

Before MELLOY, BEAM, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

Appellant Kevin McManaman entered a conditional plea of guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of children in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and (e), and was sentenced to 276 months' imprisonment. McManaman reserved the right to appeal the district court's ¹ denial of his motion to suppress evidence. On appeal, he argues that the district court erred when it denied his motion to suppress statements and physical evidence obtained in violation of his Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights. We affirm.

I.

On March 25, 2008, a grand jury indicted McManaman on various gun and drug charges based on admissions he had made in 2005 and 2006 to agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. A week later, on April 2, 2008, federal and state law enforcement officers arrived at McManaman's home with an arrest warrant issued in connection with that indictment. Special Agents Todd Monney and Zane Dodds approached McManaman's porch while other officers took up positions around the house. The agents had a “breaching tool” in case occupants refused to open the door, but after a knock, McManaman came to the door, followed by his wife, Tina Frye. Monney informed McManaman of the warrant, and because of the presence of children inside the home, requested that McManaman step out onto the front porch.

On the porch, officers placed McManaman under arrest and patted him down. Inside his pockets they found a marijuana pipe and a methamphetamine pipe. Before informing McManaman of his rights, Dodds asked him if there was anything else illegal inside his home that officers should be concerned about. After a pause, McManaman sighed and eventually told officers that there was a shotgun in his basement. He offered to have his wife go retrieve the gun, but officers informed him that one of them would have to accompany her into the house to get it. McManaman informed Frye where the gun was located, and she led Dodds around the side of the house and into the basement.

While in the house, Dodds encountered a locked door and asked Frye if he could search the room inside. Frye indicated that the door must have been accidentally locked and that they usually used a screwdriver to open it. Using a pocket knife provided by another officer, Frye opened the door. Inside the room, officers observed a closet door locked with a padlock, for which Frye indicated she did not have a key. Agent Monney, who had joined them in the house, asked Frye if he could take the door off its hinges to open it, and she gave him permission to do so.

Inside the closet, there were boxes, a stack of magazines, and some videotapes. While searching the contents of the closet, Monney rummaged through the boxes and magazines. Mixed in with the magazines were several color photographs that Monney characterized as depicting young nude females. It is unclear whether the photographs were folded, face up, or tucked inside the pages of the magazines. In one box, Monney also found a videotape labeled with McManaman's minor stepdaughter's name and the words “Home XXX Edit.” Frye initially told officers to “get rid of” the items in the closet, though she refused to sign a consent form on the matter, and she later denied having ever consented to the search in the first place.

McManaman was taken to the county jail that night, where he was eventually advised of his rights. After officers had finished searching his home, they interviewed McManaman in jail about the indictment and the additional evidence they had found. McManaman made certain admissions about the child pornography, which led to a subsequent search of his home the next day. In a tape recorded conversation, Tina Frye consented to this subsequent search, and officers retrieved a computer hard drive with additional evidence.

The district court proceeded with the gun and drug charges in 2008 and didn't consider the child pornography at that time. After a suppression hearing, a magistrate judge ² found that Agent Dodds' question on the front porch had violated McManaman's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights but concluded these violations ultimately did not require the suppression of the shotgun ³ found during the search of the home because of the inevitable discovery doctrine. The drug paraphernalia found in McManaman's pocket when he was arrested would have provided sufficient probable cause for a search warrant of the house, and the judge concluded that the gun would have ultimately been discovered once a warrant was obtained. In adopting the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, the district court concluded:

Although the court finds this to be an exceedingly close question, the court finds both prongs of the inevitable discovery doctrine are satisfied. With respect to the first prong, it seems certain that the law enforcement officers would have sought a search warrant for defendant McManaman's home upon finding the marijuana pipe and methamphetamine pipe on his person. The more difficult question is whether a neutral magistrate would have issued a warrant based on the information [independent of the Fifth and Sixth Amendment violation]. The court concludes that a finding of probable cause is satisfied here and that a neutral magistrate would have issued a search warrant for defendant's home.

....

The second prong of the doctrine is also established. Apart from arresting defendant McManaman on an arrest warrant, upon finding drug paraphernalia on his person, the officers were engaged in ascertaining defendant McManaman's current involvement with drugs. The court finds such substantial, alternative line of investigation satisfies the test in this case.

United States v. McManaman, No. 08–CR–4025–MWB, 2008 WL 2704557 at *7–8 (N.D.Iowa July 3, 2008). After the district court denied his motion to suppress, McManaman pled guilty to three of the six drug and firearm counts against him and was sentenced to 75 months' imprisonment. McManaman is currently serving that sentence.

On May 21, 2010, a grand jury returned an eight-count indictment related to the child pornography that was discovered after McManaman's arrest. The court held an evidentiary hearing on August 17, 2010, where McManaman sought to suppress all of the evidence gathered during the two searches of his home, based on the court's 2008 finding that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights had been violated. McManaman also argued that his wife did not consent to the warrantless search, and that she did not have the authority to consent to a search of the locked closet. Because his 2008 hearing had already established that officers could and would have obtained a search warrant to look for guns, drugs, and ammunition, the magistrate judge found that McManaman was collaterally estopped from renewing a challenge to the likelihood of obtaining a search warrant. McManaman was still allowed to challenge whether the pornography would have been inevitably discovered in such a search, however the magistrate concluded that the pornography would have also been inevitably discovered in plain view during a lawful search. The magistrate judge concluded that this finding made moot McManaman's other constitutional arguments. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation over McManaman's objections and denied his motion to suppress. McManaman entered a conditional plea of guilty to counts one and two of the indictment and was sentenced to 276 months' imprisonment, to be served consecutively with the 2008 sentence. McManaman appeals the denial of his motion to suppress.

II.

McManaman argues on appeal that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress because the government failed to establish that the child pornography would have been discovered by lawful means. In reviewing a denial of a motion to suppress, the court reviews the district court's legal conclusions de novo, and the court reviews the district court's factual findings for clear error. United States v. Vanover, 630 F.3d 1108, 1113–14 (8th Cir.2011).

Courts use the suppression of evidence under the exclusionary rule as a remedial device that is “ ‘restricted to those areas where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.’ ” Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 804, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 82 L.Ed.2d 599 (1984) (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974)). “[T]he exclusionary rule reaches not only primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure, but also evidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality or ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’ ” Id. (citations omitted). To have evidence that was obtained after a constitutional violation admitted into court, the government must show that it was not obtained “by exploitation of that illegality [but] instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.” Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). Evidence is purged of taint and should not be suppressed “[i]f the prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means.” Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984).

We have held that this inevitable discovery exception applies when the government proves “by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) that there was a reasonable...