U.S. v. Abdul-Saboor
| Decision Date | 07 June 1996 |
| Docket Number | ABDUL-SABOO,No. 95-3044,A,95-3044 |
| Citation | 85 F.3d 664,318 U.S. App. D.C. 98 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Muhammadppellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 93cr00305-01).
Allen E. Burns, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant, with whom A.J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender, was on the briefs.
Pamela S. Satterfield, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellee, with whom Eric H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, John Fisher, and Thomas C. Black, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief.
Before: WILLIAMS, GINSBURG and SENTELLE, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.
Appellant Muhammad Abdul-Saboor challenges the district court's denial of his motion to suppress the drugs and guns seized from his apartment during a warrantless search. The district court ruled that the search was valid as a protective sweep or, alternatively, because the evidence inevitably would have been discovered in the warranted search for documents conducted the next day. The court did not reach the Government's further argument that the evidence was seized as the result of a lawful search incident to the defendant's arrest.
When his suppression motion was denied, Abdul-Saboor entered a conditional plea of guilty to charges of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, commonly known as crack, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C), and possession of a firearm in relation to that offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). The only question on appeal, therefore, is the validity of the search. The dispute over the proper answer to that question is narrowed by the Government's concession that the search here cannot be upheld as a protective sweep in view of our holding in United States v. Ford, 56 F.3d 265 (D.C.Cir.1995) ().
For the reasons that follow, we hold that the drugs and firearms were lawfully seized from Abdul-Saboor's apartment incident to his arrest. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of Abdul-Saboor's motion to suppress that evidence without reaching the inevitable discovery doctrine invoked by the district court. See Molerio v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 749 F.2d 815, 820 (D.C.Cir.1984) ().
In July 1993 Deputy U.S. Marshals Robert Parker and Karen Skillman went to Abdul-Saboor's apartment in order to arrest him on a bench warrant issued in an unrelated case. The defendant, who had opened the door wearing a bathrobe, asked and was allowed to change clothes before leaving the apartment. Entering his bedroom, which was lit only by the glow of a television set, he stealthily picked up a loaded .45 caliber handgun from the television table and tried to hide it in front of his body. * Fortunately Deputy Parker saw the maneuver; he drew his weapon and ordered the defendant to drop the gun--which Abdul-Saboor did not do until the officer threatened to shoot him. Deputy Skillman then handcuffed Abdul-Saboor and seated him in a chair at a point she later estimated to be four feet outside the bedroom doorway.
Deputy Parker testified that when he returned to the bedroom in order to pick up Abdul-Saboor's handgun he noticed a loaded semi-automatic MAC-11 pistol and a magazine with ammunition in it lying on the television table. He took the weapons and the magazine to the kitchen, then guarded Abdul-Saboor while Deputy Skillman went to the car to request assistance in order to process the crime scene. When Skillman returned, Parker revisited the bedroom. As he opened the blinds for light he saw on top of the television set, partially obstructed by a framed picture, several small bags of what looked like crack. Parker then searched the apartment for additional weapons. He discovered a sawed-off shotgun under a mattress and another shotgun wrapped in a white plastic trash bag lying on the floor, protruding from the doorway of an open closet. Back in the kitchen, Parker found a stun gun on top of the refrigerator. He also noticed boxes of ammunition on open shelves in the dining room. When the police arrived they found $420 in a plastic cup on the kitchen table.
The next day Parker obtained and executed a search warrant for evidence that Abdul-Saboor lived in the apartment. He and other officers thoroughly searched the entire apartment, finding ample documentary and physical evidence that the defendant lived there.
On appeal Abdul-Saboor argues that the district court should have suppressed the evidence that Deputy Parker seized from his apartment as a result of Parker's returning to the bedroom, namely the drugs and the shotguns. He objects to the Government's inevitable discovery rationale upon two grounds. First, the record does not show that the apartment was secured between the warrantless search that followed his arrest and the warranted search conducted the next day; accordingly, he argues, "the Government failed to make the required showing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the drugs and the other guns still would have been in the apartment when the search warrant was executed." Second, the Government did not demonstrate that the search for documents and other evidence that the defendant lived in the apartment would routinely have extended to those places where the drugs and guns were found.
The Government responds first that the contents of the apartment do not appear to have been disturbed between the arrest and the search of the following day. Abdul-Saboor testified that his uncle and his landlord had keys to the building, but he made no representation that anyone other than himself had a key to his apartment. Moreover, claims the Government, the entire apartment was thoroughly examined during the document search; neither the drugs nor the shotguns could possibly have escaped detection.
The Government's alternative theory is that the search was validly conducted incident to the defendant's arrest. In opposition to that theory Abdul-Saboor asserts that the area searched was not accessible to him at the time of the search. The Government counters that the marshals were entitled to search the area that was within Abdul-Saboor's immediate control at the time of his arrest notwithstanding that he had been subdued by the time of the search.
We express no view upon the question whether discovery was inevitable in this case. We need not resolve that issue because we agree with the Government that the search was incidental to the arrest.
A warrantless search or seizure inside a home is presumptively unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, United States v. Dawkins, 17 F.3d 399, 402 (D.C.Cir.1994). There are certain exceptions, though, one of which is for the search, incident to a lawful arrest, of the area within the arrestee's "immediate control." Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969) (). This exception reflects the "potential dangers lurking in all custodial arrests." United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 14-15, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 2485, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977). Accordingly, even though the reasons for conducting a search incident to arrest, namely "to disarm and to discover evidence," may be stronger in some situations than in others, the Government is not obliged to justify each such search in the particular context in which it occurs. United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S.Ct. 467, 477, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973).
For our purposes, therefore, the determinative inquiry is simply whether Abdul-Saboor's bedroom was an area within his immediate control at the relevant time, bearing in mind that "the articulation and definition of the 'area within immediate control' [is] a question of law." United States v. Johnson, 18 F.3d 293, 294 (5th Cir.1994). We review questions of law de novo, as do we review the district court's "application of legal standards to the facts of the case." Spencer v. National Labor Relations Board, 712 F.2d 539, 563 (1983).
The Government contends, first, that the question whether the drugs and shotguns were within Abdul-Saboor's area of immediate control is to be answered by reference to the time at which the arrest occurred, not the time at which the search occurred. For this point the Government relies heavily upon New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), in which the Supreme Court, applying Chimel, approved the admission of evidence obtained from the search of an automobile conducted while the former occupants, who had been arrested, were being detained by the side of the road. Id. at 456, 101 S.Ct. at 2862. The search authorized inBelton extended precisely to the areas within the arrested persons' immediate control at the time they were arrested, encompassing the passenger compartment of the car and any containers found therein but excluding the trunk. Id. at 460 & n. 4, 101 S.Ct. at 2864 & n. 4.
As Abdul-Saboor reminds us, however, the Court in Belton was doing "no more than determin[ing] the meaning of Chimel's principles in this particular and problematic context." Id. at 460 n. 3, 101 S.Ct. at 2864 n. 3. So what are the defining characteristics of the context to which the Court was referring?
Abdul-Saboor would have us read Belton as a case peculiarly about automobile passenger compartments and the containers found in them. Of course, ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
U.S. v. Rodriguez-Alejandro
...defendant's immediate control before his arrest, although defendant had been handcuffed and removed from room); United States v. Abdul-Saboor, 85 F.3d 664, 670-71 (D.C.Cir. 1996) (search upheld although defendant had been handcuffed and was outside bedroom in which he was arrested)). Theref......
-
U.S. v. Seals
...conclusions or its application of legal standards to the facts. Accordingly, we review their claims de novo. See United States v. Abdul-Saboor, 85 F.3d 664, 667 (D.C.Cir.1996). A. Timeliness of The Speedy Trial Act (STA) provides that "[a]ny information or indictment charging an individual ......
-
Sealed Case 96-3167, In re
...agree and affirm the district court's judgment on that basis, without addressing the "hot pursuit" exception. See United States v. Abdul-Saboor, 85 F.3d 664, 666 (D.C.Cir.1996). "Hot pursuit" is, of course, just one form of "exigent circumstance." See Hayden, 387 U.S. at 298, 87 S.Ct. 1642 ......
-
U.S. v. Torres-Castro
...so separated in time or by intervening acts that the latter cannot be said to have been incident to the former." United States v. Abdul-Saboor, 85 F.3d 664, 668 (D.C.Cir.1996). Under this principle, a delay of three to five minutes between the arrest and the search does not necessarily prec......