United States v. Almonte-Báez

Decision Date12 May 2017
Docket NumberNo. 15-2367,15-2367
Parties UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Ygoa ALMONTE-BÁEZ, Defendant, Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

J. Thomas Kerner , Boston, MA, for appellant.

David J. D'Addio , Assistant United States Attorney, with whom William D. Weinreb , Acting United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

Before Torruella, Selya and Lynch, Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

Success sometimes depends on taking full advantage of fortuitous occurrences. In this case, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), while engaged in an investigation of a suspected drug-trafficking operation, stumbled across a second (more substantial) drug-trafficking operation. Much of the evidence concerning this second operation was unearthed following a warrantless entry by DEA agents into an apartment that, as matters turned out, served as a stash house for the second drug-trafficking operation. In the ensuing prosecution of a participant in the second drug-trafficking operation, the district court found that probable cause, combined with exigent circumstances, justified the warrantless entry. At trial, the jury convicted.

Focusing with laser-like intensity on the warrantless entry and its aftermath, the appellant now presses this single-issue appeal. He argues that the district court erred in its determination that the warrantless entry was lawful and, therefore, in denying his motion to suppress a trove of incriminating evidence. After careful consideration, we uphold the denial of the appellant's motion to suppress and affirm the judgment below.

I. BACKGROUND

When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we take the facts as the trial court found them, consistent with record support, see United States v. Romain , 393 F.3d 63, 66 (1st Cir. 2004), adding uncontradicted facts where appropriate. In the summer of 2013, DEA agents, working with state and local police officers, were investigating a drug-trafficking ring based in Lawrence, Massachusetts. During the course of this investigation, the agents intercepted telephone calls between two persons (the targets) thought to be part of the ring. Through these intercepted calls, the agents learned that the targets were planning to rob a quondam associate, one José Medina-López (Medina), whom the targets had reason to believe was receiving bulk drug shipments on a weekly basis.1

The targets hatched a plot that contemplated attaching a GPS unit to Medina's car in the hope that it would lead them to his cache of drugs and cash. The agents decided that it was time for them to act. They began by canvassing the streets in search of Medina's car. On the morning of July 26, 2013, they hit the jackpot: they observed Medina leaving a multi-family residential building on Cedar Street, carrying a large trash bag that was so heavy that he needed both hands to lift it. He hoisted the trash bag into his car and drove away.

The agents followed Medina and—with the aid of state and local police—pulled him over after they had observed him committing traffic infractions. When the agents reached his car window, Medina was trembling and appeared to be very nervous. The agents questioned him about where he had come from and where he was heading, and Medina provided answers the agents knew to be false.

At that point, the agents asked Medina for permission to search his car. Medina acquiesced. Preliminary to the search, Medina got out of the car and, as he disembarked, the agents spotted a large wad of cash sticking out of his pants pocket. They seized the cash and arrested Medina for his participation in the March heroin transaction.

The agents then proceeded to search the car. In the trash bag that Medina had lugged from the building on Cedar Street, they found more than $370,000 in cash. They discovered more cash within the car, stashed in a box and various bags. When questioned, Medina offered no credible explanation for the oceans of cash (all of which the agents seized).

Spurred on by what they had discovered, the agents returned to the building on Cedar Street. Once there, they encountered the landlord, who confirmed that Medina rented the second-floor apartment. At that juncture, the agents could have stopped their ongoing investigation and sought a search warrant for the apartment. Instead, they went to that apartment and knocked on the front door. A voice from within the apartment responded, "Hello, who is it?" The agents announced their presence and immediately heard the sound of someone inside running away, that is, toward the back of the apartment. The front door was sealed over, so the agents moved to a side door. Concerned that the occupant was either trying to escape or destroy evidence, the agents broke down the side door and forcibly entered the premises. Once inside, they saw a man, later identified as defendant-appellant Ygoa Almonte-Báez, trying to remove a barricade and escape through the back door.2 They immediately took the appellant into custody.

A protective sweep of the apartment followed. See United States v. Martins , 413 F.3d 139, 149-50 (1st Cir. 2005) (discussing nature and scope of permissible protective sweep). During that sweep, the agents observed in plain view heroin and paraphernalia associated with the heroin trade, including scales and packaging materials. They also observed notes and records pertaining to heroin sales.

Relying partly on what they had seen in plain view, the agents obtained a search warrant later the same day. Returning to the apartment, they seized about 20 kilograms of heroin and an assortment of drug-processing tools.

In March of 2014, a federal grand jury charged the appellant with conspiring to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)(i) ; 21 U.S.C. § 846. During pretrial proceedings, the appellant moved to suppress the evidence gathered from the Cedar Street apartment. He maintained that, because the agents' initial entry into the apartment was unlawful, both the protective sweep and the subsequently issued search warrant (which relied in material part on information gleaned during the initial entry) were invalid and any evidence seized as a result was inadmissible as the fruit of a poisonous tree. See Wong Sun v. United States , 371 U.S. 471, 484-85, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). The government opposed the motion, and the parties filed affidavits, documentary exhibits, and memoranda in support of their respective positions.

After reviewing the parties' submissions and hearing arguments of counsel, the district court concluded that, before undertaking the warrantless entry, the agents had probable cause to believe that the apartment contained evidence of drug-trafficking activity and that exigent circumstances justified their warrantless entry. See United States v. Almonte-Báez , No. 14-10089, 2014 WL 6751207, at *1 (D. Mass. Dec. 1, 2014). Accordingly, the court upheld the legality of both the initial entry and the warrant-backed search, and it denied the motion to suppress. See id. at *1-2.

A jury later convicted the appellant of the charged crimes. This timely appeal ensued. In it, the appellant neither alleges trial error nor challenges his 156-month sentence. Instead, he trains his fire on only a single claim of error: the district court's refusal to grant his motion to suppress.

II. ANALYSIS

We review the district court's findings of fact for clear error and afford de novo review to its ultimate conclusions regarding the existence of both probable cause and exigent circumstances. See Ornelas v. United States , 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996) ; Romain , 393 F.3d at 68. Our analysis begins with bedrock: the Fourth Amendment protects individuals "against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. Under this standard, warrantless searches of private premises are presumptively unreasonable. See Brigham City v. Stuart , 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006). To secure the admission of evidence obtained without a warrant, the government must show that the warrantless search fell within one of a handful of narrowly defined exceptions. See Romain , 393 F.3d at 68.

One such exception to the Fourth Amendment's Warrant Clause is for exigent circumstances. See Kentucky v. King , 563 U.S. 452, 459-60, 131 S.Ct. 1849, 179 L.Ed.2d 865 (2011) ; United States v. Curzi , 867 F.2d 36, 41 (1st Cir. 1989). That exception generally requires a threshold showing that law enforcement officers had probable cause to enter the premises. See United States v. Capelton , 350 F.3d 231, 240 (1st Cir. 2003). Pertinently, probable cause exists when the totality of the circumstances create "a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place."3 United States v. Tanguay , 787 F.3d 44, 50 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting Illinois v. Gates , 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) ).

Probable cause is a necessary, but not a sufficient, precondition for invoking the exigent circumstances doctrine. See Capelton , 350 F.3d at 240. Even when armed with probable cause, the government still must show that an exigency existed sufficient to justify the warrantless entry. See id. Exigent circumstances are present when "there is such a compelling necessity for immediate action as will not brook the delay of obtaining a warrant." Matalon v. Hynnes , 806 F.3d 627, 636 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting Fletcher v. Town of Clinton , 196 F.3d 41, 49 (1st Cir. 1999) ).

The exigent circumstances doctrine reflects an understanding and appreciation of how events occur in the real world. "[P]olice officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving." King , 563 U.S. at 466, 131 S.Ct. 1849 (quoting Graham v. Connor , 490 U.S. 386, 396-97, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) ). The reasonableness...

To continue reading

Request your trial
32 cases
  • State v. Correa
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • September 15, 2021
    ...someone was, in fact, inside the defendant's motel room when the police conducted the visual sweep. Cf. United States v. Almonte-Báez , 857 F.3d 27, 33 (1st Cir. 2017) (exigency due to imminent destruction of evidence existed when "agents knocked on the front door of the apartment and ident......
  • French v. Merrill
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)
    • October 1, 2021
    ...L.Ed.2d 650 (2006), or when doing so "is reasonably necessary to head off the imminent loss of evidence," United States v. Almonte-Báez, 857 F.3d 27, 33 (1st Cir. 2017). Officers must carry the heavy burden of identifying an "objectively reasonable basis" for believing that "there [wa]s suc......
  • United States v. Iwai
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)
    • July 23, 2019
    ...the bathroom" of the defendant's hotel room could reasonably indicate imminent destruction of evidence); United States v. Almonte-Baez , 857 F.3d 27, 33 (1st Cir. 2017) (holding that exigency due to imminent destruction of evidence existed where "agents knocked on the front door of the apar......
  • United States v. Rivera-Carrasquillo, s. 14-1582
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)
    • August 2, 2019
    ...2011). An overnight guest generally has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his host's home. See, e.g., United States v. Almonte-Báez, 857 F.3d 27, 32 n.4 (1st Cir. 2017) (citing Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 96-97, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990) ). The problem for Astacio-Espi......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT