United States v. Williams, 16-3547

• Decision Date: 01 August 2018
• Docket Number: No. 16-3547,16-3547
• Citation: 898 F.3d 323
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Carlton WILLIAMS, Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

898 F.3d 323

UNITED STATES of America

v.Carlton WILLIAMS, Appellant

No. 16-3547

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued on May 24, 2017

Opinion filed: August 1, 2018

Kimberly R. Brunson, Esq. (ARGUED), Office of Federal Public Defender, 1001 Liberty Avenue, 1500 Liberty Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, Counsel for Appellant

Donovan J. Cocas, Esq. (ARGUED), Rebecca R. Haywood, Esq., Michael L. Ivory, Esq., Office of United States Attorney, 700 Grant Street, Suite 4000, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, Counsel for Appellee

Before: HARDIMAN, ROTH and FISHER, Circuit Judges

OPINION

ROTH, Circuit Judge

During an investigation, federal law enforcement officials learned that Carlton Williams was involved in the distribution of heroin. The investigation involved surveillance of Williams’s activity, which eventually led to a stop of his car. During the traffic stop, law enforcement officials conducted a search of Williams’s car and its contents. As they expected, the officials discovered drugs during the search. Williams subsequently pleaded guilty to possession of heroin with intent to distribute in violation of federal drug laws. Williams now appeals the denial of his suppression motion and application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines’ career offender enhancement. Finding no merit in either claim, we will affirm Williams’s conviction and sentence.

I.

A. Factual Background

The underlying facts are uncontested. During an investigation that began as early as November 2012, a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer learned that Williams bought heroin in Detroit, Michigan, which he packaged and sold in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The officer subsequently placed a GPS tracker on Williams’s car and monitored his movements for approximately one month. On January 11, 2013, data from the GPS tracker indicated that Williams’s car was driven to Detroit. Suspecting that Williams drove his car to Detroit to retrieve heroin, the task force officer organized a plan to have Williams’s car stopped upon its return to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State Police trooper Michael Volk effectuated the traffic stop.

Later that same evening, Trooper Volk observed Williams’s car speeding and stopped it. The trooper issued a citation for the traffic violation and told Williams that he was free to go. Before Williams left, however, Trooper Volk asked Williams for consent to search his car. Williams agreed and signed a consent to search form labeled "Waiver of Rights and Consent to Search." The parties do not dispute that Williams knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily consented to the search of his car, its contents, and his person.

Trooper Volk, with the help of other troopers, commenced a search of Williams’s car that lasted for approximately seventy-one minutes. The troopers searched every part of the car, including its passenger compartment, trunk, and undercarriage. Unable to locate any narcotics, Trooper Volk requested the assistance of a narcotics-detection dog. Shortly thereafter, Trooper Volk updated another trooper on the progress of the search and indicated that "[the search] was going to take awhile [because] he hadn’t found [the heroin], but the K-9 was on its way coming from a distance."¹

Williams eventually became less patient and told Trooper Volk "you searched my car three times, now you hold me up and I have to go."² According to Williams, he made this statement in only "a regular tone of voice that he expected Trooper Volk to hear but [the trooper] was at a distance and there was a lot of noise from the turnpike traffic and the wind."³ Other than Williams’s own testimony, there was no evidence that Trooper Volk heard his alleged protest. The District Court, as a result, found Williams’s testimony "only credible to a degree."⁴

The troopers continued their search despite Williams’s irritation. As the search continued, Williams requested five items from his car, including his two cellular phones. One of the troopers retrieved Williams’s cellular phones and attempted to search them before handing them over to Williams. The trooper was able to read the text messages contained on only one of the devices because the other device was password-protected. The trooper who read Williams’s text messages told Trooper Volk that the messages suggested that Williams had "something."⁵ When Williams was confronted about the text messages, he warned the officers that they could not search his phone without a warrant.

The search of the car continued. After fifty-one minutes, the troopers had not discovered any drugs. They began to disassemble Williams’s sound system speakers. Williams objected that the troopers were not permitted to search his speakers without a warrant. Trooper Volk told Williams to "relax," to which Williams replied, "I’ve been out here half an hour, man."⁶ Upon Williams’s protest, Trooper Volk reassembled the car’s speakers but otherwise continued searching the vehicle. Soon after, and seventy-one minutes into the search, Trooper Volk discovered thirty-nine grams of heroin in a sleeve covering the car’s parking brake lever. Williams was immediately arrested.

B. Procedural History

Williams was charged with possession of heroin with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(C). He filed a number of pretrial motions, including a motion to suppress the evidence seized from his car. Following a two-day hearing and the submission of post-hearing briefing, the District Court denied Williams’s suppression motion, because it concluded that Williams had voluntarily consented to the search and had not unequivocally withdrawn his consent during the search.

Prior to Williams’s sentencing, the United States Probation Office prepared a Presentence Investigation Report (PSR), which the District Court adopted without change. The sentencing range calculation included U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 ’s career offender enhancement because the District Court concluded that Williams had two prior convictions for controlled substance offenses: a 2007 conviction for possession with intent to distribute heroin and a 1998 conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) and (d) of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Williams admitted to various predicate acts forming the basis for his § 1962 RICO conviction, all of which were for possession with intent to distribute either crack cocaine or heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C), 841(b)(1)(B)(iii), and 846.⁷ As a result of the career offender enhancement, Williams faced a Guidelines sentencing range of 210-262 months. On May 11, 2016, Williams entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion and the application of the Guidelines’ career offender designation. Williams was sentenced to, inter alia , a term of 160 months’ imprisonment. This appeal followed.

Williams appeals both the denial of his suppression motion and the District Court’s application of the Guidelines’ career offender designation. The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We exercise appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a).⁸

II.

"We review the District Court’s denial of a motion to suppress for clear error as to the underlying factual findings, and we exercise plenary review of its application of the law to those facts."⁹ " ‘A finding is clearly erroneous when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.’ "¹⁰ Therefore, " ‘[i]f the [D]istrict [C]ourt’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety,’ we will not reverse it even if, as the trier of fact, we would have weighed the evidence differently."¹¹

A. The District Court Properly Denied Williams’s Motion to Suppress

With respect to his suppression motion, Williams claims that the District Court erred in denying his suppression motion because he properly withdrew his consent to the search or was improperly prevented from doing so.

It is well settled that the Fourth Amendment protects suspects from unreasonable searches.¹² "[A] search conducted without a warrant issued upon probable cause is [presumptively] unreasonable ... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions."¹³ A search conducted with consent is one such "established exception."¹⁴ The appellant concedes that the search here began as a consensual one. He contends, however, that the search ceased to be so when he withdrew his consent or was prevented from doing so. Before reaching the issue of whether Williams withdrew his consent in this case, we must first determine whether the Fourth Amendment allows the subject of a consensual search to terminate the search by withdrawing his consent. Neither this Court nor the Supreme Court has expressly established that the subject of a consensual search may withdraw consent that he has voluntarily given. The Supreme Court, however, has recognized that a person may "delimit as he chooses the scope of the search to which he consents."¹⁵ In so holding, the Court has instructed that the standard for measuring the limitations placed on a consensual search "is that of objective reasonableness."¹⁶ Thus, in determining the legal bounds of a consensual search, we must determine "what would the typical reasonable person have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect."¹⁷ Relying on Florida v. Jimeno ’s recognition that a consensual search may be restricted by individuals, our sister circuits that have considered whether individuals may withdraw consent to search have unanimously answered in the affirmative.¹⁸ Today, we join them.

Although the Supreme Court has not itself expressly held that the subject of a consensual search may terminate the search by withdrawing his consent, considerable support for such a proposition is easily...