Bryant v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 16 June 2020
• Docket Number: Record No. 0221-19-1
• Citation: 843 S.E.2d 383,72 Va.App. 179
• Parties: Coshaun Tyrell BRYANT v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia
• Court: Virginia Court of Appeals

72 Va.App. 179

843 S.E.2d 383

Coshaun Tyrell BRYANT

v.COMMONWEALTH of Virginia

Record No. 0221-19-1

Court of Appeals of Virginia.

JUNE 16, 2020

Ronald L. Smith (Smith Law Firm, P.L.C., on brief), Hampton, for appellant.

Craig W. Stallard, Assistant Attorney General (Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.

Present: Chief Judge Decker, Judges Beales and Russell

OPINION BY JUDGE RANDOLPH A. BEALES

At the conclusion of a bench trial, appellant Coshaun Tyrell Bryant was found guilty of possession of ammunition by a convicted felon and possession of more than five pounds of marijuana with intent to distribute. Some of the evidence that was presented against him at trial was found as a result of a search warrant. The affidavit used to obtain the search warrant relied upon evidence found during a search that police conducted based upon consent by Bryant's girlfriend, Jasmine Perry, who was the person who leased the apartment that the police were searching. On appeal, Bryant argues that the trial court erred in denying a portion of his pretrial motion to suppress the evidence.

I. BACKGROUND

In accordance with established principles of appellate review, we view the "evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, as we must since it was the prevailing party in the trial court." Riner v. Commonwealth, 268 Va. 296, 330, 601 S.E.2d 555 (2004). "We also accord the Commonwealth the benefit of all inferences fairly deducible from the evidence." Id. at 303, 601 S.E.2d 555. On appellate review of the denial of a motion to suppress, we consider not only the evidence presented at the pretrial hearing but also the evidence presented at trial. Commonwealth v. White, 293 Va. 411, 414, 799 S.E.2d 494 (2017).

On the evening of September 8, 2017, Officers John Heilman and Alfred Orozco of the Williamsburg Police Department arrived at Perry's apartment in response to a report of possible domestic violence and of someone barricaded in a room. The officers encountered Bryant outside of the apartment with his young daughter. Officer Heilman spoke with Bryant, while Officer Orozco went inside the apartment to conduct a protective sweep of the apartment and to speak with Perry. Perry informed the officers that her boyfriend had arrived at 2:00 a.m. and that "the argument that they got into that evening was bad enough where she just wanted to leave" to go to New York. The officers allowed Perry to take some of her packed belongings to her car.

Meanwhile, Officer Heilman asked Bryant for his identification. Bryant said he had a Virginia identification card but did not actually have it on him. Bryant identified himself to Officer Heilman as "Dion Carter" and provided a birthdate of January 1, 1986. Bryant said he did not know his social security number. Officer Heilman searched his computer for the identifying information Bryant provided but did not find a match.

Officer Heilman asked Bryant to search through his belongings to find his ID. Bryant searched through packed luggage in the foyer of the apartment, but did not locate his ID. Officer Heilman then suggested that Bryant search the car for his ID; Bryant searched the car but stated that he still could not locate his ID.

Perry informed Officer Orozco that her boyfriend's date of birth was actually May 12. Based on that information and the fact that all of the identifying information he had provided to Officer Heilman appeared to be false because it did not match any individual's information in the Virginia computer database,¹ the officers arrested Bryant for providing false identifying information to the police. The police conducted a search incident to the arrest and discovered on Bryant's person a flip phone, a smart phone, and $1,015 in cash. The police then placed Bryant in their police vehicle.

After Bryant's arrest, Officer Heilman then went to Perry, who was sitting in her car, and asked her who was renting the apartment. Perry informed him that she alone was renting it. Officer Heilman informed Perry that he was going to try to obtain a search warrant to search the apartment. However, Perry consented for the officers to go ahead and search the apartment.

Officer Heilman testified that he, Officer Orozco, and Perry then went up to the apartment. Heilman also testified that he first searched the kitchen area, then went to a "pile of bags that were in the foyer," which Perry stated belonged to her boyfriend. Heilman testified that in a black Nike duffle bag that was located in the foyer, he discovered a blue grocery bag that contained $14,020 in cash as well as "a yellow sticky pad that had various letters and numbers." Heilman stated that he believed the sticky pad "to be a drug ledger with the amount of money that was found." He also testified that inside the same black Nike bag, he found Beats headphones and a manicure set, both of which Perry identified as hers. He stated that he also searched a red varsity jacket that was located in the foyer, which contained "a pill bottle that was not labeled that had 66 pills inside of it, numerous different schedule types."

Officer Heilman also testified that Perry "made mention that she had other items inside of the apartment and pointed to one part of the room [that] had some items in them and then she pointed towards the hallway and -- but her speech trailed off and she didn't finish her sentence." The officer further testified that Perry told him that she still had shoes back in the master bedroom suite area of the apartment. Heilman stated that after he completed his search of the foyer, he went into one bedroom on the left side of the hallway, which he found to be completely empty. He then proceeded to the last door on the left in the hallway, which was the master bedroom that had a master bathroom and a walk-in closet off of it. He testified that he found a big travel suitcase on the floor of the bathroom and a safe placed upright on top of the toilet seat. Heilman stated that there were no identifying marks or name tags on the suitcase and that there was a gold Michael Jordan sticker on the safe. He also testified that he opened the suitcase and found fourteen clear vacuum-sealed bags containing "brown leafy green substances inside of them, later tested and found to be marijuana." Each vacuum-sealed bag weighed "roughly over one pound." Heilman told the trial court that he then went out to the family room where Officer Orozco and Perry were and asked Perry to identify the owner of the suitcase and safe. Perry stated they belonged to appellant.

Heilman stated that he seized the safe and took it to his police vehicle. After providing Bryant his Miranda rights (pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) ), Heilman questioned Bryant about the suitcase and the safe. He further testified that when Bryant was asked about the suitcase, he stated, "I'm not saying it's anybody's." The officer stated that Bryant admitted that the safe belonged to him and provided a combination for the safe's lock that Bryant claimed would "prove that there is nothing in there." The combination that Bryant provided, however, did not open the safe.

Officer Heilman filled out an affidavit for search warrant to search the safe. In Paragraph 4 of the affidavit, he wrote the following:

Mr. Bryant was in possession of 14 - 1 lb bags of marijuana, schedule II drugs, schedule IV drugs, 3 cell phones, and over $1400 in cash. I also found what appears to be a piece of paper that looks like it contains money that Mr. Bryant owes or amounts of money that other people owe Mr. Bryant. The 14 bags of marijuana were located right next to the safe. With the amount of contraband that lends probable cause to Mr. Bryant possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute it; I believe additional contraband could be found inside the safe. Mr. Bryant told me he owns the safe.

Officer Heilman stated that he ultimately obtained a warrant from the magistrate to search the safe. He also testified that when he searched the safe, he found 9 millimeter bullets and $7,000 in cash.

Bryant was indicted for possession of ammunition by a convicted felon in violation of Code § 18.2-308.2 and for possession of more than five pounds of marijuana with the intent to distribute in violation of Code § 18.2-248.1. Prior to trial, Bryant filed a motion to suppress all of the evidence seized during the search of Perry's apartment. After conducting a hearing, the trial court suppressed the items found from the search that took place in the foyer – namely the bag containing cash and "a yellow sticky pad" with numbers on it, as well as the pill container found in the jacket. It found that Perry's consent did not authorize the officers to search the items in the foyer because the officers knew – prior to conducting that search – that those particular items did not belong to her. When asked to whom those items belonged, Perry answered, "My boyfriend."²

However, the trial court denied the motion to suppress concerning the suitcase found in the master bathroom, finding that the search of the suitcase was appropriate, based on Perry's consent to search the apartment. The trial judge noted that it was not until "after that search of the purple suitcase, [that] the officer came out and went to ask the girlfriend who the suitcase belonged to and she said it was her boyfriend's." Finally, the trial court denied the motion to suppress regarding the contents of the safe. The trial judge stated, "Whatever was found in the purple suitcase[,] will that be sufficient for probable cause to search the safe and looking at that and just applying that, given the amount of marijuana or what was found there in the purple suitcase, the Court will find that was sufficient to deny the motion to suppress whatever was found in the safe."

At the end of the bench trial, the trial judge found Bryant guilty of both charges and sentenced him to fifteen years of incarceration, with...