State v. Fee

• Decision Date: 30 January 2001
• Docket Number: No. 25925.,25925.
• Citation: 26 P.3d 40,135 Idaho 857
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Ted Carl FEE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

26 P.3d 40

135 Idaho 857

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Ted Carl FEE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 25925.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

January 30, 2001.

Review Denied June 22, 2001.

Ronaldo A. Coulter, State Appellate Public Defender; Charles I. Wadams, Deputy Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for appellant. Charles I. Wadams argued.

Hon. Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; T. Paul Krueger II, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. T. Paul Krueger II argued.

SCHWARTZMAN, Chief Judge.

Ted Carl Fee appeals from the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence of methamphetamine manufacturing discovered in his mobile home without a search warrant and from his sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment, with five years fixed. We affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On May 20, 1999, the Boise City Police Department received a Crime Stoppers report indicating that Fee was operating a methamphetamine lab in his brown doublewide mobile home at Pierce Park # 10. The Crime Stoppers tipster alleged that Fee resided in the mobile home with his wife and ten-year-old son and that another couple was teaching Fee how to manufacture methamphetamine. A warrants check revealed that Fee was currently wanted on a bench warrant for failure to appear on pending charges of burglary and petit theft.

At 3:10 p.m., Boise City Police Officers arrived at Fee's residence to arrest him on the outstanding bench warrant. As the officers approached, they saw children playing outside Pierce Park Lane, # 10. Upon seeing the approaching police, the children scattered and one of them ran into Fee's residence. After setting up a perimeter around the mobile home, officers stopped a man who was walking away from the rear of the mobile home. He identified himself as Mel Duquette and told the officers that he had just come from Fee's residence, that the residence contained a meth lab, and that Fee was inside "cooking stuff."

The officers knocked on the door, yelling for several minutes, "We're the police," and ordering anyone inside to open the door and come out. Officer Lance Nickerson walked partway around the trailer where, through an open window, he observed a man inside turn, look at him, and walk away. The man, who matched the description of Fee in the Crime Stoppers report, did not respond when Nickerson yelled, "We're the police" and "Open the door." Nickerson said that he caught a whiff of chemical odors through the open window. Nickerson then ran back to the front of the residence, where another officer was unsuccessfully attempting to kick in the door. Nickerson told the officers about the chemical odor, the person inside, what he believed was the sound of clinking metal or glass, and that he thought chemicals were being dumped in the trailer. After more banging on the door, during which someone inside yelled profanities, the man Nickerson had observed through the window opened the door.

The officers grabbed the man, later identified as Fee, pulled him outside and handcuffed him, while Fee yelled, "Stay the f____ out of my house." Nickerson noticed that Fee's hands were stained a reddish purple color, indicating to him that Fee might have been using iodine, a chemical Nickerson had seen before in clandestine methamphetamine manufacturing operations. Within ten minutes of Fee's arrest, Nickerson and a few other officers entered the residence for a couple of minutes to conduct a cursory search for anyone remaining inside who might present a danger to the officers, to ventilate the mobile home of potentially dangerous and explosive chemical fumes, and to look for the child seen running into the mobile home. Nickerson was in the residence for one of two minutes, opening windows to vent the fumes, but did not find anyone else inside.

A few minutes after Nickerson exited, people across the street told the officers that the child was still inside. Officers reentered the residence and found the child hiding under clothing on a bed. The officers were inside the trailer for three to four minutes this second time.

The residence was being ventilated when Sergeant Leroy Graham, a narcotics officer assigned to supervise the clean-up of meth labs, arrived at about 4:00 p.m. Upon arrival, Graham observed Fee seated on the driveway about thirty feet from the residence surrounded by several officers. At Graham's request, an officer asked Fee for consent to search the mobile home and Fee agreed, signing a consent to search form.

Thereafter, an officer trained in the safe clean-up of clandestine drug laboratories entered Fee's residence and recovered pseudoephedrine, red phosphorous, iodine, tincture of iodine, a recipe for making methamphetamine through the ephedrine reduction process, paraphernalia for extracting chemicals and numerous bottles of liquids in separation, representing chemicals that had already been put through the reduction and/or extraction process. Later, at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, a narcotics officer interviewed Fee after Mirandizing him. Fee explained that he was cooking methamphetamine for the second time and that he was not very good at it.

Fee was charged with manufacturing a controlled substance, methamphetamine, a felony pursuant to I.C. § 37-2732(a), and manufacturing a controlled substance where a child is present, a felony under I.C. § 37-2737A. Fee filed a motion to suppress the evidence of methamphetamine manufacturing found in his mobile home and his subsequent admission at the hospital. The district court denied Fee's motion to suppress, explaining that the officers' first two entries were justified by exigent circumstances and that the latter entry was based upon Fee's voluntary consent. The court then ruled that Fee's statements at the hospital were admissible based upon a voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights.

Pursuant to an I.C.R. 11 plea agreement, Fee pled guilty to manufacturing methamphetamine, specifically reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress, and the remaining charge was dismissed. At sentencing, the district court imposed a fifteen-year term, with five years fixed. Fee appeals.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The standard of review of a suppression motion is bifurcated. When a decision on a motion to suppress is challenged, we accept the trial court's findings of fact that are supported by substantial evidence, but we freely review the application of constitutional principles to the facts as found. State v. Atkinson, 128 Idaho 559, 561, 916 P.2d 1284, 1286 (Ct.App.1996).

III. THE WARRANTLESS ENTRY AND SEARCH OF FEE'S RESIDENCE

A. Standard Applicable To Warrantless Searches On Exigent Circumstances

Fee argues on appeal that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress because (1) the state failed to establish exigent circumstances justifying the warrantless intrusion into his home, (2) the state failed to show that his consent to the search of his home and a later waiver of his. Miranda rights were valid and not the result of initial police illegality. The portion of the Fourth Amendment that is pertinent to Fee's claims in this appeal states, "The right of the people to be secure in their ... houses, ... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...." That language, the United States Supreme Court has said, establishes that, "the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion" stands at "the very core" of the Fourth Amendment. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589-90, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1382, 63 L.Ed.2d 639, 653 (1980) (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 682-83, 5 L.Ed.2d 734, 739 (1961)), quoted in State v. Sailas, 129 Idaho 432, 434, 925 P.2d 1131, 1133 (Ct. App.1996)

.

Any analysis of an officer's warrantless intrusion into a residence begins with recognition that such an entry is presumptively unreasonable and prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 748, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 2097, 80 L.Ed.2d 732, 742 (1984); State v. Curl, 125 Idaho 224, 225, 869 P.2d 224, 225 (1993); State v. Abeyta, 131 Idaho 704, 707, 963 P.2d 387, 390 (Ct.App.1998). Warrants are not required, however, if a search falls under "a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions," including exigent circumstances. Payton, 445 U.S. at 589-90,100 S.Ct. at 1381-82,63 L.Ed.2d at 652-53,quoted in State v. Salinas, 134 Idaho 362, 364-65, 2 P.3d 747, 749-50 (Ct.App.2000)

. The burden is on the government to show the applicability of an exception to the warrant requirement. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 455, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2032, 29 L.Ed.2d 564, 576 (1971); State v. Johnson, 110 Idaho 516, 522, 716 P.2d 1288, 1294 (1986). If the government fails to meet its burden, the evidence obtained as a result of the illegal search, including later-discovered evidence derived from the original unlawful search, is inadmissible in court. Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 804, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 3384, 82 L.Ed.2d 599, 608 (1984); State v. Bainbridge, 117 Idaho 245, 249, 787 P.2d 231, 235 (1990).

B. The First Two Entries Into Fee's Mobile Home Were Justified By Exigent Circumstances

The district court found:

In this case, the officers had probable cause to believe that there was a methamphetamine laboratory in the trailer before they entered, based upon the statements made by Mr. Duquette, the odors coming from the window and the iodine stains on the defendant's hands and wrists. They also had reason to believe that there was a child in the residence. Officer Nickerson had seen a child enter the trailer as the police arrived at the scene, and the bystanders later yelled that the child was still in the residence. Any child in the residence would have been at risk. The chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine are hazardous to health, and they sometimes explode or ignite. In fact, a methamphetamine

...