U.S. v. Amos
| Decision Date | 06 August 2010 |
| Docket Number | No.: 3:08-CR-145,: 3:08-CR-145 |
| Citation | 733 F.Supp.2d 907 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Christopher AMOS, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee |
David P. Lewen, U.S. Department of Justice, Knoxville, TN, for Plaintiff.
Paula R. Voss, Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, Inc., Robert R. Kurtz, Stanley & Kurtz, PLLC, Knoxville, TN, for Defendant.
This criminal action is before the Court on the Report and Recommendation ("R & R") [Doc. 41], issued on June 9, 2010 by United States Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley, Jr. Defendant Christopher Amos has filed objections to the R & R [Doc. 46], and the United States has filed a response to defendant's objections [Doc. 47]. This matter is before the Court on defendant's objections.
The facts of this case, on all relevant points, are undisputed.1 On September 2,2008, Officer Brian Headrick ("Officer Headrick") stopped defendant's car, in which defendant was a passenger, for an equipment violation-namely, that the vehicle had a tinted cover over the license plate. The driver, Michelle Quigley ("Quigley"), was arrested and placed in Officer Headrick's patrol car in handcuffs for failure to have a driver's license. Although initially allowed to remain in the car, defendant was frisked, handcuffed, and placed in a patrol car after a backup officer arrived. The two officers then searched the car incident to the driver's arrest and found a gun and oxycontin in the passenger compartment. Based on his prior training, Officer Headrick testified that he believed he had absolute authority to search the passenger compartment of the car incident to an occupant's arrest. On October 8, 2008, defendant was charged in a single-count indictment [Doc. 1] with being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
On April 2, 2009, defendant entered a guilty plea. Approximately three weeks later, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Arizona v. Gant ("Gant"), --- U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009). In Gant, the Supreme Court held that "[p]olice may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search...." Gant, 129 S.Ct. at 1723.2 On May 5, 2009, defendant filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea [Doc. 15] in order to litigate a suppression issue available to defendant following the Supreme Court's issuance of Gant. On January 5, 2010, this Court permitted defendant to withdraw his plea [Doc. 27]. See United States v. Amos, No. 3:08-CR-145, 2010 WL 56086 (E.D.Tenn. Jan. 5, 2010). Following his plea withdrawal, defendant filed a motion to suppress and request for evidentiary hearing [Doc. 28], which this Court referred to Magistrate Judge Shirley. On March 29, 2010, Judge Shirley held an evidentiary hearing on the pending motion [ see Doc. 37]. Following the hearing, counsel for defendant requested, and was granted, the opportunity to file a post-hearing brief. On April 11, 2010, defendant filed a post-hearing brief [Doc. 39], and on April 13, 2010, the government filed a response [Doc. 40].
On June 9, 2010, Judge Shirley issued the R & R in which he found that the search of defendant's car was unconstitutional under the holding of Gant. However, despite this finding of unconstitutionality, the magistrate judge found that suppression of the evidence in this case is not warranted under the exclusionary rule because the searching officers acted in good faith, relying on established case law to conduct a search incident to the arrest of the driver. Accordingly, Judge Shirley recommended that defendant's suppression motion [Doc. 28] be denied. On July 9, 2010, defendant filed objections to the R & R [Doc. 46], and on July 23, 2010, the government filed a response to those objections [Doc. 47].
The Court now addresses defendant's objections.
As required by 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), the Court has undertaken a de novo reviewof those portions of the R & R to which defendant has objected. In doing so, the Court has carefully considered Magistrate Judge Shirley's R & R [Doc. 41], the underlying and supporting briefs [Docs. 28, 29, 30], the parties' supplemental briefs [Docs. 35, 36, 39, 40], defendant's objections [Doc. 46], and the government's response [Doc. 47], all in light of the relevant law. For the reasons set forth herein, the Court will overrule defendant's objections [Doc. 46], accept in whole the R & R [Doc. 41], and deny defendant's suppression motion [Doc. 28].
Both the magistrate judge and the parties agree that the search of defendant's car was unconstitutional under the holding of Gant. The magistrate judge and the parties also agree-although for different reasons-that Gant applies retroactively to this case. In his inquiry into the effect of Gant's retroactive application, Judge Shirley analyzed Supreme Court cases, cases from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, cases from other circuit courts, and cases from various district courts. From this analysis, Judge Shirley concluded that when the constitutional rule of Gant is applied to a case, a court must then undertake an analysis of the proper remedy to apply-specifically, the exclusionary rule and its exceptions.
In the final section of the R & R, Judge Shirley analyzed, within the context and facts of this case, whether the good faith exception applies as a matter of law and exists as a matter of fact. After an extensive review of cases examining Fourth Amendment violations and in what circumstances particular violations warrant exclusion of the evidence, Judge Shirley observed that the ultimate determination of whether to exclude evidence resulting from an unconstitutional search turns on two prongs, "the culpability of the police and the potential for exclusion to deter wrongful police conduct." Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 129 S.Ct. 695, 698, 172 L.Ed.2d 496 (2009). Considering this, the magistrate judge found that neither of the aforementioned prongs justified exclusion of the evidence and, as a matter of law and in this case, an officer's good faith reliance on established case law supports the application of the good faith exception. Judge Shirley also found that the exception applies as a matter of fact because Officer Headrick acted in good faith in searching defendant's car. Accordingly, Judge Shirley recommended that the evidence gained from the search of defendant's car not be suppressed.
Defendant makes three specific objections to the R & R. In the first objection, defendant argues that Gant does not represent a change in the law but only clarifies existing law, an argument defendant asserts the magistrate judge did not address. In the second objection, defendant argues that if the Court determines that Gant represents a change in the law, the proper application of the retroactivity doctrine requires that any evidence seized in this case be suppressed without regard to the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. In the third objection, defendant argues that if the Court extends the good faith exception to cases such as this, the exception should not be extended to situations where an officer is alleged to have relied upon subsequently overruled case law.
The Court addresses each of defendant's objections in turn.
As to the first objection, that Gant does not represent a change in the law but only clarifies existing law, the Court respectfullydisagrees.3 In United States v. Lopez, 567 F.3d 755 (6th Cir.2009), the Sixth Circuit considered a defendant's Fourth Amendment challenge to a search of the passenger compartment of his car at a time when the defendant was already secured in the back seat of the patrol car. Lopez, 567 F.3d at 757. The Sixth Circuit noted that under Belton and current Sixth Circuit precedent, the search of the defendant's passenger compartment would have been permissible. Id. However, the court of appeals continued, "the Supreme Court has since changed the law " with its holding in Gant. Id. (emphasis added). The court of appeals then proceeded to reverse and remand the case "[i]n light of intervening Supreme Court authority[.]" Id. at 756. On remand, the district court noted similarly, stating that "[t]he Sixth Circuit's decision also recognizes that [ Gant ] constitutes a change in the law regarding searches of vehicles incident to an arrest." United States v. Lopez, 655 F.Supp.2d 720, 727 (E.D.Ky.2009).
Furthermore, this Court is of the opinion that Gant itself does not dictate the conclusion that it only clarifies existing law. The Gant opinion does not contain an explicit assertion that Gant "changed the law," but it is also not an opinion couched only in terms of a clarification of the law, as defendant argues. Rather, in Gant, the Supreme Court explicitly rejected the broad reading of Belton that had widely prevailed and even dominated in the circuit courts of appeals. Writing for a 5-4 majority, and affirming the decision of the Arizona Supreme Court, Justice Stevens observed that Belton had been read as allowing the type of search conducted by the officer in Gant:
[O]ur opinion [in Belton ] has been widely understood to allow a vehicle search incident to the arrest of a recent occupant even if there is no possibility the arrestee could gain access to the vehicle at the time of the search.... As Justice O'Connor observed [in Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615, 624, 628, 124 S.Ct. 2127, 158 L.Ed.2d 905 (2004) (opinion concurring in part) ], "lower court decisions seem now to treat the ability to search a vehicle incident to the arrest of a recent occupant as a police entitlement rather than as an exception justified by the twin rationales of [ Chimel...
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