U.S. v. Fields

• Decision Date: 09 June 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-2924.,03-2924.
• Citation: 371 F.3d 910
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Darnell FIELDS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

371 F.3d 910

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Darnell FIELDS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 03-2924.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 23, 2004.

Decided June 9, 2004.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Stuart J. Chanen (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Terence F. MacCarthy, Robert D. Seeder (argued), Office of the Federal Defender Program, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before BAUER, DIANE P. WOOD, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

Darnell Fields entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motions to suppress. He now appeals the denial of his motions to suppress a handgun the police found in his apartment and a statement he made after the handgun was found. Because the district court did not resolve whether the officers' initial entry into Mr. Fields's apartment was lawful, we remand this case for further consideration.

I. Background

On the night of May 15, 2002, Officer George Gass of the Chicago Police Department stopped a woman for questioning. She informed him that a man named "Darrell," who lived in a nearby building, was holding a gun for a street gang. Officer Gass and his partner then headed toward the mentioned building, determined the defendant matched the description given by the woman, and approached him as he left his apartment building. After Mr. Fields¹ identified himself, Officer Gass told him that the police had received information that he was keeping a gun in his apartment. Mr. Fields allegedly responded that he did have a gun, but that it was for his own protection (the "initial statement"). Other officers then arrived on the scene, some remaining outside with Mr. Fields. Officer Gass and two other officers approached the entrance of Mr. Fields's apartment building and, somehow, entered the building and his apartment. Just how the officers entered Mr. Fields's residence is significantly disputed.

At the suppression hearing before the district court, Officer Gass was the only witness to testify for the government as to the officers' method of entry. He stated that while Officer Bret Rice and another officer waited outside with Mr. Fields, Officer Gass and two others entered Mr. Fields's apartment building through an outside door, which was unlocked and partially open. According to Officer Gass, the officers then walked up a short flight of stairs to the first floor apartment and knocked on the door. Tammy Winston opened the door, identified herself as Mr. Fields's wife, and allowed the officers to enter.

Mr. Fields, however, contests this account, contending that Winston never gave the officers consent to enter the apartment. Rather, Lamont Curtis, who deemed Mr. Fields his "best friend," testified that officers took "something" out of Mr. Fields's pocket while they were detaining him outside the building, headed toward his building entrance, and stuck "something" in the door that opened it. Kevin Sharp, who was then engaged to Mr. Fields's aunt, recounted that while handcuffed to Mr. Fields, he watched officers remove keys from Mr. Fields's pocket. Shenise Fields, the defendant's cousin, stated that she was outside Mr. Fields's apartment building when she also observed an officer reach into Mr. Fields's pocket and remove keys. After running to an area outside his bedroom, she saw officers in the bedroom shining flashlights, and witnessed officers order Winston out of bed. Winston also stated that she never gave the officers consent to enter her home.

Rather, Winston testified that after being roused from her bed by the officers, she waited on a couch while the police searched the apartment and recovered a handgun from a dresser drawer in the bedroom. After the officers found the gun, she said they placed a document in front of her and instructed her to sign it next to an "X"; she then signed the document not knowing what it was. According to Officer Gass, however, he explained to Winston that the officers were looking for gang guns, and he told her the search would not begin until she had signed a consent form. In addition, Officer Rice testified that he brought a consent form into the apartment, Winston signed the form, the search began, and the officers found a loaded gun in the bedroom dresser drawer.

Both parties do agree that after the officers found the gun, Officer Gass left the apartment and returned to Mr. Fields. He showed Mr. Fields the gun and informed him the officers had recovered it from inside his apartment. After Mr. Fields was read his Miranda rights, Mr. Fields allegedly stated the gun was "just for protection."

The district court denied Mr. Fields's motions to suppress his initial statement, the gun, and the statement he made after the gun was found. In denying the motion to suppress his initial statement, the district court stated it would "not disguise its skepticism about the sequence of events as testified to by Officer Gass." Mem. Op. at 3. However, noting that Mr. Fields did not testify and that the court had only Officer Gass's undisputed testimony before it, it concluded Mr. Fields was not in custody for purposes of Miranda at the time of his initial statement and denied the motion. The district court then ruled that because the initial statement was not illegally obtained, the statement made after the gun was found could not be suppressed as the fruit of the poisonous tree.

The district court next determined that Winston voluntarily signed the consent form before the officers began their search of the apartment. In so finding, the district court stated that "Ms. Winston's testimony on the stand ... did not engender confidence in the veracity of her story." Mem. Op. at 5. Instead, the court stated, it "[found] more credible the testimony of Officer Rice." Id.

The district court did not make any findings as to how the officers initially entered Mr. Fields's apartment. Mr. Fields now appeals the district court's denial of his motions to suppress the handgun and the statement he made after the gun was found, contending we must remand the case for resolution of factual issues that the district court did not decide.²

II. Analysis

In denying Mr. Fields's motions to suppress, the district court found that Winston voluntarily signed the consent form presented to her by the officers inside the apartment. However, it made no findings as to whether the officers' initial entry into the residence was lawful. Although the government asks us to nonetheless infer that the district court determined the entry was legal, we decline to do so.

The fourth amendment generally prohibits the warrantless entry into a person's home. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 181, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990). The exclusionary rule preventing the use of evidence obtained in violation of this amendment protects its guarantees by" `deterring lawless conduct by federal officers,' and by `closing the doors of the federal courts to any use of evidence unconstitutionally obtained.'" Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 599, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975) (quoting Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 486, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963)).

The fourth amendment's prohibition on warrantless entry into a person's home does not apply, however, when voluntary consent to enter is obtained either from the person whose property is searched, see Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 222, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973), or from someone, such as a spouse, with actual or apparent authority over the premises, United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 171, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974); United States v. Aghedo, 159 F.3d 308, 310 (7th Cir.1998). Thus, had Winston, Mr. Fields's wife, voluntarily allowed the officers to enter the apartment, the entry would have been lawful. However, the district court made no such finding.

When reviewing appeals from denials of motions to suppress, we review legal questions de novo and factual findings for clear error. United States v. Breland, 356 F.3d 787, 791 (7th Cir.2004). Whether Winston consented to the officers' entry into the apartment is a question of fact. See United States v. Pedroza, 269 F.3d 821, 829 (7th Cir.2001). Recognizing that as a reviewing court, we "`must constantly have in mind that [our] function is not to decide factual issues de novo,'" United States v. Brown, 79 F.3d 1499, 1510 (7th Cir.1996) (quoting Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985)), we cannot ourselves decide the lawfulness of the officers' entry.

Importantly, the determination of whether the officers' entry was lawful requires decisions about the weight of evidence and the credibility of witnesses, determinations which Congress has assigned to the district courts. See id. at 1509-10 (citing United States v. DeCorte, 851 F.2d 948, 952 (7th Cir.1988)). In arguing that the district court must have rejected Mr. Fields's claim that the officers entered his residence illegally, the government emphasizes that the district court did not find Winston's testimony credible. Yet in the same order, with respect to a request to suppress a statement not at issue here, the district court also explicitly stated that it "[would] not disguise its skepticism about the sequence of events as testified to by Officer Gass." Significantly, only Officer Gass testified that the officers knocked on Mr. Fields's apartment door, Winston answered, and she allowed them inside. Officer Rice, whom the district court found "more credible" than Winston when ruling that she voluntarily signed a consent form after the officers were inside, did not enter the apartment with Officer Gass and offered no testimony as to how Officer Gass and the other officers initially entered. Because the district...