U.S. v. Garner, Criminal Action No. 7:95-CR-4-X.
| Decision Date | 31 October 1996 |
| Docket Number | Criminal Action No. 7:95-CR-4-X. |
| Citation | 945 F.Supp. 990 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. Patrick GARNER. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
Madeline Johnson, Asst. U.S. Atty., for plaintiff.
Peter Lesser, for defendant.
Now before the Court is the Defendant Patrick Garner's Motion to Suppress Evidence filed on November 24, 1995. An evidentiary hearing, briefing and oral argument were performed in this matter. This case raises substantial questions, issues and policy considerations of "federalism1" and the role of the federal judiciary in presiding over cases investigated and filed by state law enforcement officers which historically have been and should be prosecuted in state courts under state law, even where a federal statute creates concurrent federal jurisdiction2. Despite this Court's concern with the ever-burgeoning federal criminal docket and the practical effect of encouraging state law enforcement officials to run to the federal courts when their actions have violated a state, but not the federal constitution3, this Court has no choice but to follow prevailing Fifth Circuit law. Accordingly, after careful consideration of the motion, the filed materials and the applicable law, the Court determines that the motion must be, and is hereby, DENIED.
The Court enters the following findings of fact. The findings of fact are based upon the evidentiary hearing the Court held and the submissions of the parties.
On January 18, 1994, at approximately 10:00 a.m., Troopers Potts and Hooper of the Texas Department of Public Safety ("DPS") received a call of a subject passed out in a Ford pickup with the motor running on Texas Highway 16, seven miles south of Graham, Young County, Texas. The troopers proceeded to the location indicated in the call. Upon arrival at the scene, the troopers observed Patrick Garner standing at the rear of the pickup urinating.4 The troopers stopped their vehicle and Trooper Potts approached the defendant. Trooper Potts asked the defendant if everything was OK. After Garner replied he had just stopped to take a nap Trooper Potts asked him for some identification. Garner produced two Texas Driver's licenses; one of the licenses had been altered by cutting off the picture5.
The trooper observed that Garner seemed disoriented and confused and asked Garner how much sleep he had gotten during the night. After Garner replied that he had gone to bed about midnight and gotten up about 7:30 a.m., Trooper Potts read Garner his rights and asked if he had any contraband or weapons in the car. Garner replied that he did not and that the troopers could look. Potts asked Garner to sign a written consent to search form, but he refused saying that he would not sign anything to give up his rights.
Trooper Potts placed Garner under arrest for disorderly conduct and for altering his drivers license. Trooper Potts asked Garner if Hooper could drive the vehicle in or if a wrecker should be called. Garner replied that Hooper could drive it. Garner was searched, handcuffed and taken to the Young County jail by Potts. Hooper followed in Garner's truck.
Hooper conducted a routine inventory search of the vehicle while Potts booked Garner. Hooper came into the jail and informed Potts that he had found a small, black, leather-like bag in the front seat which contained a ziplock bag with a cream-colored substance in it. Potts and Hooper went out to the truck and examined the substance. Upon deciding that the substance appeared to be a controlled substance, Potts suggested stopping the inventory and calling the drug dog unit. Potts called Trooper Pellizzari, the DPS drug dog officer, and asked him to come to the Young County jail. Hooper moved the truck into a bay area until the drug dog arrived. Potts carried the small, leather type bag into the jail and asked Garner about it. Garner said he had never seen it before.
Some time later, Pellizzari arrived with the drug dog. He ran the dog around the outside of the vehicle and then put him inside the truck. Pellizzari asked Potts to set the luggage in the pickup on the floor. Upon inspection of the luggage, the drug dog alerted on a black nylon bag. Potts opened the bag which the dog alerted on while Pellizzari watched. The bag contained a shoe box with a Sony video camera and three rolls of ziplock plastic bags, Precision electronic scales, articles of clothing and a clear plastic container with two large bags of a substance appearing to be methamphetamine and several smaller bags of coffee. The officers completed the inventory of the vehicle and found a small green tablet and a glass pipe containing some type of residue. Potts went back into the jail and informed Garner he would be charged with Aggravated Possession of a Controlled Substance6. The defendant was arrested for this offense on January 18, 1994. He was indicted in state court on February 24, 1994. The case sat on the docket of the 90th Judicial District Court of Young County for 13 months. After the defendant was charged in federal court (some 14 months after the arrest) by way of the March 7, 1996, indictment, the state action was dismissed on a motion by the State on March 30, 1995. The state constitutional search issue raised in this case was not litigated during the 13 months the case was pending in state court.
The defendant argues in his motion to suppress and his brief that this Court must apply Texas law in deciding the motion to suppress. However, the Fifth Circuit, joining every other circuit in the country, has addressed and rejected that argument. In United States v. Walker, the Fifth Circuit stated:
[T]he proper inquiry in determining whether to exclude the evidence at issue is not whether the state officials' actions were "lawful" or "valid under state law." The question that a federal court must ask when evidence is secured by state officials to be used as evidence against a defendant accused of a federal offense is whether the actions of the state official in securing the evidence violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
960 F.2d 409, 415 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 967, 113 S.Ct. 443, 121 L.Ed.2d 362 (1992). The reasoning behind this statement of the law is that the exclusionary rule only requires evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to be excluded. Id. Additionally, the exclusionary rule's purpose is to discourage violations of the Fourth Amendment, not violations of state law. Id. citing Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961); Weeks v. United States 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914).
In support of the argument that state law should be applied and that the Fifth Circuit supports this position, Garner cites United States v. Rice, 652 F.2d 521 (5th Cir.1981). In that case, the defendant was convicted of possession of counterfeit bills and conspiracy to pass counterfeit bills. On appeal, Rice challenged the validity of his arrest and the search subsequent to the arrest. In effect, Rice challenged the items found in the search after his arrest as "fruit of the poisonous tree." See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). He argued that since his arrest was illegal, all evidence found as a result of the arrest should have been suppressed. In response, the Government argued that the federal court was bound by the law of Texas which allowed a police officer to make a warrantless arrest where he believes, Id. at 525. The Fifth Circuit agreed with the general proposition that the lawfulness of an arrest by state officers is determined by the law of the state where the arrest took place. Id. However, in addition to this proposition, the Fifth Circuit emphasized that the arrest must also conform to federal constitutional standards in order to withstand scrutiny. In other words, the question presented in the Rice case examined whether the arrest was lawful not only under Texas law, but also under the federal constitutional standards in place at the time. Thus, the Fifth Circuit applied Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to determine whether "a reasonable man, standing in the officer's shoes, could have believed in light of the facts and circumstances an offense had been committed and that a particular defendant committed it." Id. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit's analysis did not end simply because the law of the state deemed the arrest lawful. The question in this case is not the same question presented in the Rice case. The instant question reverses that order and asks whether the search was lawful not only under federal jurisprudence, but also under Texas law. Unfortunately for Garner and other Texas citizens who believe that the Texas Constitution affords them more protection than the United States Constitution, the Fifth Circuit has held that lawfulness of a search or a warrantless arrest under state law is an irrelevant question. As long as the offending state officer can find the federal courthouse, the alleged state constitutional violation by the state officer just does not matter.
Garner further cites Crone v. United States, 411 F.2d 251 (5th Cir.1969) in support of the principle that the validity of warrantless arrest should be judged by the law of the state. Crone does stand for the principle that the rule in 1969 was that validity of a warrantless arrest is evaluated under the applicable state law, subject to constitutional constraints. Crone at 253. However, that principle does not enjoy the same force and effect under current Fifth Circuit jurisprudence.
In United States v. Wadley, 59 F.3d 510 (5th Cir.1996), the...
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U.S. v. Coleman
...not have had a basis for initiating the arrest that produced the evidence. This is not a new strategy. See United States v. Garner, 945 F.Supp. 990 (N.D.Tex.1996)(Kendall, J.), aff'd, 136 F.3d 138 (5th Cir.1998)(denying a motion to suppress because Fifth Circuit law precludes consideration ......
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