U.S. v. Hatfield

• Decision Date: 25 June 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-7151.,01-7151.
• Citation: 333 F.3d 1189
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. David Wayne HATFIELD, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 1189

333 F.3d 1189

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. David Wayne HATFIELD, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 01-7151.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

June 25, 2003.

Donn F. Baker of Baker & Baker, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellant.

D. Michael Littlefield, Assistant United States Attorney (Sheldon J. Sperling, United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Muskogee, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before EBEL, BALDOCK, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

David Wayne Hatfield pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(D), and 18 U.S.C. § 2, and of maintaining a place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, and using methamphetamine and marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 856(a)(1) and 856(a)(2), and 18 U.S.C. § 2. He was sentenced by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma to imprisonment for thirty-six months. Before Hatfield entered his guilty plea, the district court had denied Hatfield's motion to suppress evidence seized at his home pursuant to a warrant. As part of his plea agreement with the United States, Hatfield reserved the right to appeal that decision. In this appeal, Hatfield challenges the denial of the suppression motion, arguing that the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant was "fruit of the poisonous tree." He claims that there were two poisonous trees in this case: two unconstitutional searches conducted prior to the issuance of the warrant that produced facts used by the police to obtain the warrant. Our jurisdiction arises under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we find that the police activity Hatfield complains of did not amount to searches triggering the protections of the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court's denial of Hatfield's motion to suppress.

I

In the afternoon of October 10, 2000, the Sheriff's Department of Adair County, Oklahoma, received an anonymous tip that Hatfield was growing marijuana behind his house. Undersheriff Gary Sinclaire dispatched Lieutenant Tim McCullum and Deputy Linda Sinclaire to Hatfield's home to conduct a "knock and talk" interview. The purpose of the interview was to inform Hatfield of the tip and ask his permission to search his property for marijuana.

Officers McCullum and Sinclaire arrived at Hatfield's house at about 4:00 P.M. and parked their police car behind Hatfield's pickup on the east side of the house on a concrete parking pad. When they got out of their car, Officer Sinclaire went to the front door on the north side of the house to make contact with Hatfield, and McCullum walked up the parking pad approximately twenty feet until he was alongside the passenger door of the pickup truck. McCullum did not leave the parking pad or enter the back yard, which lies to the south of the house. He took his position for protective purposes, in case someone exited the house from the rear and moved toward the front of the house via the parking pad. From his position on the parking pad, Officer McCullum could see into the back yard. As soon as McCullum heard that Hatfield had answered the door and was speaking to Officer Sinclaire, McCullum left his position alongside the pickup truck and returned to the passenger side of the patrol car where he could observe Hatfield and Sinclaire.

Officer McCullum heard Sinclaire tell Hatfield about the phone call informing them that marijuana was growing on Hatfield's property and ask him if he would give them permission to search the property. Hatfield refused to consent to a search and told the Officers that they could not search his property without a warrant. McCullum and Sinclaire told Hatfield they would get a warrant, returned to their patrol car, and backed out onto the county road. Once they were parked on the road, they notified their superior by radio what had transpired and he told them to wait there until he arrived.

Overhearing the conversation on the radio, Deputy Dale Harrold proceeded to Hatfield's home and arrived at the scene next. Harrold conferred with Officers McCullum and Sinclaire on the county road. They told him that they had received a tip that marijuana was growing behind Hatfield's house, that they had sought Hatfield's consent to a search of the property, but that Hatfield had refused to give his consent to the search. Officer Harrold also testified at the suppression hearing that Officer McCullum had told him he had seen small structures in the backyard in which marijuana might be growing.

Officer Harrold had several years of experience and training as a marijuana spotter with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, and after he was apprized of the situation at Hatfield's residence he walked west down the county road for approximately fifty or sixty feet alongside a fenced pasture to a point from which he could look behind Hatfield's house. From his vantage point on the county road, Harrold could see a tin shed and what appeared to be a chicken coop in the back yard, and he reported to be able to see what appeared to be marijuana growing behind the tin shed and inside the chicken coop. Wanting to confirm what he had seen from the road before arresting Hatfield, Officer Harrold walked back east along the county road to the fence separating Hatfield's yard from the pasture, crossed into the pasture, and walked south along the fence toward the back of Hatfield's house. When he reached a point along the fence across from the structures behind Hatfield's house, he confirmed that marijuana was growing there.

While Officer Harrold was walking along the pasture-side of the fence toward the back of the house, Hatfield, too, was walking toward the back of the house, but in his yard, on the other side of the fence. Hatfield was yelling expletives at Harrold and repeatedly told him that he was trespassing and to get off of his property. Once Harrold had sighted the marijuana from inside the pasture, however, he instructed Hatfield to walk back to where the other officers were standing on the county road and Hatfield complied. When he reached the officers, Harrold instructed them to place Hatfield under arrest for cultivation of marijuana. The officers then conducted a protective sweep through the house to be sure no one else was present. The sweep lasted no more than thirty to forty-five seconds and disclosed no one else on the premises.

After the officers secured the premises, Officer Harrold left to obtain a search warrant. Harrold swore out an affidavit in support of the issuance of a warrant in which he stated that the Sheriff's Office had received an anonymous tip that marijuana was growing at Hatfield's residence and that he had personally seen "approximately 12 marijuana plants in plain view in the yard" at Hatfield's residence. A warrant was issued to search the house and the structures behind the house, and Harrold returned to Hatfield's property to execute the warrant. During the ensuing search, the officers seized marijuana plants growing in the chicken coop and in other locations in the back yard. They also seized marijuana plants hung for drying in another of the structures behind the house and an ice chest containing sixty-nine marijuana starter plants.

After the Government filed an initial indictment, Hatfield was charged in a fifteen-count superseding indictment on January 18, 2001, that alleged various drug and firearm crimes. Hatfield moved to suppress the evidence gathered at the search of his home and property, arguing that the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights because (1) the search of his property was based upon an uncorroborated, anonymous tip; (2) the marijuana was growing in the curtilage of Hatfield's home and Officer Harrold illegally trespassed on Hatfield's property to see it; and (3) the protective sweep of Hatfield's house had constituted an additional warrantless search.

The district court held a suppression hearing at which several of the officers who participated in the events testified. After considering the record created by the hearing, the district court issued an order denying Hatfield's suppression motion. The district court concluded first that the anonymous tip formed only the basis for the officer's "knock and talk" interview, not the basis for obtaining a search warrant. Once Hatfield had refused consent to a search, the officers retreated to the county road in front of his house. The nature of the tip, the court concluded, therefore was irrelevant to the validity of the subsequent searches. Next, the court ruled that under the "open fields" doctrine Officer Harrold properly could have entered the pasture adjoining Hatfield's property, and his sighting of the marijuana from the pasture was not an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Finally, the district court concluded that, not only was the protective sweep proper, but that Hatfield's objection to it was merely "academic" because the officers found no evidence during that sweep.

After his motion was denied, Hatfield entered into a plea agreement with the Government under which he pled guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(D), and 18 U.S.C. § 2, and to one count of maintaining a place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, and using methamphetamine and marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 856(a)(1) and 856(a)(2), and 18 U.S.C. § 2. In exchange for this guilty plea, the Government agreed to drop the other counts in the indictment. The agreement also specifically reserved, pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2), Hatfield's right to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to suppress. The district court accepted Hatfield's plea and entered a judgment of conviction against him on November 13, 2001, in which the court sentenced Hatfield to two concurrent thirty-six month terms of imprisonment....