U.S. v. Marshall

• Decision Date: 08 September 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-3529,96-3529
• Citation: 157 F.3d 477
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Isaac E. MARSHALL, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 477

157 F.3d 477

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Isaac E. MARSHALL, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 96-3529.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued June 5, 1998.

Decided Sept. 8, 1998.

Randy G. Massey (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Fairview Heights, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Eric M. Schwing (argued), Babette P. Salus, Schwing & Salus, Springfield, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and BAUER and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Circuit Judge.

Appellant Isaac Marshall was charged with, and convicted of, conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. The district court sentenced Marshall to 300 months' imprisonment, imposed a $50 special assessment and $4,000 fine, and placed Marshall on five years of supervised release. Marshall now appeals both his conviction and sentence, asserting that the district court erroneously denied his motion to suppress certain evidence, that the prosecution knowingly used false evidence at trial, and that the district court incorrectly determined his sentence. Finding no errors with the district court's judgment, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

On March 18, 1993, officers from several law enforcement groups, including the St. Louis police department, set up surveillance of defendant Isaac Marshall's ("Marshall") house at 3442 Itaska in St. Louis. The purpose of this surveillance was to keep an eye on Marshall's house, which the police had reason to believe was the site of methamphetamine-related activities, while Detectives Thomas Murphy ("Murphy") and Emmett Gelhot ("Gelhot") prepared an affidavit for a search warrant of the premises. While on surveillance, officers saw Terry Marshall, Marshall's son, exit the house and walk towards a white Cadillac with a gym bag. Terry removed a jacket from the bag, which he placed in the trunk of the car, and went back into Marshall's house. Several minutes The police pulled over Terry Marshall several blocks from Marshall's house. When an officer approached the vehicle, he spotted three bags of white powder inside the partially-open gym bag. Terry was arrested, and a further search of the bag revealed some clothes and $15,500 in cash. After being advised of his constitutional rights, Terry informed the officers that the drugs and money were his father's and that his father was expecting him to return to the house shortly. Officers following the Blazer saw Best throw several items out of the window as he was traveling, and eventually he was arrested as well.

later, Terry and another man, Dennis Best, again left Marshall's house. Terry removed the bag from the trunk and placed it in the passenger side of the rear seat of the Cadillac; he then got in the car while Best entered a nearby Blazer. Both men drove off with the police on their trails, while some of the officers remained behind to continue watching Marshall's house.

After hearing of all this activity, Murphy and Gelhot decided to temporarily abandon their efforts and secure Marshall's house before obtaining the warrant. See Tr. of Suppression Hearing at 30. At some point, the officers remaining by Marshall's house saw a man and woman leave the house and enter a vehicle. When officers approached the car and asked the individuals to get out, the woman dropped a leather cigarette case on the front seat as she exited the car. A subsequent search of the case revealed one large and two small bags of a whitish powder.

When Officers Murphy and Gelhot arrived at Marshall's house, they, along with Terry Marshall, who was needed to subdue some dogs, went through the back yard of Marshall's house and into the basement, where Marshall was living. As they entered, they passed through a laundry room into another part of the basement, where they saw Marshall talking on the telephone while holding a clear plastic bag containing what appeared to be methamphetamine. When Marshall saw the officers, he placed the bag in a coffee can on a table. The officers also found Michael Marshall, another of Marshall's sons, asleep on a bed in the basement. The officers advised Marshall that they were there to secure the residence and that they would return later with a search warrant. Marshall indicated that he did not want the police to disturb his mother, who lived upstairs, and he consented to a search of the basement. Marshall also made several other inculpatory statements at that time, and a search of the basement revealed more suspected methamphetamine, some drug paraphernalia, and $646 in currency. Marshall was arrested and taken to the police station, where he made a written statement indicating that he was involved in the trafficking of methamphetamine.

Marshall, along with his sons and a number of other individuals, was indicted on January 20, 1995, and charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. Prior to trial, Marshall filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from his home, arguing that the police had illegally entered his residence without a warrant and had conducted an illegal search. The district court denied this motion, and Marshall went to trial. He was convicted of the charge against him, and was sentenced to 300 months' imprisonment on October 7, 1996. Marshall filed a timely notice of appeal, and presently argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress and that his sentence is based on erroneous findings of fact. We examine each of Marshall's arguments in turn.

ANALYSIS

1. Motion to Suppress

Marshall first argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress certain evidence. In reviewing a district court's ruling on a motion to suppress, we review questions of law de novo and questions of fact for clear error. United States v. Gravens, 129 F.3d 974, 978 (7th Cir.1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 1333, 140 L.Ed.2d 494 (1998) (citing United States v. Liss, 103 F.3d 617, 620 (7th Cir.1997)). A factual finding is clearly erroneous "when, although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court is left with the Marshall first contends that the officers' entrance into his home without a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that the evidence they collected was tainted. The district court ruled as follows with respect to this argument:

definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made." Id. Since the resolution of a motion to suppress is fact-specific, we accord special deference to the district court, which heard the testimony and observed the witnesses at the suppression hearing. Id. (citing United States v. Stribling, 94 F.3d 321, 323 (7th Cir.1996)).

The sequence of events that we have just heard was that there was a surveillance of the defendant's residence in the city of St. Louis because the police had been advised that there was some methamphetamine or it was coming in from California.... [D]uring the course of that surveillance the defendant's son, Terry Marshall, was observed to leave the house with a bag, gym bag, which he placed in the trunk of his car, took out a jacket, put it on him and went back in the house. Shortly he returned with someone else, then went to get the bag out of the trunk and put it under the passenger side of his Cadillac, and the other individual, I believe it was a Bronco--In any event, the two of them drove off. They were followed by police officers and one--the two car's paths' (sic) digressed. The police broke up their chase, or not a chase, but their following of the two cars and one group followed one and one the other and eventually Terry Marshall was pulled over, apprehended, and found to have a substantial amount of a white powdery substance suspected to be methamphetamine together with a large amount of currency and he, in fact, in effect, informed the officers that his father was at the residence and that his place of operation was the basement of the residence. While this was going on, officers were attempting to obtain a search warrant in that they were in the process of preparing an affidavit for it. In the meantime, another pair of individuals were observed, a man and woman leaving the same building, and they were stopped and it was found that there was methamphetamine or at least a white powdery substance suspected of being methamphetamine in a leather cigarette case, which the female had and which she dropped upon getting out of her car. When Terry Marshall was apprehended, he told the officers that his father expected him to return momentarily for--I don't know if the reason was given. We were not told about it. But in any event, young Marshall was expected back at any moment. All of these events, the people, two sets of people leaving the residence and being found with amphetamine, the statement by Terry Marshall that he was expected to return promptly to the residence and perhaps should have already been back there, the fact that he stated that his father was at the residence, the further fact that the officers had a fear that because of all of the activity outside of the residence that their surveillance, and thus their investigation may have been compromised, and coupled with the further fact that any narcotic substance, or at least any methamphetamine, could be easily destroyed, I believe shows that the police officers acted as soon as they reasonably could have been expected to act under the circumstances to obtain a warrant. I further find that their acts were objectively reasonable, and under those circumstances that they had good reason to believe that there were exigent circumstances which required a search, an entry to secure the premises pending the obtaining of a warrant.

See Tr. of Suppression Hearing at 56-58. Our review of the record shows that the factual findings set forth by the court are supported by the evidence and are not clearly erroneous. Thus, we only consider whether the...