U.S. v. Meada

• Decision Date: 23 May 2005
• Docket Number: No. 03-2410.,03-2410.
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Appellee, v. John MEADA, III, Defendant, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

408 F.3d 14

UNITED STATES, Appellee, v. John MEADA, III, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 03-2410.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard November 1, 2004.

Decided May 23, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Alison M. Adams, with whom The Chase Law Group and David R. Yannetti were on brief, for appellant.

Donald L. Cabell, Assistant U.S. Attorney, with whom Michael J. Sullivan, U.S. Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

Before LYNCH, Circuit Judge, LEVAL,^* Senior Circut Judge, and LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

John Meada was arrested and indicted on weapons possession charges after police discovered firearms and ammunition in his home during a warrantless search. Before trial, Meada moved to suppress all of the evidence that police had discovered in his apartment. After several evidentiary hearings, the trial court granted Meada's motion with regard to grenades found in an ammunition can but ruled that other firearms and ammunition were admissible because they were either in a location Meada's girlfriend consented to be searched or were in a container in plain sight that betrayed its contents. Meada entered a conditional guilty plea but preserved the right to challenge the suppression ruling on appeal, which he now does. He also challenges his sentence. We affirm the denial of Meada's motion to suppress but vacate his sentence in light of United States v. Booker, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), and remand for the limited purpose of resentencing.

I.

We take the following facts from the district court's findings, drawing on the record for additional facts as necessary. On January 2, 2002, Carol Bowering went to the Hanover, Massachusetts Police Department to inquire about obtaining a restraining order against John Meada, her boyfriend, who she claimed had recently been violent toward her. Bowering sought to collect personal belongings that she brought to Meada's apartment while living there with him since November 2001. A police officer instructed her to apply for a restraining order at the Hingham District Court, and she did so.

Bowering returned to the Hanover Police Department with her restraining order later that afternoon. She told the officer on duty, Stephen Moar, that she had lived with Meada for approximately two months and that she kept clothing and a cat at his apartment. Moar inquired for officer-safety purposes whether there were any weapons in the apartment. Bowering answered that Meada had two long guns and one handgun, specifying their locations in the apartment. Upon running a criminal history check on Meada, Moar discovered that he had a criminal record and did not have a license to carry a firearm. Moar and another officer, Gregg Nihan, then accompanied Bowering to Meada's apartment to collect her belongings.

Meada was not home when Bowering and the officers reached the apartment. Bowering led the officers into the two-family unit that Meada shared with his relative, Barbara Valentonis, and through the unlocked door to Meada's apartment. She indicated a BB gun and pellet rifle in plain view in the entryway and living room, and then pointed to a kitchen cabinet where she said Meada kept another gun. Upon opening the cabinet, Nihan found a .25 caliber wooden handled handgun, several boxes of ammunition, and what he and Moar recognized as an "ammunition can," a metal container commonly used to store ammunition. Nihan opened the can without asking Bowering's permission to do so. He discovered two grenades inside.

Moar then accompanied Bowering into the bedroom where her personal belongings were stored. A case labeled "GUN GUARD" stood upright in the bedroom in plain view; it was fastened but not locked. Without asking Bowering for permission, Moar placed the case on the bed and opened it. He discovered three guns inside: one sawed-off shotgun, one .40 caliber handgun and one .32 caliber Winchester rifle. Meada returned home soon thereafter. Moar served him with the restraining order outside the apartment, placed him under arrest for weapons violations, and instructed him to wait in a police car while the officers finished their search and Bowering collected the rest of her possessions.

Meada was subsequently indicted on three weapons charges. Count One of the indictment charged him with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Counts Two and Three charged him with possession of an unregistered firearm, 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d), with Count Two based on the sawed-off shotgun, and Count Three based on the grenades.¹ In response, Meada moved to suppress all of the evidence seized from his apartment, contending that the warrantless search violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

At a suppression hearing on February 28, 2003, the government presented several witnesses including Bowering, Moar, and Nihan. Bowering testified about her relationship with Meada and her activities on the day of the search. Moar and Nihan testified about the search itself, including the basis for their belief that Bowering lived in the apartment and had authority to consent to a search of it. First, Bowering appeared to be more than a casual visitor because she kept clothing and her cat at the apartment and because she asserted that she would be able to enter the apartment in Meada's absence (without a key). Moar also testified that he had driven by Meada's apartment numerous times between 4 p.m. and midnight during November and December 2001 because Meada was a suspect in an unrelated investigation, and that Bowering's red Firebird was regularly parked there. Meada then presented Valentonis, his sole witness. She testified that Bowering visited the apartment several times a week but that she had never seen Bowering there without Meada.

Following the testimony, the court denied Meada's motion with regard to the handgun and ammunition discovered in the kitchen cabinet, finding that the officers reasonably believed Bowering had authority to consent, and that she had actual authority to consent, to a search of the apartment that included the cabinet. The court reserved judgment on items found in the ammunition can and gun case, allowing additional briefing on the admissibility of items seized from closed containers.

On June 19, 2003, the court held another hearing at which Meada and his friend Daniel Marshalsea testified pursuant to a Motion to Reopen. Meada claimed that Bowering had never lived with him, that he always locked his apartment door but that the lock had been jimmied open on the day of the search, that the weapons were not his but rather belonged to another man who had briefly stayed in his apartment, and that he did not store the guns or the GUN GUARD case in plain sight. Marshalsea testified that Bowering had come to Meada's apartment only once or twice a week and that her relationship with Meada was not sexual. The court rejected both Meada and Marshalsea's testimony, which conflicted with that offered by Bowering, the police, and even Meada's own witness, Valentonis, and found that Meada had "taken this occasion to commit perjury." The court then repeated its earlier ruling that the handgun and ammunition discovered in the kitchen cabinet were admissible.

At a third hearing on June 24, 2003, the court granted in part and denied in part Meada's motion to suppress the weapons found in the ammunition can and the gun case; that ruling was reflected in a written order issued on August 29, 2003. Distinguishing between the areas of the apartment to which Bowering had access, and these containers, to which she did not, the court noted that "[c]onsent to search a dwelling is not necessarily coterminous with consent to search closed containers within it." Nonetheless, the court concluded that the firearms found in the gun case were admissible. It reasoned that "the GUN GUARD case constructively constituted at least one gun in plain view in the bedroom" because the label betrayed the container's contents. Meada thus had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the case and could not challenge that aspect of the search.

By contrast, the court concluded that Meada did have a privacy expectation in the ammunition can because its outward appearance did not reveal that it contained grenades. The court found that Bowering did not consent to a search of the can, nor could the police reasonably have believed she had authority to consent to such a search in light of her initial indication that she did not own any of the weapons in the apartment. Because the court also found that the inevitable discovery doctrine did not apply, it granted Meada's motion to suppress the grenades.²

Following the court's evidentiary rulings, Meada entered a conditional guilty plea to Counts One and Two of the indictment. Count Three of the indictment, involving the grenades, was dismissed. The court then sentenced Meada to 108 months' imprisonment. This sentence reflected a guidelines calculation that included a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice, U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 (2002), because of the court's finding that Meada committed perjury at the June 2003 suppression hearing. The court rejected Meada's argument that a reduction for acceptance of responsibility was appropriate under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 (2002), concluding that in light of Meada's ongoing insistence that the weapons found in the apartment were not his, "[t]his is not a case where Mr. Meada attempted to obstruct justice and has reformed. This is a case in which he's continuing the misconduct that caused me to find in June that he had committed perjury."

Meada now appeals, exercising the right he preserved below to challenge the court's evidentiary rulings. First, he argues that Bowering did not have actual authority to consent to a search of the apartment, nor was it reasonable for the police to believe that she had such authority. He further asserts that the court...