U.S. v. Patterson, 00-4872.

• Decision Date: 22 January 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-4872.,00-4872.
• Citation: 278 F.3d 315
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Denise PATTERSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 315

278 F.3d 315

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Denise PATTERSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 00-4872.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued November 2, 2001.

Decided January 22, 2002.

ARGUED: Michael Morchower, Morchower, Luxton & Whaley, Richmond, Virginia for Appellant. John Staige Davis, V, Assistant United States Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Helen F. Fahey, United States Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before WIDENER, WILKINS, and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge TRAXLER wrote the opinion, in which Judge WIDENER and Judge WILKINS joined.

OPINION

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge.

Denise Patterson pled guilty to violating 18 U.S.C.A. § 922(g)(3) (West 2000) by possessing a firearm while using marijuana, but she reserved the right to appeal the district court's order denying her motion to suppress the firearm. We affirm, albeit for a different reason than that given by the district court.

I.

In the summer of 1997, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA") began investigating the possibility of a narcotics conspiracy in Richmond, Virginia involving, among others, Denise Patterson. From mid-1999 to the beginning of 2000, agents conducted surveillance of Patterson's residence at 2502 Haden Avenue ("the Patterson property") "[p]robably in excess of thirty times." J.A. 74.

Located in a residential neighborhood, Haden Avenue is a paved street which has neither sidewalks nor curbs. As a consequence, the yards of the houses along the street extend for the most part all the way to the edge of the street. The occupants of the Patterson residence utilized the area between their front steps and the street as a parking pad, which they joined to their driveway to create a reverse "L" for cars at their house. Both the parking area and the driveway were gravel, with each appearing to be a seamless part of the other.

While conducting surveillance of the Patterson property, DEA agents observed that the gravel area abutting Haden Avenue in front of the residence on the Patterson property was routinely used for parking by Patterson and her guests, and by no one else. The agents repeatedly observed a Toyota RAV vehicle, which they later learned was owned by Patterson, parked there. The agents also repeatedly observed several other vehicles parked in the gravel area, but were able to connect each of them to different Patterson acquaintances. At no time did the agents observe a vehicle belonging to anyone other than Patterson or one of her guests parked in the gravel area.

The DEA later obtained a valid search warrant authorizing the search of "the property or premises known as ... 2502 Haden Avenue, Richmond, Virginia." J.A. 34. When agents arrived to execute the warrant, the Toyota RAV vehicle belonging to Patterson was again parked in the gravel area. After inspecting the house, the agents searched Patterson's Toyota, believing that the gravel area in front of the house was on the premises of 2502 Haden Avenue and thus within the scope of the search warrant. Agents discovered a firearm in the vehicle, and Patterson was subsequently charged with being an unlawful user of marijuana in possession of a firearm.

Prior to trial, the Patterson property was surveyed at the request of defense counsel. It was determined that the gravel area in front of Patterson's residence where the Toyota was parked was not, in fact, part of the same property. Rather, the gravel area was discovered to be a part of the city-owned property adjacent to the Haden Avenue roadway. Because the warrant did not identify the property as that of the city and did not refer to any vehicles parked on city property, defense counsel moved to suppress the firearm discovered in Patterson's vehicle as the fruit of an unlawful search. The district court viewed the issue as dependent on the legal concept of curtilage. See Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 180, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984) ("[C]urtilage is the area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life, and therefore has been considered part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes.") (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Stanley, 597 F.2d 866, 869-70 (4th Cir.1979) (noting that a search warrant for a home includes that home's curtilage). The district court concluded that the gravel parking pad was not part of the "curtilage-in-fact," but upon finding the area in question to be part of the "curtilage-in-law," it determined the search was proper.

II.

In this case, we need not address the curtilage issue. Rather, because the record adequately establishes the objective reasonableness of the agents' interpretation of the scope of the warrant, we affirm on the basis of the Supreme Court's decision in Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 107 S.Ct. 1013, 94 L.Ed.2d 72 (1987). See Ostrzenski v. Seigel, 177 F.3d 245, 253 (4th Cir.1999) (noting that in conducting our review of the district court's ruling, we may affirm the court's order on "any ground supported by the record even if it is not the basis relied upon by the district court").

In Garrison, police officers obtained and executed a warrant to search Lawrence McWebb and "the premises known as 2036 Park Avenue third floor apartment." Garrison, 480 U.S. at 80, 107 S.Ct. 1013. At the time the police applied for the warrant and at the time they conducted the search pursuant to the warrant, they believed, based on a reasonable investigation that included checking utility company records, that McWebb's was the only apartment on the third floor. It turned out that the third floor was divided into two apartments, one occupied by McWebb and the other by Harold Garrison. When officers entered the vestibule of the third floor to execute the search warrant, the doors off the hallway were open. Thus, at the time police began the search, there was nothing to indicate that there was more than one apartment on the third floor. Accordingly, officers searched Garrison's apartment, believing it to be part of McWebb's apartment. Upon realizing their mistake, the officers ceased the search of Garrison's apartment, but by that time they had already found contraband in the apartment. The contraband subsequently provided the basis for Garrison's conviction on state narcotics charges. See id. at 80-82, 107 S.Ct. 1013.

On appeal, the Supreme Court declined to rule that the search of Garrison's apartment and the seizure of contraband there violated the Fourth Amendment. See id. at 88-89, 107 S.Ct. 1013. In doing so, the Court reconfirmed "the need to allow some latitude for honest mistakes that are made by officers in the dangerous and difficult process of ... executing search warrants," id. at 87, 107 S.Ct. 1013, so long as "the mistakes [are] those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability." Id. at 87 n. 11, 107 S.Ct. 1013 (internal quotation marks omitted). "[S]ufficient probability, not certainty," the Court observed, "is the touchstone of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 87, 107 S.Ct 1013 (internal quotation marks omitted). Concluding that the question of whether the search of Garrison's...