U.S. v. Rucker
| Decision Date | 16 December 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. IP04-0074-CR-01-B/F.,IP04-0074-CR-01-B/F. |
| Citation | 348 F.Supp.2d 981 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Indiana |
| Parties | UNITED STATES, Plaintiff, v. Roger RUCKER, Defendant. |
Melanie Conour, United States Attorney's Office, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiff.
Steven M. Mondry, Mondry & Mondry Attorney's at Law, Maywood, IL, for Defendant.
ENTRY DENYING DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE
Defendant Roger Rucker ("Rucker") is charged with two felony counts of possession with intent to distribute and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine, a Schedule II, Narcotic Controlled Substance, all in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Theses charges arise in part from evidence obtained during a search of Rucker's apartment at 5050 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois on March 31, 2004.
This matter comes before the Court on Defendant's Motion to Suppress. An evidentiary hearing was held on November 5, 2004, which addressed Defendant's several challenges to the legality of law enforcement's initial protective sweep of his apartment, his detention by federal agents, and his eventual consent to search, which yielded certain physical evidence and inculpatory statements by the Defendant. For the reasons set forth in detail below, we DENY Defendant's Motion to Suppress, both as to the physical evidence that was seized and the statements he made to the agents.
Beginning in December 2001, a task force composed of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), Indianapolis Police Department ("IPD"), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ("ATF"), and other law enforcement agencies had conducted an investigation of an alleged drug trafficking organization, known as the 34th Street Gang, operating in the Indianapolis, Indiana area. A suspected leader of this organization was co-defendant Prentice Davis ("Davis") and one of his lieutenants was Dramane Johnson ("Johnson"). Through information obtained from confidential informants, law enforcement officers believed the 34th Street Gang distributed multi-kilogram quantities of both powder cocaine and crack cocaine and conducted drug sales from various locations in Indianapolis, Indiana, including a recording studio at 3334 North Temple Avenue (the "Temple Avenue studio").
From February 19, 2004, until March 30, 2004, federal agents monitored communications utilizing a pen register and trap and trace device, pursuant to a court order permitting them to be installed on Davis's telephone. These devices recorded information about the calls made to and from Davis's telephone, but not the content of the conversations. From the telephone numbers recorded by these devices, law enforcement officers were able to determine subscriber information, including names and addresses, for individuals with whom Davis conversed by phone. The pen register revealed a number of calls between Davis's telephone and at least two telephone numbers utilized by Defendant Rucker: one subscribed to in the name of R & R Investments, located at 5050 South Lake Shore Drive, Apartment 1910, in Chicago, Illinois, and the other subscribed to in his wife's name, Tawanda Miller. Federal agents, in researching the criminal histories of the individuals with whom Davis conversed, learned that Rucker had a 25-year-old conviction.1
On or about March 11, 2004, law enforcement officers undertook a court-authorized Title III interception of calls on the telephone utilized by Davis, which electronic surveillance continued through March 30 or 31, 2004. This wiretap led federal agents to believe there was a business relationship between Davis and Rucker; the first call between the two occurred on the first day of the wiretap,2 followed by eleven other conversations intercepted and recorded between them. From the information gathered in the intercepted telephone calls, law enforcement officials came to believe that Davis was preparing to transport a large sum of money from Indianapolis, Indiana, to Rucker in Chicago, Illinois, for the purpose of obtaining multiple kilograms of cocaine.3
On March 29, 2004, following a number of calls concerning Davis's being "short" of money, Davis advised Rucker that he was no longer "short" and that he would therefore be leaving at the "regular time;" no mention was made of what the regular time was. Rucker agreed, responding that he would "set it up now." Acting in response to this conversation, federal agents initiated visual surveillance of Davis.4 The next call between Davis and Rucker occurred at 8:30 a.m. the next day, on March 30, 2004, in which Rucker told Davis that he had been waiting since 6:00 a.m., to which Davis responded saying that he would be leaving Indianapolis about 9:00 a.m.
Shortly after this conversation, Davis left his residence and drove to his Temple Avenue studio where he entered the building and remained inside for a brief time. Davis then exited the studio carrying a black bag, which he placed in the trunk of his car. Davis then proceeded to Interstate 65 and drove north out of Indianapolis towards Chicago. Surveilling officers followed Davis on this trip to Chicago, not knowing his precise destination. While driving to Chicago, Davis unexpectedly was stopped for speeding by an Indiana State Trooper. The task force agents, concerned that this stop might compromise their investigation, contacted the Indiana State Trooper by radio, asking him to let Davis go.
During this traffic stop, while out of the presence of the State Trooper, Davis made several telephone calls. His first call went to "Little Meat"5 and Davis asked to speak to "Shaw."6 Davis told Shaw he had been pulled over and that, if he did not call back in thirty minutes, they should go to the Temple Avenue studio and "clean it out." Davis specifically directed Shaw to look for a McDonald's bag. Following his release by the State Trooper, Davis again called "Little Meat" to inform him of his release. "Shaw" called Davis back to confirm that Davis had, in fact, been released. Davis also had called Rucker to inform him that he had been pulled over by the State Trooper, and later to inform him that he had been released. Neither time when talking to Rucker did Davis make mention of "cleaning out" anything.
After his release by the State Trooper, law enforcement surveillance of Davis continued, culminating in Davis's arrival at the Regents Park apartment complex at 5050 South Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois. Davis parked his car and was observed taking the black bag out of the trunk and entering the apartment building at approximately 1:00 p.m. Indianapolis time.7 Surveillance continued and Davis was next seen leaving the building approximately two hours later, at 3:00 or 3:30 p.m., Indianapolis time.8 Upon returning to his car, Davis again placed what was perceived now to be a heavy black bag in the trunk of his vehicle and covered it up. Officers maintained continuous surveillance of Davis during his return trip to Indianapolis. At one point, during the return trip, Davis stopped for gas and later stopped a second time for approximately one hour at a rest area. During both of these stops, Davis did not access the trunk of his car.
As Davis approached Indianapolis, he was stopped at approximately 6:50 p.m. for traveling at excessive speeds by a law enforcement officer acting in concert with the Task Force investigators. The officer effecting the stop obtained Davis's consent to search his vehicle, found the black bag in the trunk, opened it, and discovered what appeared to be cocaine, which he seized. Davis was arrested. The seized substance was later tested and found to be approximately seven kilograms of cocaine. In searching Davis's car and person, officers also found two documents: the first, a piece of paper in Davis's pocket bearing the following notation: "Roger Rucker, 5050 South Lake Shore Drive, 1910 Chago, Illinois 6061;"9 the second, a list of nine names and numbers, which, based on his experience, Special Agent Robert Brouwer ("Brouwer") identified as an "owe sheet," that is, a list of people to whom Davis owed money from drug deals.
Rucker made six calls to Davis's cellphone number after Davis had left Chicago, all of which calls went un-answered by Davis.10 Rucker's first call was at 6:29 p.m., the approximate time Davis would have been expected to arrive in Indianapolis if he had not stopped for gas or stopped at the rest area. The first two calls occurred during Davis's drive from Chicago to Indianapolis,11 and the remaining four calls occurred after Davis's cellphone had been seized by law enforcement officials.
Although Davis's cellphone had been seized following his arrest, investigating agents maintaining a wiretap on Dramane Johnson's telephone produced interceptions of seven telephone calls from Karen Bledsoe ("Bledsoe") to Johnson, all of which were placed after Davis's arrest. The first of these calls occurred at 8:44 p.m. on March 30, 2004, when Bledsoe told Johnson that Davis had been arrested and further that he needed to "clean out" the Temple Avenue studio.12
During the course of this investigation, FBI Special Agent Michael Schulstad ("Schulstad") was the primary coordinator between the Indianapolis agents and the Chicago agents. SA Schulstad communicated with Special Agents Ron Cozile and John Derbeas ("Derbeas") in Chicago. According to the testimony at the hearing, the initial plan conceived by SA Schulstad and SA Derbeas had been to continue their task force investigation of Rucker by "walling off" the arrest of Davis, thereby hiding from Rucker and the other gang members the fact that Davis was a target of federal investigation. SA Schulstad kept SA Derbeas informed of developments in the Indianapolis investigation, including the...
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...to a search of the shed, a search warrant would have been properly issued, based upon probable cause. See United States v. Rucker, 348 F.Supp.2d 981, 1004-05 (S.D.Ind.2004). As the Seventh Circuit has cautioned, the exclusionary rule is a sanction that is supposed to be proportional to the ......