U.S.A v. Vinton
| Decision Date | 06 January 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 09-3323,09-3323 |
| Parties | United States of America, Appellee, v. William A. Vinton, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Before RILEY, Chief Judge, MELLOY and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.
William Vinton pleaded guilty to two firearms offenses. The district court1 sentenced him within the advisory range to a term of 84 months' imprisonment. On appeal, Vinton challenges the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence and the sentence imposed. We affirm.
On December 18, 2007, police in St. Louis County, Missouri, received a report that two men had burglarized a local home and stolen a gun safe with four firearms inside. A witness at the crime scene identified David Lee as one of the perpetrators. The police quickly learned that Lee had been seen earlier that day at a house belonging to Vinton. That evening, three officers arrived at Vinton's house and knocked on the door. One of the officers, Detective Andrew Brown, testified that Vinton came to the door and told him that Lee had left the house about an hour earlier. According to Brown, Vinton then agreed that the officers could enter the home to search for Lee.
After the officers had entered the house, Brown continued to question Vinton about Lee's whereabouts while another officer searched for Lee. Two other men were sitting in Vinton's living room when the officers arrived, but police determined that they were not important to the investigation, and the men left the house shortly thereafter. Vinton asked Brown whether his investigation "had anything to do with the guns." When Brown responded that it did, Vinton said that he knew the guns did not belong to Lee. Brown asked where the guns were located, and Vinton stated that the guns were in a closet and the gun safe was in the basement. Vinton then gave Brown permission to seize the weapons and to search the house for other weapons and drugs. The officers located the stolen gun safe in the basement, and found three of the four stolen firearms in the upstairs bedroom closet. They also discovered a sawed-off shotgun on top of a dresser in the living room, and two ammunition cases in the living room.
The officers placed Vinton under arrest and transported him to an interview room at the police station. Brown advised Vinton of the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), obtained a waiver of rights, and questioned Vinton. Vinton made incriminating statements.
A grand jury charged Vinton with unlawful possession of a firearm as a previously convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and possession of an unregistered sawed-off shotgun, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d). Vinton moved to suppress the evidence seized during the search and the statements he made at the house and during the interview at the police station. At the evidentiary hearing, the government relied primarily on testimony from Detective Brown. Vinton introduced testimony from Daniel Berry, who stated that he was one of the individuals sitting in Vinton's living room when the officers arrived. Berry claimed that Vinton had initially refused the officers' request to enter the house, but that the officers nonetheless had forced their way inside. Vinton also relied on the testimony of a defense investigator named Amy Skrien, who recounted her conversation with an individual named "Taz." According to Skrien, Taz refused to give his full name or meet with her in person, but claimed during telephone conversations that he was present on the night in question and saw the officers enter Vinton's house without asking for permission. The government also presented evidence concerning Vinton's interrogation at the police station, including a signed Miranda waiver form and a videotape.2
The magistrate judge credited Brown's testimony, declined to credit the statements of Berry or Taz, and recommended that the motion to suppress be denied. Conducting a de novo review of the magistrate's recommendation, the district court also credited Brown's testimony and expressly declined to credit the testimony of Berry or the hearsay statements of Taz. The district court adopted the magistrate's recommendation and denied the motion to suppress.
Vinton pleaded guilty to both counts of the indictment. At sentencing, the government argued that Vinton's prior Missouri conviction for second-degree assault, see Mo. Rev. Stat. § 565.060, was a "crime of violence" that warranted a greater base offense level under USSG § 2K2.1(a)(3). The district court agreed and determined Vinton's advisory guideline sentencing range was 84 to 105 months. The court sentenced Vinton to 84 months' imprisonment, to be followed by two years of supervised release.
Vinton contends that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress. He argues that his pre-arrest statements to the police were involuntary and obtained in violation of Miranda, that he did not voluntarily consent to a search of his house, and that his statements at the police station were involuntary and obtained after an invalid waiver of his Miranda rights. We conclude that each of these arguments is without merit.
Vinton claims that his pre-arrest statements should be suppressed because the police had not yet read him the Miranda warnings when he made the statements. Miranda requires that law enforcement agents provide certain warnings before they conduct an interrogation of an individual who is in custody. Vinton contends that he was in custody when the police questioned him about the whereabouts of David Lee and the guns, and that he was thus entitled to receive the Miranda warnings before questioning.
We review de novo the district court's legal determination about whether a defendant was in custody, and we review the court's factual findings for clear error.
United States v. Axsom, 289 F.3d 496, 500 (8th Cir. 2002). To determine whether an individual is in custody, a court must consider "whether there is a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest." California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125 (1983) (per curiam) (internal quotation omitted). The custody inquiry turns on whether, given the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person would have felt at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave or cause the agents to leave. United States v. New, 491 F.3d 369, 373 (8th Cir. 2007).
The district court found that all the pre-arrest statements at issue were made during the roughly five-minute period after Vinton made contact with the officers at his front door. The court found that Vinton made the statements in his own home, a location that is "'not indicative of the type of inherently coercive setting that normally accompanies a custodial interrogation.'" United States v. Czichray, 378 F.3d 822, 826 (8th Cir. 2004) (quoting United States v. Helmel, 769 F.2d 1306, 1320 (8th Cir. 1985)); see also Axsom, 289 F.3d at 502; United States v. Sutera, 933 F.2d 641, 647 (8th Cir. 1991). The court also found that Brown and Vinton were alone in Vinton's kitchen during the questioning, and that the police had not restrained, threatened, or coerced Vinton. These findings were not clearly erroneous and were amply supported by Brown's testimony, which the district court credited. Based on the totality of the circumstances, we agree with the district court that Vinton was not in custody, because a reasonable person in Vinton's position would have felt at liberty to terminate the interrogation and ask the officers to leave.
Vinton asserts that the district court erred in concluding that Brown's testimony was credible and that the accounts offered by Berry and Taz were not credible. He asks us to conclude that he was in custody based on the statements of Berry and Taz that the officers entered the house without permission. The district court, however, has a "distinct advantage" in evaluating the credibility of witnesses, and its credibility determinations are "virtually unreviewable on appeal." United States v. Ralph, 480 F.3d 888, 890 (8th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation omitted). The district court reasonably found that Berry's testimony was inconsistent in several respects, that Berry lied to the police about his identity, and that Berry's account of the officers' entry was inconsistent with Taz's hearsay statements. The court further determined that Taz's refusal to identify himself, to meet with the defense investigator in person, or to testify weighed against a finding of credibility. We see no basis to disturb the district court's findings.
We also conclude that Vinton's pre-arrest statements were voluntary. We review de novo the district court's determination that a statement to the police was voluntary, and we review the district court's related findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Eldeeb, 20 F.3d 841, 842 (8th Cir. 1994). Statements to law enforcement authorities are voluntary if they are "'the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by [their] maker.'" Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 225 (1973) (quoting Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 602 (1961)). A statement is not considered involuntary unless "the police extorted it from the accused by means of coercive activity." Jenner v. Smith, 982 F.2d 329, 333 (8th Cir. 1993) (internal quotation omitted). There is no credible evidence that the police coerced Vinton into making the statements, or that his decision to speak with them was the product of anything other than a free and unconstrained choice.
Vinton contends that his pre-arrest statements to the police necessarily were involuntary, because he has a history of drug abuse and a "borderline I.Q." The district court found that Vinton was rational when he spoke with the officers, and credited Brown's...
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...least touching" qualify as crimes of violence where the statutes also require use of a deadly weapon); see also United States v. Vinton, 631 F.3d 476, 485-86 (8th Cir. 2011) (holding that Missouri second-degree assault statute included "physical force" as an element where statute provided t......