U.S. v. Williams
| Decision Date | 23 October 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-5731,90-5731 |
| Citation | 946 F.2d 888 |
| Parties | NOTICE: Fourth Circuit I.O.P. 36.6 states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Fourth Circuit. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Salviano Alamo WILLIAMS, a/k/a Sharon Lovett Cornelius, a/k/a Gloria Lockett, a/k/a Salviano Davis, a/k/a Sal Williams, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Fayetteville. Malcolm J. Howard, District Judge. (CR-90-24)
Argued: William Lee Davis, III, Lumberton, N.C., for appellant.
Thomas Wayne Dworschak, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, N.C., for appellee.
On Brief: Margaret Person Currin, United States Attorney, Raleigh, N.C., for appellee.
Before K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge, and STAKER, United States District Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia, and KELLAM, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, Sitting by Designation.
Appellant Salviano Alamo Williams, also known by several aliases and herein called the "defendant," was found guilty by a jury and adjudged convicted of the following offenses in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina:
Count One--conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, fraudulently to steal and purloin military benefits and privileges from the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 641 and 1001;
Count Two--stealing and purloining U.S. currency, the property of the United States, of a value greater than $100, and aiding and abetting another to do so, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 641 and 2; 1
Counts Four through Fifteen, respectively--drawing and delivering to others different checks upon defendant's account at each of two different banks, without his having had sufficient funds or credit with those banks for those checks to be paid by them, in violation of North Carolina General Statute § 14-107, assimilated by Title 18, United States Code, Section 13; and
Count Sixteen--stealing and purloining U.S. currency, the property of the United States, of a value in excess of $100, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641.
All of those offenses were charged to have been committed on different dates, or during different periods of time, between August 22, 1985 and August, 1989.
The defendant was sentenced to serve a term of twenty-seven months imprisonment. Upon this appeal, he seeks reversal of his convictions, asserting that the district court committed numerous reversible errors. Finding no such error, we affirm.
The bizarre facts and circumstances culminating in the defendant's indictment and convictions were established by the evidence presented at the hearing of the defendant's motion to suppress and that presented at his trial, each being separately summarized below.
The defendant asserts that his rights under the Fourth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution were violated by the seizure of, and that the district court erred by overruling his pretrial motion to suppress, the following:
(a) evidence obtained from him by the Anniston, Alabama police and United States Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) agents at the Anniston Police Station on May 23, defendant contending that he was unlawfully detained and interrogated by them there;
(b) evidence obtained by those police and CID Agents from the seizure of the contents of a cardboard box the defendant had left in the care of a Mrs. Trushka before his going to the Police Station on the morning of May 23, defendant contending the seizure thereof to have been unlawful;
(c) evidence defendant contends was unlawfully obtained by Dr. Turner, an Army physician who examined him pursuant to a search warrant, in a cell in the Anniston Jail on May 24, for the purpose of ascertaining his sex; and
(d) a military Identification Card (ID card) bearing the name Sharon Cornelius and having overstamped thereon the words "no check cashing privileges," which the defendant contends was unlawfully seized from his apartment in Anniston by CID Agent Mullens on July 24.
Evidentiary hearings on the defendant's motion to suppress were had before a United States Magistrate. The district court, having adopted the Magistrate's written findings of fact, conclusions of law and recommendation that it do so, overruled the motion to suppress. In doing so it committed no error.
The facts found by the Magistrate in substance agreed with the following ones established by the evidence presented at the hearings had on the motion to suppress, little of which was disputed. 2
On May 21, 1989, a woman reported to the Anniston, Alabama police that her husband, Aaron Hawk, was missing and she believed he had met with foul play.
Detective Robertson of the Anniston Police Department learned that Hawk's automobile had recently theretofore been seen parked outside defendant's apartment in Anniston.
At about 9:00 A.M., on May 23, 1989, Robertson and another officer drove to defendant's apartment and informed him that they were investigating Hawk's disappearance. The defendant then told them that he and Hawk were married on May 19, and on that evening Hawk had left the defendant's apartment, 3 but that Hawk was not missing and was in Anniston. Robertson requested the defendant to come to the Anniston Police Station and talk with him in connection with the investigation, and the defendant agreed to appear there about an hour later.
At about 11:00 A.M., or a little later, on May 23, the defendant appeared at the Police Station, and Robertson commenced interviewing him some thirty minutes thereafter. At the time of that interview, Robertson was still attempting to locate and talk with Hawk. 4 During that interview the defendant revealed that he was an hermaphrodite. 5 Upon Robertson's asking him for some identification, the defendant produced from his purse a driver's license and other identification 6 which Robertson ran through NCIC 7 and learned therefrom that the defendant was wanted on warrants issued in North Carolina for probation violations. He then telephoned the North Carolina authorities and verified that the defendant was wanted there and that they would extradite the defendant from Anniston to North Carolina. At 12:30 P.M., on May 23, he told the defendant that while no charges were pending against him in Alabama, he was then being arrested on those North Carolina warrants, 8 and the defendant was thereafter detained in the Anniston Jail pending his extradition to North Carolina. The interview lasted no more than one hour. The defendant was never detained or told that he could not leave the Police Station at any time from the time he arrived there until he was told he was under arrest. He was never informed of his Miranda rights because, as Robertson testified, he was suspected of no crime and the interview of him was for the purpose of locating Hawk. 9
Before leaving his apartment to go to the Police Station on May 23, the defendant delivered to Mrs. Trushka, his neighbor, an unbound, unsealed cardboard box containing some papers and asked her to keep it for him until he called for it. After the defendant had been placed under arrest at the Police Station, Mrs. Trushka telephoned the Police Station and said that she had that box and had seen some of its contents and wanted it out of her house. 10 Robertson went to Mrs. Trushka's apartment, and she gave him the box, which he brought to the Police Station. Papers in that box, including two military ID cards, respectively showing the defendant to be the wife of Sergeant Michael Lovett and that of Staff Sergeant Louis A. Cornelius, bore information that was inconsistent with that which the defendant had told Robertson earlier, as a result of which Robertson telephoned CID Agent Warfeld, at Fort McClennan, which is near Anniston. Warfeld came to the Police Station that afternoon and the box and its contents were delivered to him.
On May 23, Fort Bragg CID Agent Gary Belcher, who had been investigating the defendant on worthless check charges there since the previous February happened to be at an Army installation in or near Anniston and was instructed by the Army CID to go to the Police Station and investigate the case. Upon arriving there at about 2:00 P.M. on that day, Agent Belcher saw the defendant and asked him if he remembered speaking with him on the telephone at Fort Bragg in February, 1989, and the defendant said that he did. While Belcher had never seen the defendant, he recognized him from his very distinctive voice.
Based upon an affidavit filed by CID Agent Warfeld, a United States Magistrate in Anniston issued a search warrant for the search of the defendant to ascertain his sex. That search warrant was executed on May 24, the morning after defendant's arrest, by a visual inspection of the defendant's person conducted by Army physician Dr. Turner in the cell occupied by the defendant in the Anniston Jail. 11
After May 23, 1989, the Fort Bragg CID learned that the property in the defendant's apartment was to be "boxed up" as abandoned property, and CID Agent Mullens went to that apartment from Fort Bragg on July 25, 1989, and retrieved therefrom another military ID card in the name of Sharon Cornelius, having overstamped thereon "no check cashing privileges."
The defendant waived extradition, and on June 1, 1989, a North Carolina Probation Officer took custody of him at the Anniston Jail and transported him to North Carolina.
Based upon the above facts, the Magistrate concluded as follows in respect to the items of evidence the defendant had moved to suppress:
(a)...
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