United States v. Baez

• Decision Date: 29 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-2823,19-2823
• Citation: 983 F.3d 1029
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee v. Kelvin BAEZ, Defendant - Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

983 F.3d 1029

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee

v.Kelvin BAEZ, Defendant - Appellant

No. 19-2823

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: October 21, 2020

Filed: December 29, 2020

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied February 9, 2021

Craig Raymond Baune, Michael L. Cheever, Nathan Hoye Nelson, David P. Steinkamp, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, District of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, for Plaintiff - Appellee.

Kelvin Baez, Pro Se.

Rabea Jamal Zayed, DORSEY & WHITNEY, Minneapolis, MN, for Defendant - Appellant.

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, LOKEN and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

LOKEN, Circuit Judge, concurs in the judgment and joins the opinion except Section II.A.2.

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Kelvin Baez was indicted for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), 846, conspiracy to possess firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), and possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A). After a jury found Baez guilty on all three counts, the district court¹ sentenced him to 168 months’ imprisonment. Baez appeals, raising several challenges to his conviction and sentence. We affirm.

I.

From September 2016 to May 2017, Baez distributed methamphetamine as part of a drug-trafficking conspiracy in Minnesota. On May 5, 2017, Officer Jacob Gruber stopped another member of the conspiracy, Rodolfo Anguiano, for expired license plates. Officer Gruber arrested Anguiano upon seeing numerous dryer sheets on the floor of his car as well as a fake Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA") badge and more than ten credit cards in his wallet. A search of the car revealed large wads of cash and additional credit cards in different names.

Joined by two other officers, Officer Gruber proceeded to the hotel suite where Anguiano was staying. One of the officers knocked on the door. Baez's wife, Zyaira Gavino, opened the door and waved in the officers when they requested permission to enter. Baez was sitting in the front room of the suite next to Chevrolet keys and a methamphetamine pipe. The officers asked Gavino's consent to search "the room," which she granted, gesturing to some bags in the front room. In a backpack between Gavino and Baez, the officers found a Chevrolet Equinox owner's manual. After searching the front room of the suite, the officers proceeded through an open door to the back room and saw a locked armoire that appeared to be under cell-phone video surveillance. The officers called for a canine unit, which alerted at the armoire and at an Equinox in the hotel parking lot that flashed its lights when an officer pressed the unlock and lock buttons on the Chevrolet keys. Officer Gruber searched the rest of the back room and discovered two large bags of methamphetamine hidden under a sink.

At that point, Officer Gruber arrested Gavino and Baez. The officers obtained a warrant to search the hotel suite and the Equinox. In the armoire, they discovered methamphetamine and a firearm. In the Equinox, they discovered methamphetamine, another firearm, and a safe with ammunition as well as receipts in Baez's name. The next day, Baez made incriminating statements while in custody.

Baez and some of his coconspirators, including Anguiano, were indicted over the next several months. After pleading guilty, Anguiano unsuccessfully appealed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained from the searches of the armoire and the Equinox. See United States v. Anguiano , 934 F.3d 871 (8th Cir. 2019). The district court also denied Baez's motions to suppress the evidence found in the back room, the evidence found in the safe in the Equinox, and the incriminating statements that he made while in custody.

Baez was the only defendant among the conspirators not to plead guilty. At trial, he advanced an "innocent-intent" defense, claiming that he was infiltrating the drug-trafficking conspiracy with the intention of assisting law enforcement. To bolster this defense, Baez sought to introduce evidence regarding his mental health and a potential informant with whom he had been acquainted when he lived in North Carolina. In addition, Baez moved to compel the Government to disclose information about the potential informant pursuant to Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). The district court excluded the evidence that Baez sought to introduce and only partially granted his Brady motion. The district court declined Baez's request to instruct the jury that it would "negate[ ] the specific intent required by the charges" if Baez intended to "assist ongoing federal investigations" and believed that "his actions were not criminal."

The jury convicted Baez on all three counts charged in the indictment. At sentencing, the district court concluded that Baez's criminal history was overstated and departed downward from the guidelines, settling on a criminal-history category of III instead of a criminal-history category of V. Because Baez's offense level was 40, this resulted in an advisory sentencing guidelines range of 360 months’ to life imprisonment. The district court then proceeded to vary downward by more than fifty percent, sentencing Baez to 168 months’ imprisonment.

Baez appeals, challenging the denial of his suppression motions, the district court's failure to instruct the jury on his "innocent-intent" defense, the exclusion of the evidence related to his "innocent-intent" defense, the partial denial of his Brady motion, and the substantive reasonableness of his sentence.

II.

First, Baez argues that the district court erred in denying his motions to suppress the evidence found in the back room of the hotel suite, the evidence found in the safe in the Equinox, and the incriminating statements that he made while in custody. When considering the denial of a Fourth Amendment suppression motion, "we review the district court's conclusions of law de novo and its factual findings for clear error." United States v. Molsbarger , 551 F.3d 809, 811 (8th Cir. 2009).

A.

We begin with Baez's challenges to the admission of the evidence found in the back room and in the safe in the Equinox.

1.

With limited exceptions, evidence acquired during, or as a consequence of, a search that violates the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible. Utah v. Strieff , 579 U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 2056, 2061, 195 L.Ed.2d 400 (2016). The two exceptions relevant here are the independent-source doctrine and the inevitable-discovery doctrine. Neither doctrine applies unless the evidence would have been acquired by lawful means had the unlawful search not occurred. See Nix v. Williams , 467 U.S. 431, 443-44, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984) (explaining that neither doctrine puts the prosecution "in a better position than it would have been in if no illegality had transpired"). The independent-source doctrine applies if the evidence both would have been acquired by lawful means had the unlawful search not occurred and in fact was acquired (or reacquired) by these lawful means. The inevitable-discovery doctrine, on the other hand, applies if the evidence would have been acquired by lawful means had the unlawful search not occurred but in fact was not acquired (or reacquired) by these lawful means. See Murray v. United States , 487 U.S. 533, 539, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 101 L.Ed.2d 472 (1988) (noting that the inevitable-discovery doctrine applied in Nix because a lawful search "would have found" the evidence "had [the search] not been aborted" when the evidence was acquired unlawfully, but the independent-source doctrine would have applied "if the search had continued and had in fact found" the evidence).

Although the distinction between the independent-source and inevitable-discovery doctrines is not sharp, see, e.g. , United States v. Johnson , 380 F.3d 1013, 1014 (7th Cir. 2004) (expressing uncertainty regarding "which [doctrine] rules this case"), where exactly one draws the line between the two doctrines is unimportant. Underlying both doctrines is the principle that, "while the government should not profit from its illegal activity, neither should it be placed in a worse position than it would otherwise have occupied." Murray , 487 U.S. at 542, 108 S.Ct. 2529 ; see also Nix , 467 U.S. at 443-44, 104 S.Ct. 2501 (explaining that the point of both doctrines is to put the police "in the same ... position that they would have been in if no police error or misconduct had occurred"). Provided that the evidence would have been acquired lawfully if the unlawful search had not occurred, admitting the evidence puts the government in the same position that it would have occupied if the unlawful search had not occurred. This is true regardless whether the evidence in fact was (re)acquired lawfully—and thus whether the appropriate exception to invoke is the independent-source doctrine rather than the inevitable-discovery doctrine. See Murray , 487 U.S. at 541-42, 108 S.Ct. 2529 (explaining that admissibility does not turn on the "metaphysical" question whether it is possible for officers who retain evidence after seizing it unlawfully to "reseize[ ]" it lawfully).

One way for police to acquire evidence lawfully is pursuant to a valid search warrant. See, e.g. , Horton v. California , 496 U.S. 128, 139, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990). To determine whether evidence within the scope of a valid warrant would have been acquired had a prior unlawful search not occurred, we ask whether (1) law enforcement "would have sought a warrant even if the [unlawful] search had not occurred," and (2) "the warrant was supported by probable cause even without information gained from the [unlawful] search." Anguiano , 934 F.3d at 874.

Here, the officers ultimately obtained a warrant to search the entire hotel suite and the Equinox. Crediting Officer Gruber's testimony, the district court found that the officers would have halted their...