United States v. Davis
| Decision Date | 14 November 2012 |
| Docket Number | Criminal No.: 4:12-cr-00267-RBH |
| Parties | United States of America, v. Christopher Jamie Davis. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina |
This matter is before the Court following a hearing held on October 16, 2012, regarding Defendant Christopher Jamie Davis's motion to suppress evidence seized after a traffic stop in Aynor, South Carolina. The Court took the motion under advisement and, after considering the parties' arguments and the testimony of the witnesses, denies Davis's motion.
On November 16, 2011, Officer Cox, with the Aynor Police Department, observed the vehicle in which Davis was riding as a passenger speeding on Highway 501. Officer Cox proceeded to stop the vehicle, which had been rented by another person who was not in the vehicle at the time of the stop.1 During the stop, Officer Cox testified that he recognized the smell of marijuana. He called for Deputy Tabitha Smith, with the Horry County Sheriff's Office, to assist him while he performed a search of the vehicle. Davis and the driver were handcuffed and seated in the backseat of Officer Cox's patrol car while the search was performed. Ultimately, Officer Cox discovered two red Solo cups containing Grey Goose vodka in the center console, an open Grey Goose bottle in the glove box, and an extinguished marijuana "roach" floating in one of the Solo cups. Both Davis and the driver were arrested for possessing an open container of vodka inviolation of South Carolina law. Officer Cox left to transport Davis and the driver to the detention facility.
While the vehicle was being loaded onto a wrecker for impoundment, Deputy Smith observed a bag on the ground, underneath the passenger side of the vehicle. She asked the driver of the wrecker whether the bag was his; however, he denied it was. When she opened the bag, Deputy Smith found its contents were relevant to Officer Cox's suspicions. She called Officer Cox, who was on his way to the detention facility, back to the scene of the traffic stop. When Officer Cox returned, he and Deputy Smith inventoried the contents of the bag, which displayed the name "Davis" on the outside. The contents included clear bags of white powder, pills, and "rocks"; a green, leafy substance; a digital scale; a glass plate; razor blades; two handguns; bullets; and Davis's identification card. The Government subsequently indicted Davis for possession of cocaine and cocaine base with intent to distribute, as a felon in possession of a firearm, and for possession of a firearm in relation to drug trafficking. His motion to suppress the firearms and drugs as fruit of an unconstitutional search is now before the Court.
The question before the Court is whether Davis maintained a reasonable expectation of privacy in his bag containing the handguns and drugs, where a search of the bag and its contents would be unreasonable and require a warrant. Davis contends the contents of the bag should be suppressed at trial because no search warrant was issued. He argues the bag was neither subject to the automobile exception to the warrant requirement nor abandoned property. The Governmentresponds that Davis lost any reasonable expectation of privacy in the bag when he placed it on the ground underneath the vehicle.2
As a preliminary matter, in reviewing the testimony of both Officer Cox and Deputy Smith, as well as the testimony of the driver of the wrecker, the Court finds no inconsistencies in the witnesses' accounts and that all witnesses were credible. This determination is supported by the witnesses' sequestration during the hearing at Davis's request, as well as the exhibits and video of the traffic stop, which were reviewed by the Court in its entirety and which corroborated the testimony of each witness. Furthermore, critical to this analysis, the Court finds that, while the driver was being questioned by a distracted Officer Cox and before Deputy Smith arrived at the scene, Davis opened the front passenger door and placed the bag underneath the vehicle. Indeed, no witness who testified at the hearing saw Davis handle the bag. This finding is supported, first, by the fact that Officer Cox never observed Davis's attempt to get rid of (or to hide) the bag, yet the bag was found on his side of the vehicle. Second, the video shows the front passenger side door3 open and then close while Officer Cox, standing behind the vehicle with the driver, attempted to get the driver's consent to search the vehicle. Finally, Davis never disputed this fact in his argument at the hearing.
Two possible inferences can be drawn from Davis's placing the bag on the ground underneath the vehicle. The first is, as Davis argues, that he was hiding the bag—unquestionably inan attempt to prevent Officer Cox from discovering its illegal contents—and that he never intended to relinquish his Fourth Amendment rights in the bag but instead intended to retrieve it later, maintaining an expectation of privacy in the bag and its contents. The second possible inference is that Davis intended to abandon and get rid of the bag, separating it from the vehicle and hoping Officer Cox would not connect it to him. Davis argues that no evidence was introduced to support the second inference, except the mere and insufficient fact that the bag was on the side of the road. However, Davis's subjective expectation, by itself, is not dispositive of this issue. Rather, his expectation of privacy, for Fourth Amendment purposes, must be objectively reasonable.
The Fourth Amendment protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. Defendants must have "manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in their [property] that society accepts as objectively reasonable." California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 39 (1988). "[T]he proper test for abandonment is not whether all formal property rights have been relinquished, but whether the complaining party retains a reasonable expectation of privacy in the [property] alleged to be abandoned." United States v. Haynie, 637 F.2d 227, 237 (4th Cir. 1980) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
It is well settled that "[t]here is no reasonable expectation of privacy in containers or contraband dropped or abandoned by a suspect fleeing from law enforcement officials." United States v. Clemons, 72 F.3d 128, 1995 WL 729479, at *3 (4th Cir. 1995) (citing California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 629 (1991). Moreover, the amount of cases involving defendants attempting to separate themselves from contraband comes as no surprise—especially the situation in which a suspect will expressly deny ownership of bags in order to avoid arrest. The Fourth Circuit has routinely held that such denials, even if the sole reason for the denial was to avoid incrimination, aretantamount to abandonment of the property. See United States v. Han, 74 F.3d 537, 544 (4th Cir. 1996); United States v. Leshuk, 65 F.3d 1105, 1111 (4th Cir. 1995); United States v. Flowers, 912 F.2d 707, 711 (4th Cir. 1990); United States v. Clark, 891 F.2d 501, 506 (4th Cir. 1989); United States v. Williams, 538 F.2d 549,...
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