United States v. Escobar-Benitez
| Decision Date | 03 December 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. CR13-00674-PHX-DGC,CR13-00674-PHX-DGC |
| Parties | United States of America, Plaintiff, v. Primativo Escobar-Benitez, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Arizona |
Defendant Primativo Escobar-Benitez has filed a motion to suppress. Doc. 27. The motion is briefed, and the Court held an evidentiary hearing on November 27, 2013. This order includes facts agreed to by the parties and factual findings from the testimony and exhibits presented during the hearing. For the reasons set forth below, the Court will deny the motion to suppress.
On April 2, 2013, investigators with Homeland Security Investigations ("HSI") executed a federal search warrant on apartment 192 of the complex located at 3838 East Camelback Road in Phoenix, Arizona. The apartment was being used as a "stash house" for illegal aliens being smuggled into the country, and a total of 16 undocumented persons were apprehended. The person responsible for operating the stash house, Lucio Castillo-Castillo, subsequently advised investigators that another apartment in the same complex was used as a stash house. Castillo-Castillo identified two adjacent apartments as possibilities, including apartment 98. After speaking with management at the apartment complex, HSI investigators decided to inquire at apartment 98.
On April 18, 2013, at approximately 6:15 a.m., agents conducted a "knock and talk" at apartment 98. Two agents approached the front door and knocked. A male voice, speaking Spanish, asked "who is it?" The agents responded in Spanish that they were police officers and would like to speak with the persons inside. Two minutes passed with no further communication and no visual contact with any occupants.
Multiple HSI agents had stationed themselves behind the apartment before the knock and talk was initiated. These agents stood outside a block wall that enclosed a rear patio. The agents who knocked on the front door notified the agents in back as they were about to initiate the knock and talk.
The agents in back saw the back door of the apartment open quietly. Two males emerged and began running across the patio toward a partially-open gate in the block wall. Agents standing just outside the gate and wall pointed their guns at the two men and commanded them to stop. One of the men, later identified as Defendant, stopped just short of the gate. The other ran back into the apartment, leaving the back door ajar.
Agents directed Defendant to walk through the gate, where they placed him in handcuffs. Agents then gave loud commands to the other individual to exit the apartment. When the individual did not do so, agents entered the patio, surrounded the back door, and again gave commands for the individual and anyone else in the apartment to exit. When nobody exited, agents entered through the open back door and proceeded room-by-room to clear the premises. They found the individual who had run back into the apartment hiding in a bathroom, and another 11 adults hiding in two closets. All occupants eventually admitted that they were illegal aliens.
Agents secured the apartment and applied for a search warrant. Upon receiving the warrant at approximately 4:30 p.m., agents searched the apartment and found various items of evidence relevant to this case.
Defendant contends that the agents seized him unlawfully when they commanded him to stop, directed him to walk through the gate, and then placed him in handcuffs. Defendant also contends that agents violated the Fourth Amendment when they enteredthe apartment without a search warrant and discovered the persons hiding inside.
Defendant asserts that he was within the curtilage of the apartment when he was stopped by HSI agents, that he therefore was within his home for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, and that agents cannot execute an investigative stop inside a home. Because the agents did not have probable cause to arrest him, Defendant contends, his detention in the patio area violated the Fourth Amendment.
The government argues that the stop and detention were lawful. The government also argues that Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment, and that his Fourth Amendment rights therefore could not have been violated by the actions of the HSI agents. The Court will address this argument first.
When Defendant was detained, he was in possession of keys to the apartment. No other person was found with keys. Defendant advised agents that he had been entrusted with the apartment by an individual named Sedamo-Ortega, and that Sedamo-Ortega left for New York approximately five days earlier. Defendant asserted that he had been maintaining the apartment and had possessed food and drinks within the apartment that he sold to the illegal aliens who were present. Defendant stated that a man wearing a mask would come to the apartment at night, provide him with additional food, and pay him $25 to keep the apartment clean. Sedamo-Ortega had advised Defendant that illegal aliens would be brought to and taken from the apartment at night. In addition, neighbors reported that someone who looked like Defendant had been seen driving a vehicle that was parked behind the apartment. Agents later determined that Defendant did not own the vehicle.
Defendant argues that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment because he qualified as an "overnight guest." See Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 90 (1998). The Supreme Court has held that "an overnight guest in a home may claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment, but one who is merely present with the consent ofthe householder may not." Id. at 90. Courts applying Carter to similar cases have held that a person qualifies as an overnight guest only if the individual is an invited guest, authorized to be in the house by someone with lawful control of the premises. See United States v. Gonzales-Barrera, 288 F. Supp. 2d 1041, 1050 (D. Ariz. 2003); see also United States v. Vasquez, 706 F. Supp. 2d 1015, 1023 (C.D. Cal. 2010); United States v. Rodriguez-Alejandro, 664 F. Supp. 2d 1320, 1341-42 (N.D. Ga. 2009).
The government presented evidence at the hearing that apartment 98 was leased by Jose Ramirez-Perez, Mario Estrada, and Mecanica Estrada. Ex. 10. The application submitted by these individuals also included references from Antonio Lopez and Jose Romero. The application was signed by Jose Ramirez. Id. Defendant presented no evidence that Sedamo-Ortega was lawfully in possession or control of apartment 98, nor that any of the individuals named in the rental application authorized him to stay at the apartment. Thus, Defendant has presented no evidence that he was an invited guest at the apartment by someone who had lawful authority over it. As the court concluded in Gonzales-Berrera, Gonzales-Berrera, 288 F. Supp. 2d at 1050.
The Court will not recount the full analysis set forth in Gonzales-Berrera, nor the additional authorities cited in Vasquez and Rodriguez-Alejandro. Suffice it to say that the Court agrees with the analysis in these cases, and that Defendant has presented no evidence to suggest that he was a legitimate occupant of apartment 98 when the HSI agents arrived on April 18, 2013. Because Defendant had no legitimate expectation of privacy in apartment 98, he also lacked a legitimate expectation of privacy in the curtilage. Thus, a valid investigative stop of Defendant while located in the curtilage could not be deemed a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.
The Ninth Circuit has made clear that the curtilage of a home is entitled to the same Fourth Amendment protection as the home itself, and that law enforcement officers may lawfully enter the curtilage on the same terms as they may lawfully enter the home. United States v. Perea-Ray, 680 F.3d 1179, 1186 (9th Cir. 2012). The Ninth Circuit has also held that the investigative or Terry stop exception to the warrant requirement "does not apply to in-home searches and seizures." United States v. Struckman, 603 F.3d 731, 738 (9th Cir. 2010) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)). As a result, Defendant argues that no valid Terry stop could have been made when he was still located within the curtilage of the apartment, that HSI agents did not have probable cause to arrest him at that time, and that his seizure was therefore unlawful. The Court does not agree.
As noted above, Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment and patio. His stop while physically located within the curtilage therefore did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights. Moreover, even if Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the premises, the Court concludes that the Terry stop was valid.
The Ninth Circuit has held that a Terry stop may be made at the threshold of a home: United States v. Crapser, 472 F.3d 1141, 1148 (9th Cir. 2007). In Perea-Ray, one of the principal cases relied on by Defendant, the Ninth Circuit confirmed the correctness of the holding in Crapser. The Court of Appeals explained that the suspects in Crapser and similar cases "knowingly and voluntarily exposed themselves to police officers," making a Ter...
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