United States v. Evans

• Decision Date: 23 March 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–1669.,14–1669.
• Citation: 781 F.3d 433
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee v. Acie A. EVANS, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

781 F.3d 433

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Acie A. EVANS, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 14–1669.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: Nov. 14, 2014.

Filed: March 23, 2015.

Anita L. Burns, Asst. Fed. Public Defender, Kansas City, MO, argued (Laine Cardarella, Fed. Public Defender, on the brief), for appellant.

D. Michael Green, Asst. U.S. Atty., Kansas City, MO, argued (Tammy Dickinson, U.S. Atty., on the brief), for appellee.

Before BYE, SHEPHERD, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.

Acie Evans entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and was sentenced to 180 months imprisonment. Evans now appeals the district court's¹ denial of his motion to suppress. In particular, Evans argues that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress a firearm recovered during an inventory search of his vehicle and later incriminating statements because police officers unlawfully towed his vehicle and conducted the inventory search with an investigatory motive. We affirm.

I.

On the morning of September 4, 2012, Kansas City, Missouri police officers responded to a call of a rape in progress at a residence. After arriving and beginning an investigation, one officer observed a tan four-door car leave an apartment complex roughly 1,000 feet away from the residence. The car stopped at a stop sign about half a block from the residence and remained idle for 30 to 45 seconds, even though no other traffic was at the intersection. Meanwhile, crime scene investigators at the scene recovered a Missouri identification card on the ground by the window that the assailant had broken into to gain access to the residence. The identification card bore the name Acie Evans and contained a photograph of an African–American male. Officers then observed the same tan four-door car drive by the crime scene, traveling at a speed of less than five miles per hour. One officer identified the driver as the same man whose photograph appeared on the identification card. The officer memorized the license plate number, and another officer ran the plate through the department's system, revealing the car was registered to a Bobby Evans. Because the last name on the registration matched the photograph on the identification card and the officer identified the driver as the man pictured on the identification card, officers decided to follow the car into the nearby apartment complex.

Arriving at the complex, the officers observed the car parked in front of one of the apartment buildings. The officers believed the driver had gone into that building, and went to speak with the apartment manager to determine if anyone named Evans was leasing a unit. The apartment manager indicated that no one by the name of Evans had leased any units but that an Acie Evans was listed as an emergency contact for one of the lessees. The apartment manager also remembered having shown an apartment to a man by the name Acie Evans before leasing it to its current occupant. While one officer spoke with the apartment manager, another entered the four-unit apartment building officers believed the driver had entered. Noticing that the door to one unit was partially open, the officer knocked on the door, and a man resembling the driver answered the door. The officer asked if he had any identification, and accompanied the man to his bedroom where he produced a Kansas identification card identifying him as Acie Evans. The officer conducted a computer check for outstanding warrants and discovered that Evans's license had been suspended. He then arrested Evans for driving without a license.

The officer informed other officers at the scene that he had arrested Evans and asked what should be done with Evans's vehicle. By this time, news crews were arriving at the location and the apartment manager wanted them to leave the private property. Officers informed the apartment manager that they believed they had a suspect in custody for the nearby rape and that Evans told the officers he resided in the unit, but the mother of his child had rented that apartment for him because an involuntary manslaughter conviction would have prevented him from renting the apartment on his own. The apartment manager informed the officers that she wanted both Evans and his vehicle removed from the property.

The officers decided to tow Evans's vehicle because of the apartment manager's request and the fact that Evans was under arrest and no other responsible party was on the scene to take custody of the vehicle. Although officers never asked Evans if there was someone else to take the vehicle, he offered that the mother of his child would be arriving within five to ten minutes. Five to ten minutes had already elapsed, and the officers decided they could wait no longer for someone to arrive to take the vehicle. Pursuant to the Kansas City Police Department Towing Policy, officers towed the vehicle to the police station and conducted an inventory search of the vehicle. During the search, officers recovered a loaded Jennings .380 caliber pistol from the center console of the vehicle. During later questioning about the firearm, Evans made incriminating statements regarding his ownership of the weapon.

Evans was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Evans filed a motion to suppress the firearm and his subsequent incriminating statements, alleging that the inventory search of his vehicle was unlawful because the police officers did not follow the department's towing policy when deciding to tow his vehicle and because the officers carried out the search with an investigatory motive. The district court denied the motion to suppress, finding that the decision to tow the vehicle was lawfully based on the department's towing policy and that the officers did not have an investigatory motive in carrying out the search because they did not expect to find any evidence relating to the rape they had initially been called to investigate. Evans entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal the suppression ruling, and the district court sentenced him to 180 months imprisonment. Evans now appeals the denial of his motion to suppress.

II.

Evans asserts that the district court's denial of his motion to suppress was in error because the officers unlawfully towed the vehicle from the apartment complex, rendering the inventory search invalid, and that, even if they lawfully towed the vehicle, the inventory search remained invalid because the officers conducted it with an investigatory motive. When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we review a district court's factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo. United States v....