United States v. Eymann

• Decision Date: 12 June 2020
• Docket Number: Nos. 19-2090 & 19-2101,s. 19-2090 & 19-2101
• Citation: 962 F.3d 273
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jonathan EYMANN and Gary Lyons, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

962 F.3d 273

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Jonathan EYMANN and Gary Lyons, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 19-2090 & 19-2101

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 22, 2020

Decided June 12, 2020

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied July 27, 2020

Victor Yanz, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Springfield, IL, for Plaintiff - Appellee

Daniel J. Hillis, Attorney, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Springfield, IL, for Defendant - Appellant

Before Wood, Chief Judge, and Sykes and Hamilton, Circuit Judges.

Wood, Chief Judge.

Jonathan Eymann and his uncle, Gary Lyons, were flying from California to Pennsylvania when they stopped around midnight at a small public airport in Litchfield, Illinois. Suspecting drug trafficking, law enforcement officers followed the pair to a nearby hotel and confronted them in the hotel's parking lot. The encounter ended in their arrests and the discovery of 65 pounds of marijuana in their airplane.

Asserting that the officers had violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in a number of ways, Eymann and Lyons filed a joint motion to suppress the evidence against them. After the district court denied the motion, Eymann conditionally pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana, reserving the right to appeal the district court's ruling on their suppression motion. Lyons proceeded to trial, where a jury convicted him of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and aiding and abetting the possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute. Both men now appeal the district court's denial of their motion to suppress. Finding no reason to set aside either the district court's factual findings or its ultimate conclusion, we affirm.

I

On July 20, 2013, Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") Special Agent Glen Harrington received a call and an email from Agent Jeff Spencer of DHS's Air and Marine Operations Center ("AMOC") about an airplane that would be landing that night at the Litchfield Municipal Airport. Spencer identified the plane as a single-engine Cessna owned by Elaine Pate and noted that the pilot would be Pate's husband, Lyons. AMOC had been monitoring the Cessna for months. Although it knew nothing inculpatory about the specific plane, owner, and pilot, AMOC found the airplane's movement patterns and quick-turn trips suspicious.

Spencer's email, which included information collected by AMOC research specialist Robert Keller, identified the airplane by its tail number. The email also indicated that on the weekend of May 24, 2013, an unknown pilot flew the airplane from California to Pennsylvania. The plane stayed in Pennsylvania for only about fifteen hours before returning to California. Then, on the weekend of June 21, 2013, it again flew from California to Pennsylvania and back; this time it remained in Pennsylvania for only five hours. AMOC identified Lyons as the pilot during the second trip.

The email noted additional circumstances that Keller found suspicious. In January 2013, the Cessna flew to Watsonville and Cloverdale, California, towns close to a known marijuana smuggling hub. During the May and June 2013 trips, the plane had landed at small, rural airports late at night to refuel when the airports were otherwise closed. Keller also found it odd that the plane apparently had flown through a serious storm during one of its cross-country trips. Finally, he reported that Lyons had been in some economic trouble and had just emerged from bankruptcy in 2012.

After evaluating AMOC's information, Harrington concluded that the pilot might be using the plane to smuggle drugs. This was consistent with his experience: every time in the past when Harrington had pursued a lead based on information provided by AMOC, it led to the seizure of illicit drugs. Harrington relayed Spencer's tip to his supervisor, Resident Agent-in-Charge Michael Mitchell. Harrington then called Lieutenant Lee Jarman of the Litchfield Police Department to coordinate assistance. Harrington and Jarman arranged to have a trained drug-detection dog available for use that night. They believed that the Cessna would land, refuel, and take off again, and Harrington wanted to get a sniff of the plane while it was on the ground. Jarman contacted the department's dog handler, Officer Shane Grammer, and instructed him to be available.

Harrington arrived in Litchfield at around 11:00 p.m. to meet with his team at the police department. After a short briefing, five of them (Mitchell, Harrington, Jarman, former Chief B.J. Wilkinson, and Officer Thomas Melchert) headed to the airport. The officers watched the area for about an hour; during which no airplane landed, there were no vehicles entering or leaving the airport, and the lights were off inside the airport's main building.

Lyons landed the Cessna at around 12:05 a.m. on July 21, 2013. It taxied behind the airport's main building and then parked in an open area. It did not enter a hangar and was not tethered to the ground. Harrington watched as Eymann and Lyons removed cargo from the airplane and entered the building. After a few minutes, the pair left the building and loaded cargo into the airport's courtesy car. (Harrington testified that he thought their cargo included a box, which he found suspicious, but no box was found in the later search. We thus disregard the alleged box.) The courtesy car operates on an honor system. Users simply provide a driver's license number and a signature on a form next to the car keys in the airport building's lobby. Lyons signed out the keys, and the duo left the airport in the courtesy car at around 12:27 a.m.

As the two men drove off, Harrington was concerned that they could be delivering contraband. He saw that possibility as a "more immediate threat" than the parked airplane at the airport. The officers therefore decided to follow the courtesy car. After a short drive, they saw it pull into a Quality Inn parking lot. Lyons, who was driving, parked in the last available space. The two then got out of the car and began walking to the hotel; as they did so, they noticed the officers.

Mitchell pulled into the lot as Lyons and Eymann were parking. He positioned his truck behind the courtesy car, and Harrington parked nearby. Wilkinson placed his vehicle in front of the courtesy car, thereby effectively blocking the courtesy car from moving in any direction. At 12:32 a.m. Mitchell activated his lights and got out of his truck.

Mitchell walked over to Lyons, showed his credentials, identified himself as a law enforcement officer, and asked to speak with him. Lyons cooperated while Mitchell asked him basic questions such as where he was traveling to and from and the nature of his trip. Lyons replied that he was flying from California to Pennsylvania for work. The exchange was conversational, and Mitchell did not raise his voice.

While Mitchell was speaking with Lyons, Harrington approached and asked for Lyons's identification. After receiving it, he approached Eymann with the same request. Harrington took both identification cards back to his vehicle to check for outstanding warrants.

Meanwhile, as Mitchell continued to speak with Lyons, Lyons suddenly became flush and fainted, collapsing into Mitchell. The officers placed him in the front passenger seat of Wilkinson's vehicle with the door open and the air conditioning on. They did not question him any further at that point about anything other than his medical condition.

While others saw to Lyons, Harrington discovered that neither man had an active warrant. Harrington then approached Eymann and asked him some questions about Lyons's health. He also asked Eymann if he had brought any marijuana from California. Eymann admitted that he had a small, personal-use, amount of marijuana in the car.

Eymann's admission prompted an escalation in the encounter. Jarman ordered Grammer and his drug-dog Arie to the scene at 12:33 a.m.; they arrived around 12:54 a.m. Grammer and Arie got to work right away, and shortly thereafter Arie positively alerted at the front passenger door seam. Grammer rewarded Arie with a towel to chew on, while the officers opened the car, removed the items, and spaced them out on the ground. (There was some dispute in the district court about the sequence of events: did Arie's alert come first and then the search of the car, or vice versa? Eymann and Lyons have not pursued this on appeal, and so we do not need to resolve the point.) Arie alerted on a piece of luggage, which the officers then searched. Once again, Arie was rewarded. The officers found a small amount of marijuana (about 2.5 grams) within the luggage.

Around the time Arie was sniffing around the courtesy car, Harrington frisked Lyons. During the frisk, Harrington felt what he thought was a stack of money in Lyons's front cargo pocket. Harrington asked Lyons what was in his pocket, and Lyons replied that he had $1,600 in an envelope for fuel and expenses; the envelope actually contained $2,600. Arie later sniffed the envelope and alerted.

After the officers found the marijuana, they handcuffed and arrested both Eymann and Lyons. They then transported the pair back to the airport, which they entered through the airport gate with the permission and assistance of airport agents. The Cessna was still the only airplane on the tarmac, and the airport still looked empty.

Grammer walked Arie around the Cessna for another sniff, and Arie provided another positive alert, followed as before by a reward. The officers opened the plane using a key they had seized from Lyons, and they immediately smelled marijuana. This time the quantity was considerable. The officers placed several bags from inside the plane on the tarmac and had Arie check each one. He alerted on three of them and (following a now-familiar pattern) received a reward. The officers searched the bags and found a total of 65 pounds (roughly 29.5 kilograms) of marijuana. In a later search of the airplane, they also found a...