United States v. Garcia

• Decision Date: 10 September 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-10073,19-10073
• Citation: 974 F.3d 1071
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Javier GARCIA, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

974 F.3d 1071

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Javier GARCIA, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 19-10073

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted March 2, 2020 San Francisco, California

Filed September 10, 2020

Jamie Lee Moore (argued), San Rafael, California, for Defendant-Appellant.

Briggs Matheson (argued), Assistant United States Attorney; Merry Jean Chan, Chief, Appellate Section; David L. Anderson, United States Attorney; United States Attorney's Office, San Francisco, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before: Eugene E. Siler,^* Kim McLane Wardlaw, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge:

Javier Garcia again appeals his conviction for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C). In a prior appeal, we held that officers from the Salinas Police Department violated the Fourth Amendment when they entered Garcia's home without a warrant, ostensibly to determine whether someone inside posed a threat to their safety or required emergency assistance. United States v. Garcia , 749 F. App'x 516, 520 (9th Cir. 2018) ( Garcia I ). Though the officers knew nothing about Garcia before entering his home, they discovered him inside, detained him at gunpoint, took him outside in handcuffs, and ran a records check that revealed he was subject to a supervised release condition authorizing suspicionless searches of his residence. After discovering this condition, the same officers who had conducted the initial unlawful entry reentered the home to conduct a full search, during which they found methamphetamine and other incriminating evidence.

We must decide whether, under the attenuation doctrine, the discovery of the suspicionless search condition was an intervening circumstance that broke the causal chain between the initial unlawful entry and the discovery of the evidence supporting Garcia's conviction in this case and the revocation of supervised release in the underlying case.¹ We conclude that the evidence found in the search was not sufficiently attenuated from the constitutional violation. We therefore hold that the district court erred by denying Garcia's motion to suppress, and we reverse his conviction.

I.

A.

Officers Richard Lopez and Raul Rosales of the Salinas Police Department were on patrol when they saw a man, later identified as Alfonso Nevarez, run away from them holding his waistband. Nevarez ignored commands to stop and ran into an apartment on Fremont Street, where Defendant Javier Garcia resided. The officers surrounded the building; Officer Lopez stood guard over the front door while Officer Rosales guarded the back. Within five minutes, Officer Rosales informed Officer Lopez by radio that he had apprehended Nevarez in a nearby backyard (Nevarez had apparently exited through a window at the back of the apartment).

Even though Nevarez was now safely in custody, Officer Lopez and two sergeants who had joined him decided to enter the apartment without a warrant to check for injured persons and to conduct a "protective sweep." The three officers entered with guns drawn and encountered Garcia, who was coming out of the bathroom. Garcia told the officers that he had been asleep, and the officers observed creases on his face that were consistent with that account. But the officers nevertheless handcuffed Garcia—for reasons unexplained—and took him outside.

Once outside, the officers asked Garcia his name, which they then used to run a records check. The check revealed that Garcia was subject to a federal supervised release condition requiring him to "submit his person, residence, ... or any property under his control to a search" by "any federal, state or local law enforcement officer at any time with or without cause."² Purporting to rely on this condition, Officer Lopez went back inside the apartment to conduct a full search and found a wallet and bags of methamphetamine under a sleeping pad on the floor in the living room. Inside the wallet, Lopez found more methamphetamine and identification belonging to Garcia.

Officer Lopez placed Garcia under arrest and took him to the police station. Upon being questioned, Garcia admitted that the methamphetamine in the wallet was his.

B.

Garcia was charged with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. He filed a motion to suppress the evidence found in the apartment and his incriminating statements, arguing that the officers’ initial warrantless entry into his home violated the Fourth Amendment, and that the evidence was the fruit of that unlawful entry.

The district court denied this motion on the basis that the officers’ first entry had been permissible under the "emergency aid" and "protective sweep" exceptions to the general Fourth Amendment rule that officers must secure a warrant from a neutral magistrate before entering to search a home. See Brigham City v. Stuart , 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006) (emergency aid exception); Maryland v. Buie , 494 U.S. 325, 337, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990) (protective sweep exception). It therefore did not consider whether the exclusionary rule should apply.

Garcia appealed, and a different three-judge panel of our court reversed. Garcia I , 749 F. App'x at 517. The panel concluded that the emergency aid exception did not apply because the officers "lacked an objectively reasonable basis to believe that there was someone inside of the residence in need of immediate assistance," particularly in light of the fact that the officers already knew that Nevarez was safely in custody before they conducted their warrantless entry. Id. at 518–19. Nor did the protective sweep exception apply, because the officers had no reason to believe that there was anyone remaining in the apartment, much less someone who posed a threat to their safety. Id. at 519–20.

Although the panel concluded that the initial warrantless entry into Garcia's home violated the Fourth Amendment, it remanded to the district court to determine in the first instance whether the exclusionary rule required suppression of the evidence discovered during, and as a result of, the second search. Id. at 520.

On remand, the district court denied the motion to suppress once again, reasoning that, under the attenuation doctrine, the officers’ discovery of the suspicionless search condition was an intervening circumstance sufficient to break the causal link between the unlawful original entry and the discovery of the inculpatory evidence. It concluded that the facts here were "on all fours" with Utah v. Strieff , ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 2056, 195 L.Ed.2d 400 (2016), in which the Supreme Court held that the discovery that a suspect had an outstanding arrest warrant broke the chain of causation between an unlawful street stop and the discovery of evidence.³ Garcia again appeals.

II.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review the denial of the motion to suppress de novo. United States v. Ped , 943 F.3d 427, 430 (9th Cir. 2019).

III.

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." The typical remedy for a Fourth Amendment violation is the exclusion of evidence discovered as a result of that violation from criminal proceedings against the defendant. Wong Sun v. United States , 371 U.S. 471, 484–86, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). This rule—the exclusionary rule—encompasses evidence directly "seized during an unlawful search" as well as "[e]vidence derivative of a Fourth Amendment violation—the so-called ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’ " United States v. Gorman , 859 F.3d 706, 716 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Wong Sun , 371 U.S. at 484, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407 ).

It is settled for purposes of this appeal that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they first entered Garcia's home without a warrant. Garcia I , 749 F. App'x at 518–20. Had the officers discovered the evidence at issue during this first search, there is no doubt that suppression would be required under the exclusionary rule. And it is further undisputed that, but for that initial unconstitutional entry, the officers would not have known that Garcia existed, much less that he was subject to the suspicionless search condition that the officers relied on to conduct the second search. Thus, the incriminating evidence would not have been discovered if not for the unconstitutional entry.

The question before us today is whether, despite these facts, suppression of the evidence found in Garcia's home, and other evidence derived from that evidence, is not required because, under the attenuation doctrine, the officers’ discovery of the suspicionless search condition broke the causal chain between the Fourth Amendment violation and the discovery of the evidence.

A.

The attenuation doctrine is an exception to the usual rule of exclusion or suppression of the evidence. It applies when " ‘the connection between the illegality and the challenged evidence’ has become so attenuated ‘as to dissipate the taint caused by the illegality.’ " Gorman , 859 F.3d at 718 (quoting United States v. Ramirez-Sandoval , 872 F.2d 1392, 1396 (9th Cir. 1989) ); see also Strieff , 136 S. Ct. at 2061. In determining whether an intervening event has sufficiently purged the taint of a preceding Fourth Amendment violation, we consider three factors: (1) "the ‘temporal proximity’ between the unconstitutional conduct and the discovery of evidence," (2) "the presence of intervening circumstances," and (3) "the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct." Strieff , 136 S. Ct. at 2061–62 (quoting Brown v. Illinois , 422 U.S. 590, 603–04, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975) ). This is a fact-intensive inquiry that turns on the circumstances of a given case. See Brown , 422 U.S. at 603, 95 S.Ct. 2254.

The Supreme Court most recently applied the attenuation doctrine in Utah v. Strieff ...