United States v. Houston, 1:13-cr-37-HSM-WBC
| Decision Date | 18 February 2015 |
| Docket Number | No.1:13-cr-37-HSM-WBC,1:13-cr-37-HSM-WBC |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CELVIN HOUSTON |
Defendant Celvin Houston's three Motions to Suppress (Docs. 41, 42 and 46) and three Supplemental Motions to Suppress (Docs. 64, 65, and 66) are before the undersigned Magistrate Judge having been referred by the District Court for a report and recommendation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 636(b)(1)(B) and (C). Defendant is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. He seeks to suppress statements he made to law enforcement at the police station on the day of his arrest (Docs. 41 and 64); he seeks to suppress any information obtained from his cell phone (Doc. 42 and 65); and he seeks to suppress the recordings of phone calls he made from the Hamilton County Jail (the Jail) the day after his arrest. (Docs. 46 and 66). For the reasons stated herein, it is RECOMMENDED that the Defendant's motion to suppress his statements [Doc. 41 and 64] be DENIED as moot, his motion to suppress the contents of his cell phone [Doc. 42 and 65 ] be DENIED, and his motion to suppress the recordings of his phone calls placed from the intake/booking areas of the Jail [Doc. 46 and 66] be GRANTED.
Two evidentiary hearings were held before the undersigned Magistrate Judge on Defendant's motions to suppress: the first on July 30, 2014 and the second on December 19,2014.
A. The July 30, 2014 Evidentiary Hearing
Investigator Lucas Fuller of the Chattanooga Police Department's (CPD) major crimes division, Special Agent Gray Lane of the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and Officer Bill Bolden of the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, assigned to the security section of the Jail, were called to testify.
Lucas Fuller testified that he was monitoring police radio reports of a shooting of a police officer at the East Lake Courts public housing development on March 12, 2013. When he arrived at the scene, investigators had already marked off the crime scene. Officer McMillan had been shot, and there were multiple shell casings at the scene that did not belong to the officer's firearm. Items of personal property, including a phone belonging to the injured officer, were also on the scene. A single die and a lighter were found in proximity to the location of the gun battle. Police also found a cell phone with a blue tooth earpiece in a grassy area in the public housing project's courtyard. All of these items were in plain view in the common area of the housing authority property, which was not enclosed by any fences.
Investigators were conducting their initial investigation of the crime scene, which included assisting in the documentation of the registration of several vehicles that were parked in the area. The vehicles were next to the grassy area where the cellphone lay face-up. During the investigation the phone continued to ring. Investigator Fuller looked at the phone as it rang and could see the phone number of the person calling. Fuller then used his own cell phone to call the number that had been displayed on the abandoned phone. He asked the caller, who identified herself as Pam, whom she was attempting to contact. Pam told him that she was attempting to call "Squeaky." Further investigation led police to identify Celvin Houston (Defendant) as"Squeaky." On the basis of that identification, Mr. Houston was arrested on March 13, 2013, taken to the police station, and charged with being a felon in unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Special Agent Gray Lane of ATF testified he was the case agent on the felon in possession charge. After Defendant's arrest, Agent Lane and Detective Justin Kilgore attempted to conduct an interview. Houston had been arrested the previous night while inebriated, and, at 6:00 am, he lay down at the police station and slept. At 11:51 am that same day, Kilgore and Lane attempted to interview Defendant again. According to Agent Lane, Defendant said he had "slept it off," agreed to be interviewed, and signed a Miranda form waiving his Fifth Amendment rights at 11:51 am. Lane further testified that when Defendant asked for a lawyer during the interview, the interview was discontinued. Defendant disputes that he was competent to waive his Fifth Amendment rights or that the interview ended when he asked for a lawyer. It is unnecessary, however, for the undersigned to resolve these disputes since the government has stated it will not use this statement against Defendant at trial.
Following the interview, Defendant was transported to the Jail where he made three phone calls from the intake and book areas of the Jail. These calls were recorded by the Jail without his knowledge. The government has since provided Defendant's counsel with copies of these three recorded phone calls.
Agent Lane also testified about the telephone system at the Hamilton County Jail as follows: the Jail has a system where both the inmates making calls and the recipients hear a preamble which advises the call may be recorded or monitored. The government played a sample recording of this preamble at the hearing. The sample preamble warned the caller and recipient of the call that the call may be monitored. The computer generated voice in the samplepreamble ended with the words, "thank you." Lane testified that the entire preamble was not included in the copies of the three calls given to defense counsel; rather, each of the three recordings provided begins with only the last two words of the preamble, "thank you," indicating that the warnings that calls may be recorded were given before each call.
Hamilton County Sheriff's Officer Bill Bolden, who was assigned to the security section in the Hamilton County Jail, also testified that in March of 2013 the phone system did indeed provide the warning from calls placed in the intake/booking areas that calls may be recorded or monitored.
2. The December 19, 2014 Evidentiary Hearing
A second hearing on the Defendant's motion to suppress was held on December 19, 2014 in which Deputy Sheriff Eric Qualls with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department testified as follows: Qualls is a security intelligence officer at the Jail where Defendant was brought for intake and booking on March 13, 2013. Qualls testified that he is the person employed at the Jail who has the most knowledge on the subject of the phone system at the Jail. Qualls testified that on March 13, 2013, the Jail used Global Tel Link company to provide telephone service to the inmate population. When a suspect is brought into the Jail, he is first taken to the intake area and then the booking area. In both the intake and booking areas, he can pick up the phone to make a collect call. Under the Global Tel Link system, a call placed from the intake/booking areas on March 13, 2013 would not have had a preamble to the call warning the caller or the recipient of the call that the call may be recorded. In addition, there were no signs or other forms of notice in the intake/booking areas that a phone call may be monitored. The "thank you" heard at the beginning of the recorded phone calls made by Defendant in the intake/booking areas is the end of a separate preamble informing the recipient of the phone call that he is receiving a collect callfrom someone at the Jail. The originals of the phone calls at issue are no longer available because the Jail has implemented a new telephone system. This new telephone system includes a warning for all calls placed from the Jail, including the intake/bookings areas, that calls may be monitored or recorded.
The undersigned finds Deputy Qualls' testimony to be credible, and I conclude that when Defendant made his phone calls from the intake/booking areas on March 13, 2013, there were no warnings whatsoever that his calls may be monitored or recorded. Further, the government concedes there was no notice of any form given that Defendant's phone calls made from the intake/booking areas may be monitored or recorded.
Defendant moves to suppress statements given to interrogating law enforcement officers on March 13, 2013, on the ground that he did not voluntarily and knowingly waive his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination because he was inebriated when Mirandized and then told police he did not want to talk with them. The government in response states it does not intend to introduce any statements from this interview. Accordingly, it is RECOMMENDED that Defendant's motion to suppress these statements be denied as moot.
Defendant seeks to suppress all information received from the search of his cell phone on the basis that a warrantless search of the phone violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
When a party raises an argument that his Fourth Amendment rights have been violated by an unreasonable search or seizure, that party bears the burden to first prove he has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the thing or place searched. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978);United States v. Mastromatteo, 538 F.3d 535, 544 (6th 6 Cir. 2008). It is well settled that when a person discards property, he has abandoned it and no longer possesses a reasonable expectation of privacy in that property. See California v. Hodari D.,499 U.S. 621, 628-29 (1991) () (citing Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57 (1924) (...
To continue reading
Request your trial