United States v. Sheckles

• Citation: 996 F.3d 330
• Decision Date: 30 April 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-5096,20-5096
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dwayne SHECKLES, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

996 F.3d 330

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Dwayne SHECKLES, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 20-5096

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 3, 2020

Decided and Filed: April 30, 2021

ARGUED: Kevin M. Schad, FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. L. Jay Gilbert, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Kevin M. Schad, FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. L. Jay Gilbert, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee.

Before: ROGERS, NALBANDIAN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

After a lengthy investigation, the federal government uncovered substantial evidence that Dwayne Sheckles was a Louisville distributor for a large drug-trafficking ring. Sheckles pleaded guilty but reserved the right to appeal the district court's refusal to suppress much of this evidence. His appeal raises many Fourth Amendment questions. To name a few: What type of evidence creates probable cause to obtain a warrant for a phone's location data after Carpenter v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 2206, 201 L.Ed.2d 507 (2018) ? Did a sufficient "nexus" exist between Sheckles's drug dealing and two apartments to justify search warrants for the apartments? Did officers lawfully stop Sheckles's vehicle after he left one of these apartments while they were in the process of seeking the warrants? And does a third party's lack of apparent authority to consent to a search make a difference if officers learn after the search that the party had actual authority to consent? Ultimately, we find no Fourth Amendment violations and thus affirm.

I

The case against Sheckles stems from an investigation of three other people occurring almost a decade before he arrived on the government's radar. In 2007, the Louisville office of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was monitoring a local drug dealer named Byron Mayes. Mayes had been receiving drugs from two brothers, Julio and Alfredo "Freddy" Rivas-Lopez. Living in Phoenix, Julio would ship cocaine from Mexico to Freddy in Louisville. Freddy would sell the drugs to dealers like Mayes. This investigation led to the seizure of many kilograms of cocaine and hundreds of thousands of dollars and the convictions of all three drug dealers.

In 2016, these individuals were out of prison. The Rivas-Lopez brothers were living in Mexico (Freddy had escaped from a federal prison), and Mayes was living in Louisville. Sheckles came to the DEA's attention during surveillance of a suspected drug "stash" house in Louisville. Officers believed that this house's "operator" had been receiving drugs from Julio Rivas-Lopez in Mexico and selling a portion to Mayes. After learning of Julio's suspected drug shipment in December 2016, officers observed the driver of a red truck visit the house. The license plate came back to a rental-car company that had leased the truck to Sheckles. Later that month, officers executed a search warrant at the house and seized a kilogram of heroin and about $200,000. The phone of the house's "operator" contained many texts from Julio.

Officers continued to monitor the Rivas-Lopez family in Mexico. In early 2017, they learned that Julio had been murdered. In June, they learned from an undercover DEA agent that Freddy had taken over his brother's business and planned to send ten kilograms of cocaine to his "Louisville distributor." Officers had obtained a pen register for Freddy's phone. Using his phone records, they identified the likely phone number of this Louisville distributor. In July, a state judge issued a warrant to obtain location data from AT&T for the distributor's phone.

The officers suspected that the phone belonged to Mayes. But their "pinging" of it led to Sheckles. On July 7, the phone pinged at the Terrace Creek Apartments. Officers saw a Ford Expedition rented by Sheckles at this location and confirmed that he had an address there.

Three days later, officers learned from the undercover DEA agent that Freddy's deal with his Louisville distributor (Sheckles) had fallen through because this distributor had invested in other drugs. The officers decided to ping the phone again on July 11. This ping took them to the Crescent Centre Apartments. They saw Sheckles's Expedition parked in a spot assigned to Apartment 234.

The next day, an employee at the apartment building noted that someone had just made an anonymous complaint about drug dealing from this apartment. The apartment was leased to a "John Murphy," but Murphy had illegally subleased the apartment to two men nicknamed "D" and "Boy" for their drug dealing. A maintenance person had also smelled marijuana in the apartment, and an officer smelled marijuana as he walked by it. The officer knew that Sheckles was at the apartment at this time but that his pinged phone remained at the Terrace Creek apartment.

After learning this information, officers sought search warrants for both apartments late on July 12. While one officer obtained the warrants, others observed Sheckles leave the Crescent Centre apartments at about 11:30 p.m. They stopped his vehicle and smelled marijuana. The officers detained Sheckles until a drug dog could arrive. The dog positively alerted to the presence of contraband. The officers searched the vehicle and found a handgun. Sheckles could not possess firearms because of a prior felony drug conviction, so the officers arrested him.

A little under an hour after the officers initiated this stop, a state judge approved the search warrants for the two apartments. The officers first searched the Crescent Centre apartment. They seized about 1.5 kilograms of heroin and 144 grams of crystal methamphetamine. They also recovered two handguns and an AR-15 rifle.

While the Crescent Centre search progressed, others executed the warrant at the Terrace Creek apartment. It was the middle of the night. Sheckles's girlfriend, Cristal Flores, was sleeping in the apartment with her young daughter. About nine to ten officers entered with guns drawn. They ordered Flores to the ground. When she explained that she was pregnant, they told her to get up, holstered their weapons, and turned the lights on. Officers proceeded with the search. They found the pinged phone, a firearm magazine, documents containing the name "John Murphy" as the lessee of the Crescent Centre apartment, and paperwork for a storage unit at a self-storage facility.

The officers asked Flores about the storage unit. The parties dispute what was said. According to the officers, Flores calmly acknowledged that she had been to the storage unit and kept clothes and many one-dollar bills for her daughter there. She also allegedly stated her belief that Sheckles had retrieved around $40,000 from the unit a short time ago to buy the heroin found at the other apartment. During a suppression hearing, Flores did not recall these statements. She testified that she had no authority over the storage unit, was scared, and just wanted the officers to leave. At 3:20 a.m., roughly two hours after the officers’ entry, Flores signed a form consenting to a search of the storage unit. The search revealed a substantial amount of money, along with separate bags of clothes and one-dollar bills.

Sheckles was indicted on several counts. He moved to suppress the evidence against him, arguing that the government violated the Fourth Amendment when it tracked his phone, stopped his car, and searched his apartments and storage unit. After an evidentiary hearing, a magistrate judge recommended that the district court reject these arguments. United States v. Sheckles , 2018 WL 7297867, at *1–8 (W.D. Ky. Nov. 20, 2018). The district court agreed. United States v. Sheckles , 2019 WL 325637, at *1–6 (W.D. Ky. Jan. 25, 2019).

Sheckles entered into a conditional plea agreement. He pleaded guilty to five counts involving drug or firearm offenses. 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846, 856(a)(1) ; 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court sentenced him to 108 months’ imprisonment.

Sheckles reserved the right to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to suppress. He now invokes this right. When considering a denial of a motion to suppress, we review the district court's factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Hines , 885 F.3d 919, 924 (6th Cir. 2018).

II

The Fourth Amendment provides: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." U.S. Const. amend. IV. Sheckles alleges three violations of this text. He argues that: (1) the officers did not have "probable cause" for the warrants to track his phone and search his apartments; (2) they engaged in an "unreasonable" "seizure" when they stopped his car and detained him; and (3) they engaged in an "unreasonable" "search" when they looked through his storage unit.

A. Probable Cause for the Warrants

Sheckles claims that all three search warrants in this case lacked probable cause. This claim triggers well-established substantive and procedural ground rules. First the substance: Probable cause "is not a high bar." District of Columbia v. Wesby , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 577, 586, 199 L.Ed.2d 453 (2018) (citation omitted). It demands only a "fair probability" of criminal activity. United States v. Carpenter , 360 F.3d 591, 594 (6th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (quoting Illinois v. Gates , 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) ). When deciding whether this fair probability exists, courts must view the totality of the circumstances through the common-sense lens of ordinary people, not the technical lens of trained lawyers. See United States v. Christian , 925 F.3d 305,...