United States v. Shetler

• Citation: 665 F.3d 1150,2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 18507,11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 15495
• Decision Date: 28 December 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–50478.,10–50478.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Scott Raymond SHETLER, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 15,495
2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 18,507
665 F.3d 1150

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,
v.
Scott Raymond SHETLER, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 10–50478.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Aug. 3, 2011.Filed Dec. 28, 2011.

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Victor R. Cannon, Glendale, CA; Liliana Coronado, Federal Defender, Ashwini Shrikrishna Mate, Assistant Federal Defender, Los Angeles, CA, for defendant-appellant.

Michael J. Raphael, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Jerry Chenwei Yang, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles, CA, for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, R. Gary Klausner, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 2:09–cr–01126–RGK–1.Before: STEPHEN REINHARDT and MARSHA S. BERZON, Circuit Judges, and MATTHEW F. KENNELLY, District Judge.^*OPINION REINHARDT, Circuit Judge:

Scott Raymond Shetler (“Shetler”) appeals from his conviction for maintaining his residence “for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using” methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 856(a)(1). Shetler contends that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress certain inculpatory statements he made to Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials. Because the government did not bear its burden of showing that these statements were not the product of government officials' concededly illegal searches of Shetler's home and garage, we reverse his conviction. Shetler further contends that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction, and that the statute is void for vagueness as applied to him. We conclude that, although the evidence was sparse, it was sufficient to allow a jury to infer that one of the primary or principal uses to which Shetler devoted his property was the manufacture, distribution, or use of methamphetamine. We therefore hold that he is not entitled to a judgment of acquittal on the ground of insufficient evidence. We also reject his void for vagueness argument.

I. 1. Factual Background

At 7:40 p.m. on September 22, 2009, an anonymous tipster later revealed to be Jamie Shetler (“Jamie”) called the Pomona Police Department to report that her father, Shetler, was manufacturing and using methamphetamine in his home in Pomona, California. Three police officers arrived at Shetler's home shortly after 8 p.m. Shetler's house has an attached garage. As the officers approached Shetler's house, they noticed that the door to the garage was open, and one officer smelled a chemical odor associated with possible methamphetamine production emanating from within. The officers observed that the garage was full of boxes,

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motorcycle parts, and other equipment. They also saw a partition wall that concealed the back portion of the garage from their view.

The officers entered the garage and conducted a visual sweep to determine if there was an in-operation methamphetamine lab or a person behind the partition wall. They did not find anyone inside the garage or any evidence that methamphetamine was then being cooked. The officers did, however, observe the following items in plain view behind the partition wall: a can of acetone, a duffel bag containing several plastic and glass beakers, and a jug that appeared to contain red phosphorus, a chemical that the officers knew to be related to the production of methamphetamine.

At approximately 8:15 p.m., the officers left the garage and knocked on the front door of the house. Shetler exited the house from a side door and approached the officers, who handcuffed and detained him. By this point, several additional police officers had arrived. The police then called into the house to Shetler's girlfriend, Cynthia Marohn, and her daughter, both of whom lived with Shetler. Marohn and her daughter stepped outside, and several officers immediately entered the residence and conducted a sweep. After completing this search of the house, several officers stayed inside the house, near the front door and in view of Marohn, who remained outside. At 8:45 p.m., while these officers were still inside the residence, Marohn signed a consent form that authorized the police to enter the premises and search for “methamphetamine, methamphetamine cooking and packaging material, [and] weapons.”

The police then began to search Shetler's home and garage. By 9 p.m., DEA agents had arrived. They put on protective suits and masks and performed a more thorough search of Shetler's garage than the police had previously conducted. By midnight, they had uncovered a number of items associated with methamphetamine production, including acetone, iodine and iodine pellets, hydriatic acid, muriatic acid, Drano, Heet, flasks with residue, empty bottles of lighter fluid, a water bottle with white residue, a yellow bi-layered liquid, a red powder they suspected to be ground up pseudoephedrine, and a hot plate. Inside the house, the police recovered a number of firearms, along with additional items consistent with methamphetamine use.

During this entire period, Shetler was detained outside of his house in view of the extensive ongoing searches. At 1:30 a.m. on September 23rd, a DEA agent read Shetler his Miranda rights. Shetler then confessed to the agent that he had been manufacturing methamphetamine in a laboratory in his garage.

Shetler was taken to the Pomona Police Department, where he was held until September 24th. At 10 a.m. that morning, a DEA agent took custody of Shetler. After reading him his Miranda rights, the agent drove him to his home and interrogated him regarding an additional firearm that he suspected had not yet been recovered. Shetler told the agent that he had a handgun hidden in a tool box in the back of his garage, and signed a consent form to allow the agent to enter the garage and recover the gun. The agent then transported Shetler to a DEA field office.

At 1 p.m., Shetler was again read his Miranda rights. Four DEA agents, including Agent Bradley Clemmer, then interviewed him. During this interview, Shetler made multiple statements regarding his methamphetamine use and production, along with statements regarding the firearms and ammunition in his possession. Shetler had not, at the time he gave these statements, had any contact with a lawyer,

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and had been continuously in detention since the time of his arrest.

2. Procedural History

Shetler was charged with maintaining drug-involved premises in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 856(a)(1) and knowingly possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). Prior to trial, he moved to suppress all evidence obtained during the warrantless searches of his house and garage on the night of his arrest, the additional handgun found on September 24th, and all statements he had made on the night of his arrest and during his interview at the DEA office.

After conducting two separate evidentiary hearings, the district court held that the initial warrantless sweep of the garage had been justified under the exigent circumstances, emergency, and protective sweep exceptions to the Fourth Amendment, and that the evidence observed during that sweep—the can of acetone, the duffel bag containing several beakers, and the jug of red phosphorus—need not be suppressed. It found, however, that the initial warrantless sweep of the house could not be justified under any of the exceptions applicable to the initial search of the garage, and was therefore illegal. The court further found that Marohn's consent to any further searches was tainted because the police sought her consent while officers remained physically inside the house after having already illegally searched it. All subsequent searches on the night of the 22nd were therefore deemed to be illegal, and all evidence obtained during the course of those searches was suppressed. Also suppressed as the fruit of those illegal searches was the additional firearm recovered by the DEA agent on the morning of the 24th, along with any statements Shetler had made relating to his possession of firearms. ¹ The district court denied, however, Shetler's motion to suppress the statements relating to his methamphetamine use and manufacture he had made to DEA agents on the night of his arrest and during the interview at the DEA office. It held that those statements need not be suppressed because they were “sufficiently the product of the initial legal search of the garage, and the Defendant's lawful arrest for methamphetamine manufacture thereon, and were not tainted by the illegal searches of the garage.”

At trial, the government introduced, through the testimony of Agent Clemmer, the statements Shetler had made at the DEA office. Clemmer testified that Shetler had admitted to manufacturing methamphetamine using a recipe he had obtained on the internet. He described the procedure of cooking and mixing the various chemicals that Shetler claimed to use, as well as how Shetler would go to multiple small pharmacies that would not require him to show identification in order to attain pseudoephedrine, a necessary component of methamphetamine. Clemmer also testified that Shetler had admitted that both he and Marohn consumed the methamphetamine he manufactured, that he would use the drug five times a week, two to three times a day, and that he had begun to use it in 1989. Clemmer could not recall the exact date that Shetler claimed to have begun manufacturing methamphetamine, but Clemmer believed he had said that it was five years before his arrest.

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The government presented three witnesses in addition to Agent Clemmer. The first, Pomona police officer James Suess, described the police's initial search of Shetler's garage and the items they had observed behind the partition wall. The second, DEA Chemist Helene Jennsen, described the process of manufacturing methamphetamine, and testified that she had tested two of the chemicals...