United States v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 29 December 2022
• Docket Number: 22-10009-JWB
• Parties: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. MARION TAYLOR, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff,
v.
MARION TAYLOR, Defendant.

No. 22-10009-JWB

United States District Court, D. Kansas

December 29, 2022

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOHN W. BROOMES, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.

This matter comes before the court on Defendant's motion to suppress. (Doc. 19.) The government filed a response (Doc. 24) and the court granted Defendant an opportunity to file a reply (Doc. 29). The matter came before the court for hearing on November 8, 2022. (Doc. 25.) For the reasons stated herein, Defendant's motion to suppress (Doc. 19) is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

I. Facts

At some point in the days prior to August 11, 2021, Defendant borrowed a car from a friend, Rueben, who arranged for Defendant to pick the car up from a car dealership in Junction City, Kansas. Defendant believed that the car was owned by his friend's then-girlfriend, Brea, and that he had permission from both of them to drive the car. He also believed that he could allow people to ride with him in the car and could exclude people from riding in the car. (Doc. 28 at 6:2-12:5.)

On the morning of August 11, 2021, Defendant and his friend Mondrae James were at a QuikTrip gas station in Wichita, Kansas, when Defendant was recognized by two police officers. Those police officers, Officer Boatright and Officer Kampling, recognized Defendant from

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previous interactions with him and from Defendant's rap music videos. After recognizing Defendant but before initiating contact, Officer Kampling searched Defendant's name in several databases that he could access from the officers' squad car computer. The first of those databases was NICHE, a database where, at the time,^[1] officers could see whether the City of Wichita had issued any warrants for a particular person's arrest. The NICHE database indicated that Defendant had two outstanding city warrants for his arrest. (Doc. 24 at 4-5.)

Officer Kampling also accessed Sedgwick County's website showing county warrants. On that website, Officer Kampling saw that Defendant had one outstanding county warrant for his arrest. Lastly, Officer Kampling accessed the Kansas Department of Corrections' database, KASPER, to determine whether Defendant had any previous convictions or was on probation or parole and found that Defendant was a convicted felon. (Id. at 5.)

The officers pulled up behind the car at the gas pump and initiated a stop. Officer Boatright approached the driver's side of the vehicle and Defendant quickly opened the door and stood next to the open driver's side door. Officer Boatright appeared to be slightly surprised that Defendant exited the vehicle, seeming to say something along the lines of “when you opened the door, I thought you were going to try and run.” (Government's Exh. 1 at 1:00.) Officer Boatright told Defendant that he had a couple of arrest warrants and handcuffed Defendant, then walked him back to the backseat of the patrol car. (Doc. 19 at 1-2.)

Defendant asked Officer Boatright about the warrants, and Officer Boatright got into the car to look at the squad car computer so he could answer those questions. Officer Boatright told Defendant about the warrants from the information he had available to him on the squad car computer. Within about three minutes of placing Defendant in handcuffs, Officer Boatright

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radioed into dispatch to verify the warrants. About three minutes after that, dispatch confirmed that Defendant had active warrants and that he had an additional warrant from Newton, Kansas. Dispatch eventually confirmed the warrants and that authorities in Newton, Kansas, wanted Defendant arrested on the warrant from Newton. (Doc. 24 at 5-6.)

At the time that Officer Boatright approached Defendant and placed him in handcuffs, Officer Kampling approached the passenger side of the car where Mr. James was sitting. Mr. James opened the passenger door around the time when the officers pulled up behind the car. Officer Kampling placed his hand on the inside of the door while it was partially open. It is difficult to tell from the AXON body camera video whether Officer Kampling pulled the door fully open or whether Mr. James pushed the door fully open from the inside of the car. Officer Kampling also could not recall at the hearing whether he used his hand to open the door fully. (Doc. 28 at 123:14-124:8; Doc. 19 at 3.)

Once the door was open, Officer Kampling saw a bottle of what appeared to be codeine cough syrup lying on the passenger floorboard. The part of the prescription label which shows the name of the individual to whom the medication was prescribed was torn off. At that time, Officer Kampling believed he had probable cause to search the vehicle because, in his experience, it is common for people to illegally use prescription cough syrup, particularly when the prescription label has been altered. Officer Kampling asked Mr. James to step out of the car and stand with another officer who had arrived on scene. Officer Kampling then leaned into the car to take a closer look at the cough syrup bottle and photograph it and when he leaned into the car, he could see a black handgun lying on the driver's side floorboard. Officer Kampling did not see the handgun until he leaned in to look at the bottle of cough syrup. (Doc. 24 at 6-7.)

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Officer Kampling then approached Officer Boatright to ask if Officer Boatright had seen a gun at Defendant's feet on the driver's side floorboard. Officer Boatright answered that he had not. Officer Kampling collected an evidence kit and tried to open the car's front door, but was unable to do so because the door was locked. Officer Boatright used the key fob to unlock the door. At this time, Defendant asked Officer Boatright, “they can search the car?” Officer Boatright answered that Officer Kampling had seen a gun on the floorboard and they would collect it. (Doc. 19 at 4.)

Officer Kampling went back to the car and photographed the gun in place where it was, and then with gloves on, he picked up the gun and took additional photographs of the weapon. He also wrote down the serial number and had Officer Boatright run the serial number through dispatch to determine if the gun was stolen. Officer Kampling, with another officer's help, conducted a search of the entire car, finding another cough syrup bottle with a torn off label in the center console and a brick of white powder that appeared to be cocaine in the trunk of the car. There was also a brown backpack in the back seat of the car which contained some marijuana and a third cough syrup bottle with the label torn off. (Id. at 4-5.)

While the search was happening, Officer Henry and Defendant spoke. At the motion to suppress hearing, Defendant and the government agreed to stipulate that Defendant initiated the conversation with Officer Henry; that Defendant did not say anything incriminating during that conversation; that Officer Henry and Defendant spoke about their children; and that Officer Henry and Defendant spoke about the white powder that was in the trunk of the car and where Defendant purchased it. (Doc. 28 at 140:25-141:8.)

Officer Hornberger assisted Officer Kampling with field testing the white powder that was found in the trunk. The field test contains pink liquid, and if the field test indicates a positive

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result, the test will have a blue haze separated from the pink liquid. In this case, the field test indicated a positive result, meaning that the substance field tested as positive for cocaine. Upon later laboratory testing, the substance was found not to be cocaine. (Doc. 19 at 5; Doc. 28 at 106:111.)

After the car was searched, Officer Boatright read Defendant his Miranda rights and asked if Defendant would answer some questions. Defendant responded that he would answer some of the questions and that it just depended what Officer Boatright asked. Defendant answered that...