United States v. White
| Decision Date | 15 September 2014 |
| Docket Number | CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 2:13-cr-00224 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. DESMOND RA'KEESH WHITE, Defendant. |
Pending are Defendant Desmond Ra'Keesh White's motion in limine [ECF 21] and motion to suppress [ECF 22].
On April 2, 2014, the Court held an evidentiary hearing on both motions. At that hearing, Defendant represented to the Court that the issues raised in his motion in limine were mooted by the government's response. (ECF 39 at 3.) The motion in limine [ECF 21] is therefore DENIED AS MOOT. After the hearing, the parties filed supplemental briefing for the motion to suppress. For the reasons that follow, the motion to suppress [ECF 22] is DENIED.
Defendant is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Defendant moves to suppress statements he made during a July 9, 2013 traffic stop. Defendant also seeks to suppress all fruits of the subsequent search of the vehicle (including the firearm that forms the basis of the offense).
The following facts were adduced through evidence and testimony at the suppression hearing by Ericka Teunis, Corporal Justin Doughty, and Patrolman Anthony Gaylor. The facts are not seriously in dispute, except as to two key points indicated below.
On the afternoon of July 9, 2013, Corporal Justin Doughty of the Charleston Police Department pulled Ericka Teunis over while she was driving along West Washington Street in Charleston, West Virginia. According to Corporal Doughty, Teunis had just failed to stop at a stop sign. Soon thereafter Teunis had swerved partially off the road and into a parking lot as she passed by the officer's marked police cruiser, which was driving in the opposing lane of traffic. The Defendant and a male, identified to the Court only as "Bone", were also riding in Teunis' car, a two-door Kia coupe. After approaching the driver's side of the vehicle and speaking to Teunis through her open window, Corporal Doughty asked Teunis to step outside of the car.
At this point, Corporal Doughty's evidence conflicts with the testimony provided by Teunis. According to Corporal Doughty, he pulled over the vehicle to see if Teunis was intoxicated or having a medical issue. (ECF 39 at 35; cf. also ECF 43-1 at 6.) After approaching the vehicle and speaking to Teunis about her license and registration, the officer was satisfied from observing Teunis that she was not intoxicated and, thus, he made no attempt to administer a field sobriety test or a breathalyzer test or otherwise to inquire about Teunis' sobriety (ECF 39 at 35-37). However, while speaking with Teunis through the open driver's side window, but before concluding that Teunis was sober, Corporal Doughty smelled the odor of burned marijuana coming from the vehicle (ECF 39 at 12, 37, 56-58; cf. also ECF 43-1 at 6) and "felt like there could be illegal drugs inside the vehicle" (ECF 39 at 37). Corporal Doughty testified that he extended the traffic stop on the basis of this perceived marijuana smell. (ECF 39 at 56.) When heasked Teunis to get out of the car, it was "due to two others being in the vehicle so I could ask her about that." (ECF 39 at 12; cf. also ECF 43-1 at 6.) Outside, Corporal Doughty "asked [Teunis] about the smell and she kept saying she does not smoke marijuana but didn't know about the two others." (ECF 43-1 at 6; cf. also ECF 39 at 13.) Thereafter, Teunis gave oral consent for Corporal Doughty to search her car. (ECF 39 at 13; ECF 43-1 at 6.)
Teunis, on the other hand, claimed that after Corporal Doughty asked her to step out of the car he questioned her about being drunk. (ECF 39 at 94.) "He said, as he looked down at the floor, wouldn't even look in my eyes, he said, 'Well, I think you're drunk.'"(Id.) Teunis admitted that Corporal Doughty did not conduct any sobriety tests on her (Id. at 94-95) and "[n]ever even brought it back up again" after the initial question about her sobriety (Id. at 101). In contrast to Corporal Doughty's testimony, however, Teunis said that Corporal Doughty asked her nothing about marijuana or drugs, that there was no marijuana smell in her car, and that she did not perceive any marijuana smell on any of the other occupants of her car. (Id. at 95.) Teunis stated that she did not remember giving Corporal Doughty oral consent to search her car, although she did not actually deny having given oral consent. (Id. at 96.)
The dashcam video shows that after speaking with Teunis outside of the car the officer returned to the car, opening the front passenger seat door, and motioned for Defendant to get out of the car. He then motioned to Teunis to return to the car, and she returned to her seat inside the car. Corporal Doughty testified that at about that point he "went and spoke to the front seat passenger and started asking him questions about the smell." (ECF 39 at 13.) According to the officer's incident report, Defendant "admitted that he smoked [marijuana] earlier." (ECF 43-1 at 6.) Corporal Doughty claimed that when he asked Defendant, now outside of the car, if there wasanything illegal inside the car, Defendant denied it. However, Corporal Doughty noted in his incident report that he did not believe Defendant due to his "looking around and the tremors in his voice." (ECF 43-1 at 6.) Corporal Doughty placed Defendant in the back seat of his police cruiser. Doughty returned to Teunis' car and opened the front passenger door so he could speak to "Bone", seated in the back passenger seat of the car.
At this time, through the open front passenger door, Corporal Doughty observed a silver .357 Magnum revolver between the front passenger seat and a piece of plastic mounted to the seat. Corporal Doughty left the gun there and without saying anything else returned to the police cruiser and put Defendant in handcuffs. Corporal Doughty testified that he was satisfied that in the meantime backseat passenger "Bone" wouldn't have been able to get to the gun, and, in any event, that he was not concerned that "Bone" would reach for it as nothing was ever discussed about it. (ECF 39 at 41.) Returning to Teunis' car, Doughty drew his weapon and ordered Teunis and "Bone" both to put their hands in the air, radioed for backup, and put Teunis and "Bone" in handcuffs. He then retrieved the revolver from the front passenger seat. After other units arrived on the scene, Corporal Doughty read Defendant his Miranda rights. Defendant admitted that the gun was his and that he was currently on parole for a robbery charge. (ECF 43-1 at 6.) After Defendant was taken into police custody and again read his Miranda rights in the police station's interview room, Defendant again admitted to possessing a firearm, as well as to knowing that he was not allowed to possess a weapon. (Id.)
Patrolman Anthony Gaylor conducted a canine sniff of the exterior of the car, and the vehicle was subsequently searched by Patrolman Gaylor and a Corporal Young. According to the officers, Corporal Young found a "small marijuana bud" (ECF 43-1 at 6), "smaller than the headof an eraser on a pencil" (ECF 39 at 67), in a hard-to-reach spot in the floorboard area between the center console of the car and the passenger side seatbelt harness (ECF 39 at 84; ECF 43-1 at 6). Although the government's response to the motion to suppress described the marijuana bud as "burned" (ECF 26 at 8), Patrolman Gaylor's and Corporal Doughty's incident reports did not contain indications that the bud was burnt (ECF 38-37 at 1; ECF 43-1 at 6; cf. ECF 39 at 55), and neither officer testified that it was. Patrolman Gaylor admitted during testimony that the officers did not take any photographs of the marijuana bud or preserve it as evidence. Instead, it was destroyed at the scene. (ECF 38-37 at 1; see also ECF 39 at 67-68 ( ).)
Teunis, on the other hand, testified that after the police claimed they had found a bit of marijuana in her car, she said " (ECF 39 at 98.) Teunis testified that she did not see any marijuana being recovered from her car and that she did not see the officers react in any way that suggested they had found marijuana or any other drug. (Id. at 98-99.)
While on the scene, Teunis provided written consent for law enforcement to search her residence, which she shared with Defendant at that time. The officers later searched the residence and found a holster capable of holding the pistol found in the vehicle but not additional drugs.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const.Amend. IV. The "[t]emporary detention of individuals during the stop of an automobile by police, even if only for a brief period and for a limited purpose, constitutes a 'seizure' of 'persons' within the meaning of [the Fourth Amendment]." Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 809-10 (1996). When inculpatory evidence is discovered as a result of a Fourth Amendment violation, it may be subject to suppression under the exclusionary rule. United States v. Gaines, 668 F.3d 170, 173 (4th Cir. 2012).
The mandate of the Fourth Amendment requires adherence to judicial processes, and exemptions to the general requirement that law enforcement officers obtain a warrant to effectuate a search or seizure lie only in certain well-delineated circumstances. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 51 (1951); United States v....
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