United States v. Williams, 13–3034.
| Decision Date | 02 December 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 13–3034.,13–3034. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Maurice WILLIAMS, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Gregory S. Smith, appointed by the court, argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.
Nicholas P. Coleman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and John P. Mannarino, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.
Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, PILLARD, Circuit Judge, and SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND.
A jury convicted Maurice Williams on four counts related to his role in a conspiracy to distribute narcotics. On appeal, Williams challenges the constitutionality of searches that uncovered the drug evidence the government used against him at trial, the propriety of part of the prosecutor's closing argument, and the district court's refusal to accept an argument Williams advanced at sentencing. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
In September 2011, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) began an investigation of suspected narcotics activity in a house on Ninth Street, N.W. in Washington, D.C. On September 16, an undercover officer saw three different individuals approach a man—later identified as appellant Maurice Williams' brother—sitting on the house's front porch. Each individual engaged in brief conversation with the man, went into the house with him for about a minute, and then left. Officer Kenneth Thompkins and other MPD officers stopped each of the three individuals: two possessed cocaine; the third swallowed what the officers suspected were narcotics before they were able to reach him.
On October 21, Officer Thompkins and his partner were watching the Ninth Street house from their unmarked police car when they saw appellant Williams leave the house. According to Thompkins' subsequent testimony, Williams then got into a white Chevrolet parked nearby and drove off without putting on his seatbelt. Suspecting that Williams was another drug customer, Thompkins and his partner followed in their car, intending to conduct a traffic stop. Repeatedly looking in his rearview mirror, Williams stayed in the right lane and paused behind a double-parked car on Georgia Avenue to let the officers pass. The officers drove past in the left lane and, according to Thompkins' testimony, he saw that Williams still had not put on his seatbelt. They then pulled over to the side and waited until Williams began driving again. When he passed them, the officers stopped the Chevrolet.
As the officers approached Williams' car, Officer Thompkins saw Williams watch them in his rearview mirror, twice remove items from his jacket, and put the items in the car's center console. Thompkins, who smelled a “strong scent of fresh marijuana” coming from the car, Suppression Hr'g Tr. 15, asked Williams for his driver's license and registration. Williams said he did not have his license with him and did not have the registration because the car was rented. Thompkins made an inquiry with MPD and learned that Williams' license had expired. After arresting Williams for driving without a permit, Thompkins searched the center console, where he found four grams of fresh marijuana and 125 grams of powder cocaine.
Armed with this evidence, the police obtained a search warrant and searched the Ninth Street house the same day. There they found crack cocaine, additional powder cocaine, drug paraphernalia, and a recent letter addressed to Williams at that address. Eventually, prosecutors filed drug charges against Williams and his brother. As Williams was no longer in custody on the driving-without-a-permit charge, prosecutors obtained bench warrants for the arrests of both men.
On February 1, 2012, Thompkins arrested Williams' brother. Thompkins then called Williams' cell phone, told Williams of his brother's arrest, and—as a ruse—asked Williams to come to the police station to pick up his brother's property. Williams was arrested when he arrived at the station. In a search incident to that arrest, the police found, among other things, a set of car keys on Williams' person.
At some point that evening, Officer Thompkins asked Williams how he got to the police station; Williams responded that he had been dropped off. Later, Thompkins pressed a button on the key fob attached to the car keys, which caused the lights on a blue sedan parked outside the police station to flash. When he approached the car, Thompkins again smelled a strong odor of fresh marijuana through a partially open car window. Thompkins called for a drug-sniffing dog, which “hit” on the vehicle, indicating that narcotics were inside. Officers opened the driver's side door and saw a clear, plastic-wrapped package of crack cocaine on the inside handle. They also found 21.9 grams of marijuana inside the center console and paperwork with Williams' name on it under the sun visor. In a videotaped interview later that evening, Williams told an officer that he had obtained the crack from “some guy that he had just met from southeast” and that it was worth $3500. 2 Trial Tr. 217.
On January 26, 2012, a grand jury indicted Williams on four counts: (1) conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana, crack cocaine, and powder cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 ; (2) possession with intent to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C) ; (3) possession with intent to distribute 28 grams or more of crack cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B)(iii) ; and (4) simple possession of marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 844(a). All of the counts were based on the evidence obtained during the October 21, 2011 searches of the white Chevrolet and Ninth Street house. The drugs seized from the blue sedan on February 1, 2012 were admitted only as “other acts” evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b).
Williams moved to suppress the evidence the police seized on October 21, 2011 and February 1, 2012. The district court denied the motion, and a jury convicted Williams on all counts. On April 11, 2013, the court sentenced Williams to 63 months' imprisonment.
On appeal, Williams argues that the district court should have suppressed the evidence the police seized on both days because the seizures violated the Fourth Amendment, that the prosecutor improperly vouched for the credibility of police witnesses during closing argument at trial, and that the court erred in refusing to consider sentencing disparities between federal and District of Columbia sentencing guidelines as a ground for a downward sentencing variance under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6). We address these arguments below.
Williams' first contention is that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the drug evidence arising out of the October 21 car stop. As noted above, Officer Thompkins testified he twice saw that Williams was driving without a buckled seatbelt in violation of a District of Columbia ordinance: when Williams first drove away from the Ninth Street house, and when Thompkins' car passed Williams' on Georgia Avenue. For his part, Williams testified he was wearing his seatbelt from the get-go. He was wearing it, he said, because a seatbelt had saved his life in a serious car accident the year before. From then on, he explained, he always buckled up.
The district court concluded that Williams' testimony was credible. United States v. Williams, 878 F.Supp.2d 190, 201 (D.D.C.2012). From this, Williams deduces that the court found he was in fact wearing a seatbelt. As a consequence, he maintains that Thompkins could not have had probable cause to stop him for not wearing one, and that Thompkins therefore violated the Fourth Amendment by doing so. In addition, Williams argues that, because the items of evidence seized in the subsequent car search were the proceeds of the unlawful stop, the court should have excluded them from the trial. He further contends that the court should have suppressed the evidence seized from the Ninth Street house as well, because the warrant that justified that search and seizure was premised on the evidence Thompkins obtained from the search of the car.
Williams does not dispute that an officer may constitutionally stop an automobile if he has probable cause to believe that the driver has committed a motor vehicle violation. See Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 819, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). Nor does he dispute that, if the stop of the car was lawful, the search of the car was justified by the officers' subsequent observation of Williams twice taking things from his jacket and putting them in the center console, combined with the strong smell of marijuana coming from the car. See United States v. Jackson, 167 Fed.Appx. 812, 813 (D.C.Cir.2005) (); see also United States v. Washington, 670 F.3d 1321, 1323 (D.C.Cir.2012). He maintains, however, that the district court's finding that Thompkins had probable cause to stop the white Chevrolet cannot be squared with the court's acceptance of Williams' testimony that he was wearing his seatbelt all along.
But the circle is readily squared in the way the district court squared it. It is true that the court found that Williams credibly testified that he buckled his seatbelt. The court also found, however, that Thompkins credibly testified that he saw what he thought was an unbuckled seatbelt. In short, it “found them both to be credible.” Williams, 878 F.Supp.2d at 202. Moreover, the court further found that, “even if Maurice Williams were wearing his seatbelt, ... Thompkins was objectively reasonable in his belief that the defendant...
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