US v. Santiago-Lugo
| Decision Date | 03 October 1995 |
| Docket Number | Crim. 95-029 (JAF). |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Israel SANTIAGO-LUGO (01), Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Bruce A. Pagel, Special Litigation Counsel, Francisco Rebollo-Casalduc, Guillermo Gil, U.S. Attorney, District of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Karen Tandy, Deputy Chief for Litigation, Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Section, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.
Erick Morales, Humberto Ramirez, San Juan, PR, for Defendant.
The court has considered the defendant's motion to suppress evidence, Docket Document Nos. 410 & 485, and the government's response, Docket Document No. 440. The court has also considered the supplemental filings made by the parties after the suppression hearing held on August 29, 1995. See Docket Document Nos. 555 & 559. On the basis of the parties' arguments and submissions on a stipulated record, the court expands on our earlier denial of defendant's motion to suppress categories of evidence one and three described below. Judgment is reserved with respect to evidence category two.
During the months of July and August 1993, a civil seizure warrant issued, related to Civil Case No. 93-1955 (JP), ordering the seizure of various of defendant Santiago-Lugo's properties, including two residential structures and their permanent fixtures, furnishings, and content, identified as defendants in rem. See contents of Civil No. 93-1955 (JP). See also Application for Seizure Warrant and Seizure Warrant, under Miscellaneous No. 93-W002(30) HL.
The two residential properties targeted by this narcotics-related civil forfeiture were identified as follows: (1) One Urban Lot # 72, located at Ibiza Street, Paseo Las Brisas, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, with all its contents, appurtenances, and improvements thereon, and (2) One Parcel of Land located at Contorno Ward, Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, with all its contents, appurtenances, and improvements thereon. These properties were the primary and secondary residences of Israel Santiago-Lugo, respectively.
The civil seizure warrant was executed by the U.S. Marshals Service on or about August 17, 1993, and the contents were duly inventoried by the U.S. Marshals Service and a U.S. Marshals Service contractor, Caribbean Inventory and Marketing Service, Inc. ("CIMS"). See Government's Exhibits 4, 5, 6, and 10, Suppression Hearing.
The inventory documents show that most items qualifying as "content" were physically taken from the properties. Other less portable items, such as electric ranges, refrigerators, and air conditioners, remained on the properties under U.S. Marshals Service control. Israel Santiago-Lugo, who resided primarily at Paseo Las Brisas, executed an agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service to remain at the Paseo Las Brisas property as a tenant, being responsible for the items not removed, pending final disposition of the civil forfeiture proceedings. See Government's Exhibit 9, Suppression Hearing.
During the process of executing the civil forfeiture seizure warrant, law enforcement personnel assisting the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, and CIMS, inventoried and removed the content of a home office that Israel Santiago-Lugo kept at the Paseo Las Brisas residence. One day later, on August 18, 1995, a Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA") agent by the name of Frederick Marshall, applied for a criminal search warrant directed to the contents previously removed from Israel Santiago-Lugo's home office at Paseo Las Brisas, including a computer, documents, ledgers, bank documents, corporate documents, telephone listings, and other papers and documents that, during the required inventory under the civil seizure warrant, appeared to have potential value in the ongoing investigation of Israel Santiago-Lugo's activities for narcotics trafficking and money laundering, as well as other criminal violations. DEA Agent Frederick Marshall subscribed a detailed affidavit to support probable cause.1
The search warrant was issued and executed to allow the DEA an opportunity to carefully inspect the contents previously removed by virtue of the seizure warrant. Since the property had been seized and was legally in the hands of the government, the criminal search warrants were served upon the actual custodians, and the documents were made available to Internal Revenue Service agents.
The stipulated record and the statements made by counsel for the defendant at the suppression hearing confirm that Israel Santiago-Lugo has not attacked the validity of the civil seizure, and case No. 93-1955 (JP) stands ready for disposition on the merits.
In 1995, subsequent investigations resulted in the present indictment against Israel Santiago-Lugo for narcotics, continuing criminal enterprise, drug conspiracy, money laundering, and a host of other related charges. The defendant's motion to suppress claims that for purposes of the present indictment, the uncontested civil seizure, the resulting inventory and removal of content, and the subsequently issued search warrant, constitute an illegal search and seizure in contravention to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The defendant's motion to suppress is directed to three distinct categories of items.
First Category:
This first category was part of the content removed from the Paseo Las Brisas residence after being inventoried by the U.S. Marshals Service and CIMS. The items were not, at the time of seizure, examined in greater detail and were further searched and examined only after the execution of the search warrant subsequently obtained based on the affidavit of DEA Agent Frederick Marshall.
Second Category:
The second category of items which the defendant seeks to suppress consists of two letters containing incriminatory information regarding Santiago-Lugo, his brother (who was subsequently murdered), and others of his co-conspirators. As we discuss below, these letters were initialed by Special Agent Alfredo Bellamy before they were inventoried and removed from the premises with the rest of the items taken for safekeeping.2
Third Category:
The third category consists of two firearms seized either at the Paseo Las Brisas residence or in a vehicle also seized on the premises.
In addition to stipulating that the above recital of facts is the sequence of events that leads to the motion to suppress, the parties also stipulated that the criminal search warrant was never formally returned as required by Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(d).
Defendant alleges that law enforcement officers could not, despite having procured a civil seizure warrant covering the residence, its content, and all permanent furnishings and fixtures, legally conduct an inventory search of the movable contents of the residences without a separate criminal search warrant naming the items to be searched with the requisite particularity and a particularized showing of probable cause. Such a claim misconceives the nature of a civil seizure and the resulting inventory process and misunderstands the existing jurisprudence governing the availability of an inventory search attendant to a seizure of residential property.
Undoubtedly, there exists a growing and relatively uniform body of law that prohibits the government from conducting a warrantless inventory search of the contents of a residence attendant to a seizure of the residential property. United States v. Ladson, 774 F.2d 436 (11th Cir.1985); United States v. Parr, 716 F.2d 796 (11th Cir.1983); United States v. Showalter, 858 F.2d 149 (3rd Cir. 1988); United States v. Adams, 845 F.Supp. 1531 (M.D.Fla.1994). In Ladson, like its progeny, the government attempted to justify an inventory search of a residence attendant to a civil seizure of the residential property without first having sought and attained court authorization to enter the premises and conduct the inventory. Because the seizure warrant did not order the seizure of the contents of the home nor authorize entry, the court concluded that the government exceeded the scope of the issued warrant. Ladson, 774 F.2d at 440. The court, following Parr, refused to extend the inventory exception to the warrant preference rule to the inventory of a residence. Id. With this rule of law, we have no quarrel.
However, the case now before the court differs from Ladson and its progeny in two significant aspects. First, the warrant procured by the government in this case expressly authorized the seizure of content and permanent fixtures and furnishings, many of which would certainly have been within the residence. Entry into the residence was, therefore, a natural and necessary consequence of executing the warrant. Ladson, itself, acknowledges that entry would be justified on these grounds. Id.
Second, and most importantly, the warrant expressly authorizes an inventory of the contents of the residence, which inventory is narrowly circumscribed and complies with the United States Marshals Service formalized policies and procedures for the seizure of assets. See Government's Exhibit 1, Suppression Hearing, p. 9. See also United States Marshals Service, Policy and Procedures Manual, Vol. XXI, Seized Assets, pp. 21-69 (1994). Unauthorized inventory searches leave the court exposed to the danger of post hoc justification, the government having created no reliable record of the basis upon which the inventory was to be conducted. See South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 383, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976). But, where the...
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