US v. Walker
| Decision Date | 10 November 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 85 CR 797.,85 CR 797. |
| Citation | 673 F. Supp. 292 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Leon WALKER, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Stephen Heinze, Asst. U.S. Atty., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.
James Holloway, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.
On December 10, 1985, four Calumet Park police officers went to the home of defendant Leon Walker armed with a $50,000 bail bond forfeiture warrant from Peoria County. In the process of executing the warrant, the officers entered Walker's home and seized hundreds of articles of allegedly stolen mail. Later that day, the officers obtained Walker's consent to search his home for a mailbox key. During this search, the officers seized a few more articles of mail but did not discover the key. On April 30, 1986, Walker was indicted on charges of possessing stolen mail in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1708 and related bank fraud offenses, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1344, 2, and 1029(a)(2) and (b)(1).
Walker subsequently moved to suppress the mail seized on the morning of December 101 on the grounds that the seizure violated the Fourth Amendment. Pursuant to § 28 U.S.C. 636(b)(1)(B), this court referred the motion to Magistrate Bernard Weisberg. The magistrate held an evidentiary hearing on July 14 and 28, 1986. On February 27, 1987, the magistrate issued a comprehensive and thoughtful Report and Recommendation Regarding the Motion to Suppress ("R & R") in which he recommended that the motion to suppress be granted.
On March 9, 1987 the Government filed with this court objections to the magistrate's report ("Gov."), as provided by 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). It argued that the seizure of the mail did not violate the Fourth amendment and that, even if it did, the inevitable discovery doctrine of Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984), makes suppression of the evidence improper. For the reasons set forth below, reasons which differ from those set forth by the magistrate, this court holds that the search did violate the Fourth amendment and, further, that the inevitable discovery doctrine does not apply. Accordingly, defendant's motion to suppress must be granted.
Although the parties presented very different versions of the events that transpired on December 10, many facts are not in dispute. Four Calumet police officers— Officers Nagle and Wright and Investigators Wiessner and Radwan—arrived at Walker's home some time between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. They had with them a $50,000 bail bond forfeiture warrant from Peoria County. The underlying charge was possession and manufacture of a controlled substance.
In the weeks prior to December 10, the police had been on the lookout for Walker's wife. They suspected her involvement in the robbery of numerous postal boxes in the vicinity of the Walker home. They wanted to bring her in for questioning, but they did not believe they had probable cause for her arrest or to search her home. Thus, on the morning of December 10, they arrived at the Walker residence armed only with a warrant for Walker's arrest.
Before executing the warrant, the officers checked to see if Mrs. Walker's car was there. It was. Nagle, Wiessner, and Radwan went to the front door; Wright went to the back of the house. When Nagle knocked, Walker opened the door and allowed the officers to enter. All agree that Walker was calm and cooperative. At this point, however, the stories diverge.
According to the police, Nagle immediately read Walker his Miranda rights. While he was doing so, the officers noticed two stacks of letters on a shelf to their right. Each stack contained between 10 and 30 letters, and the officers could see that the envelopes on the top of the stacks were not addressed to Walker or to the Walker address.
The police further testified that Walker was clad in pajama bottoms and a tee shirt and that, after reading Walker his rights, Nagle ordered Walker to get dressed. Nagle also asked Walker if there was anyone else in the house, and Walker responded that his wife and nephew were sleeping in bedrooms at the back of the house. Walker then turned and headed for his bedroom; the three officers followed.
On their way to the bedroom, the men passed through the living room and into the kitchen, where the officers spotted between sixty and eighty additional articles of mail on the counter and kitchen table. Radwan stayed in the kitchen, Nagle accompanied Walker to his bedroom where his wife was sleeping, and Wiessner went to the adjoining bedroom where Walker's nephew slept. Wiessner awakened the nephew, told him to get dressed and proceeded to the Walker bedroom.
In the bedroom, Nagle and Wiessner observed hundreds of articles of mail scattered on the floor, dresser and bed. They also saw three large briefcases. Two were open and filled with mail; the other was closed.
Nagle asked Walker if he knew whose mail it was. Walker said that he did not, and Nagle asked him if the police could take it. Walker agreed, and the police began collecting the mail. While they were doing so, Officer Wiessner spotted on the dresser a bank statement addressed to a friend of his who lives a block from the Walker house.
The officers mixed the mail from the open suitcases with the mail lying about the room. They also opened the closed suitcase and mixed the contents with the other mail. They did not search any other closed drawers or cabinets. The mail was taken to the kitchen, where Officer Radwan was collecting the mail from the rest of the house. The officers placed all of the mail in two of the suitcases found in Walker's bedroom.
Walker dressed in his bedroom; his wife went into the bathroom across the hall. After they were dressed, the police brought them and their nephew into the kitchen and finished collecting the mail. Nagle spoke by phone with Sargeant Theis of the Calumet Police Department, who instructed him to bring all three individuals and the mail to the police station. About 30 minutes passed from the time the police first knocked at the door to the time they left the Walker residence.
At the police station, the officers asked Walker if he would give written consent to a further search of his home. He did, and later that afternoon he returned to his home with Postal Inspector Ligon, Sargeant Theis, and Officers Wiessner and Radwan.
The primary object of the search was a mail box key. The search lasted about forty-five minutes, during which time the officers opened drawers and cabinets, and searched the basement and attic. They did not find the key, but they did seize a few more items of mail.
Walker's version of the events of December 10 differed from that of the police in a few important respects. According to Walker, he was dressed in pants and a shirt when he answered the door that morning. Nagle entered first, and remained with him, but the other two officers immediately headed for the back of the house. Walker soon followed, and when he saw the officers entering the bedroom where his wife slept, he broke past them and asked them to stop so he could awaken her.
Walker also testified that the police conducted a thorough search of his house that morning. They opened drawers and cabinets, searched the bedroom closet and went through the attic and basement. The afternoon search, on the other hand, was short and uneventful, lasting only 10 to 15 minutes.
In his recommendations, Magistrate Weisberg accepted the officers' testimony that Walker had permitted the officers to enter his home, and that while in the front hallway they observed numerous items of mail in stacks in the living room. He did not, however, decide which version of the events preceeding the officers' sweep through the house was more accurate. R & R at 10. Moreover, "a protective sweep of the house to locate others justified the police presence in the kitchen and in the wife's bedroom." R & R at 11. Because the initial entry and sweep through the house were lawful, the magistrate reasoned, the seizure of the mail scattered throughout the house was justified under the "plain view" exception to the warrant requirement. R & R at 9-13, citing, Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971).
Nevertheless, the magistrate recommended that this court suppress all of the mail seized during the morning search. For he believed that the officers did violate the Warrant Clause when they opened the closed briefcase located in the Walker bedroom, and contaminated the rest of the mail by mixing it with the mail found in the briefcase. Although he agreed with the government that suppression would not be required if the government could find a way of identifying which items were lawfully seized, he did not believe the government could do so here. The magistrate did not discuss the bank statement allegedly viewed by Officer Wiessner on the dresser in the Walker bedroom.
In reviewing the magistrate's recommendations, this court's function differs markedly from that of an appellate court. When a motion to suppress evidence in a criminal case is referred to a magistrate for preliminary disposition, the Federal Magistrate Act, 28 U.S.C. 636(b)(1)(B), "requires the District Court to make a de novo determination of any disputed portion of the Magistrate's proposed findings and recommendations." United States v. Raddatz, 447 U.S. 667, 672, 100 S.Ct. 2406, 2411, 65 L.Ed.2d 424 (1980) (emphasis added). In making its determination, the district court need not hold another evidentiary hearing. It must, however, "give fresh consideration to those issues to which specific objection has...
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