Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 10 February 1997
• Docket Number: No. CR,CR
• Citation: 939 S.W.2d 264,327 Ark. 213
• Parties: Houston WILLIAMS and Kathlene Williams, Appellants, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee, 96-834.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 264

939 S.W.2d 264

327 Ark. 213

Houston WILLIAMS and Kathlene Williams, Appellants, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee,

No. CR 96-834.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Feb. 10, 1997.

Robert E. Irwin, Russellville, for Appellant-Houston Williams.

Jay T. Finch, Bentonville, for Appellant-Kathlene Williams.

Winston Bryant, Attorney General, J. Brent Standridge, Assistant Attorney General, Little Rock, for Appellee.

ARNOLD, Chief Justice.

Houston and Kathlene Williams are husband and wife. Houston Williams was sentenced to a total of thirty years in prison for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver. He also received a $25,000 fine. Kathlene Williams was convicted of the same two offenses, plus an additional count of possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver. She received a total of fifteen years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The Arkansas Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the convictions on the basis that the search warrant used to gather evidence against Mr. and Mrs. Williams was illegally obtained. Williams v. State, 54 Ark.App. 352, 927 S.W.2d 801 (1996). We granted the State's petition for review. Upon our review, we affirm the decision of the trial court.

The search warrant that is the subject of this case was executed at the Williams's home on February 24, 1993. Pursuant to the warrant, officers seized, among other items, approximately eighty-three grams of methamphetamine, approximately twelve ounces of marijuana, several handguns, and a wall safe containing $8,200 in cash. The facts leading up to the procurement of the warrant are set out in detail in the court of appeals opinion, but we will set them out again here, for the sake of convenience. On November 12, 1992, the Fayetteville Police Department received information from a confidential informant that Houston Williams of a certain address in West Fork, Arkansas, was an extremely large trafficker of controlled substances. The informant stated that Williams would travel to California and Arizona, pick up large amounts of methamphetamine, then return to northwest Arkansas to distribute the drug. The informant further stated that he had seen Houston Williams with as much as $65,000 in cash at one time.

On December 31, 1992, the Fayetteville Drug Enforcement Administration office received word from a special agent in Alpine, Texas, that the agent had an informant in custody. The informant was from northwest Arkansas and stated that Houston and Kathlene Williams would travel to New Mexico every three weeks, pick up one to two pounds of methamphetamine and cocaine, then return to northwest Arkansas to distribute the drugs.

On February 22, 1993, at approximately 4:00 p.m., Detective Rogers of the 19th Judicial District Drug Task Force received a phone call from a confidential informant. The informant stated that Henry Glosemeyer and Houston Williams would be leaving the city of Rogers and driving to the Williams house in West Fork. The informant described in detail the two vehicles that would be driven, including the license-tag numbers. He said that Glosemeyer was to pick up a large amount of methamphetamine, then return to Rogers at 9:00 p.m. to deliver the drugs to his customers. Detective Rogers relayed this information to Detective McCarty of the Fayetteville Police Department. Upon receipt of the information, McCarty and four other officers drove to Williams's West Fork address. While en route, two of the detectives saw one of the described vehicles, a gray Mercury Capri, arrive at the residence. Approximately three hours later, the other described vehicle, a red pickup, arrived. At 8:35 p.m., the pickup left the residence, driving toward Fayetteville. Fayetteville police were notified to be on the lookout for the vehicle. Shortly thereafter, officer Brian Waters saw the truck, fell in behind it, and clocked it at forty-eight miles per hour in a forty-five-miles-per-hour zone. When the truck moved into a forty-mile-per-hour zone, he pulled it over and issued a warning for speeding. The truck was being driven by Henry Glosemeyer. Upon being questioned by Officer Waters, Glosemeyer gave consent to search the vehicle. Nothing was found during the manual search, but the officer's drug dog gave an active, aggressive alert. The vehicle was moved from the side of the road to a facility where a more thorough search could be conducted. As a result, two ounces of methamphetamine were found under the truck bed mat.

Glosemeyer was arrested and gave a statement. He said he had received an extremely large amount of methamphetamine from Houston Williams over the last year and that he had dealt at least one pound in the past month. The methamphetamine that was recovered from the search of his truck had been received from Houston Williams that night. Glosemeyer further stated that Williams had borrowed his truck, driven to California, and picked up four pounds of methamphetamine. Williams had returned that night.

The next morning, four officers went to the Williams residence. At that point, they had been told by the prosecutor's office that they did not have enough probable cause to obtain a search warrant. Upon arriving at the residence, they identified themselves as narcotics officers. They asked Kathlene Williams if they might speak to her husband. Mrs. Williams allowed the officers to enter the house. She said her husband was sleeping. They asked her to wake him and she went to the bedroom to do so. As she left the living-room area, Officer Norman observed an automatic pistol on a shelf. He took possession of it and unloaded it.

Houston Williams came into the living room within a few minutes. The officers questioned him and Mrs. Williams in separate rooms for well over an hour. They confronted Houston Williams with the information that indicated he was involved in drug trafficking. Williams denied any knowledge of such activity. Finally, the officers asked if Williams would consent to a search of the house. He said no.

At the end of the interrogation, and after consent to search had been denied, Williams said he had to go to the bathroom. Officer Norman, without invitation, followed Williams down the hall and watched him enter into a bathroom off the master bedroom. The officer made his way back up the hall, scanning the other rooms along the way. He pushed open a partially opened door to the den and noticed two weapons on a desk. When Williams came out of the bathroom, he told Officer Norman that the guns were unloaded and that he could check them if he liked. Norman entered the room and, in doing so, noticed a set of scales on a desk. He moved a bag of cookies which were obscuring the scales and saw a white rock sitting on the scales. He believed the rock to be a controlled substance. Looking further, Norman saw a part of a plastic bag protruding from a desk drawer. He opened the drawer and observed what he suspected to be a controlled substance, along with various items of drug paraphernalia. Houston Williams was placed under arrest. One of the officers present contacted an assistant U.S. attorney and advised him of what was in progress. The attorney told the officers to leave the premises and obtain a search warrant.

The search warrant was obtained later that day and executed on February 24, 1993. In the affidavit in support of probable cause, the officers included the information provided by the two confidential informants, the statement by Henry Glosemeyer, and the observation of what appeared to be drugs and drug paraphernalia in the Williams home. Also on February 24, Kathlene Williams was arrested when she appeared at the courthouse to post bail for her husband. Her purse was searched and .02 ounces of methamphetamine was found.

At trial, the appellants claimed that the officers' initial, warrantless search of their home was illegal. They contended further that the evidence obtained in the initial search prompted the officers' decision to obtain a search warrant, making the warrant illegal as well. The trial judge agreed that the initial search of the Williams's home was unlawful. However, he did not agree that the illegality of that search affected the validity of the warrant. Therefore, the evidence obtained as a result of the execution of the search warrant was admitted at trial. The Williamses argue on appeal that the trial court should have suppressed that evidence.

Our analysis on appeal must be twofold. First, we must determine whether the evidence obtained by the officers on their first visit to the Williams home was the result of an illegal search. If the search was legal, there is nothing to taint the warrant. If the search was illegal, we must then determine the effect of that illegality on the procurement of the search warrant.

Legality of the Initial Search

The State urges us to hold the initial search constitutional based upon the plain-view doctrine. We have said in the past that this doctrine may be applied under the following circumstances: 1) the initial intrusion was lawful; 2) the incriminating nature of the items was immediately apparent; and 3) the discovery of the items was inadvertent. Johnson v. State, 291 Ark. [327 Ark. 219] 260, 724 S.W.2d 160, cert. denied, 484 U.S. 830, 108 S.Ct. 101, 98 L.Ed.2d 61 (1987). However, the State directs us to a different standard enunciated in the recent United States Supreme Court case of Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990). In Horton, the Court held that the plain-view doctrine is applicable if the officer has a lawful right of access to the object and if the incriminating nature of the object is readily apparent. The State contends that Horton dispensed with the inadvertence requirement. We have not had occasion to discuss this aspect of the Horton case. We do not find it necessary to do so now. The incriminating items which were discovered by Officer...