sever his case and grant him a separate trial on several of counts of the superseding indictment and also to address the denial of motion to suppress certain evidence that was seized in violation of the fourth amendment in my op hometown of columbia south carolina yonder so the issue as to the jointer mr yong was charged in arising out of four separate arrest and he we a motion was made to four she entertained the government's argument invoking a common scheme or plan which gets to the government's point in this case and i was i was not involved i was not representing mr yong at the time of the hearing of the motion to suppress or the motion to sever but at trial it was clear and it was clear throughout and everything in regard to the case circled around that focused on that i would submit that the government's had multiple convictions of belief six drug convictions over a seven year period during his late teens and early twenty's as a thirty year old man which he t tech to get a degree in electrical engineering he had changed his behavior but the government strike that local law enforcement had made various stops of mr young there were some there were stops by an agency the richmond county sheriff's department was the local county and columbia richland county sheriff's department had stopped mr young  the city of columbia had stopped mr young about eight months later and richland county sheriff's department about three months later had another arrest had a tried to hamstring tried to bring in and count one of the indictment and arrest from a neighboring jurisdiction west columbia police department in which mr yong was alleged to have been involved to been involved not to have been a hand to hand dealer but have been involved in a twenty dollar crack rock so you are in july of tw so about two years prior to any of the other cases and again in that instance no one involved in that transaction and stand the motion at the time the severance motion was filed there was not a counts six right as you look at it now can five and six be tried together now i would i would seek a separate trial for those just to avoid the confusion and again it's two separate agent law enforcement agencies the city of columbia police departments involved in count five acquitted on the drug so it didn't happen so what's the concern well the concern is that you had we had a mishmash of local law enforcement agencies and so you have the the da came in and puts a federal span on the case and we need to use that term but it becomes federal but it it was for different arrest by local law enforcement that's what you had but having the drug charge having having this kind of mega thing of mr young as a drug dealer allowed the government to bring in there if b i expert testimony the probably the best if the witness they could find he had been the director of the local offices name was michael he gets to come in and testify about here's how drug dealers do they could crack they used guns this is the way it is now mind you there's b i had nothing question and so it's not like they didn't find that testimony all that persuasive i think the i think it could have been a situation where the a compromise verdict charge you have to take them all separately you can't put them together have said and lots of cases that that kind of a charge goes a very long way toward mitigating prejudice in these cases i understand i can simply say that in you know in the moment in the trial the jury was out and they at least had a moment of being deadlocked  and i don't know what they were deadlocked own obviously but shortly thereafter they came back with a verdict of guilty own felon in possession counts and a quarter alone all the drug related charges including as as yana pointed out counts two three and four are arise out of the same incident and they acquitted mr young on counts two and three and found him guilty included in the indictment at the time so you never brought it up even afterwards you know i did not and again i have not to not to make any excuse of it understand he wanted out a few things but the elements there focused on the question of whether the evidence of guilt was overwhelming his record does seem to indicate that element where he clearly you think otherwise and and then i do take issue with the government's argument of homelessness and overwhelming evidence of guilt again as judge harris pointed out you have long been a lot of charges so a gal must be guilty of something but i think if you take them individually and watching in preparation for being here really watching the video stops in particular stop number one in april of two thousand and fourteen you have an officer deputy deputy puckett who makes the stop goes to the car in about two minutes or so has returned to her vehicle gets on the radio and says well i've run their names they're both clear although i showed that michael young was incarcerated that's obviously not true because he's sitting here where you want me to do and i think fundamentally that example of the evidence not being as strong as the government would portray the d n a evidence and i've passed my time if i could respond there's b n a that i'm sure the government has mentioned quite a few times in their brief and i'm sure we'll talk about today but the d twenty fifteen and the officer watched the second yeah leave the passenger leave and said well i was the only one there and i was talking to mr young and i just missed the young within approximately of the gun mr young was the driver of the vehicle the phone for found under the passenger seat of the d n a was found on one one of the gun one of the guns you think that's not and i think that is not overwhelming evidence so much as to render a homelessness  than charging at trial is that mr young was involved in the distribution of drugs and he was also involved also carry firearms to further his drug drug drug trafficking activity by virtue of the jury's verdict it seems as though the jury acquitted him of that so we look  at to any prejudice that may have resulted by virtue of the guilty convictions on counts for three six it's the government's submission that for those counts the government the evidence was overwhelming in support of the jury's verdict  pertains to count four that deals with the april second two thousand and fourteen traffic stop in addition to the d n a evidence which i'll touch on just a little bit we had the testimony of officer owens who was one of the officers who was arriving at the traffic stop he's the one that actually took mr young out of the vehicle mr young sitting in the passenger's passenger side of the vehicle and one's testimony to the jury was that upon opening the door he immediately saw in plain view right next in the magazine as it pertains to the firearm the d n a analyst was able to exclude ninety four point nine percent of the african american population worldwide that was the weakest of the three in terms of statistical analysis that the d n a analysis revealed but as it pertains to the magazine of that firearm it was a ninety nine point nine percent match received meet the d n a and it was able to exclude ninety nine point nine but even this courts it is in many cases what guns automatically followed right jurors think that you know i know you represent a gun but you can go ahead and common sense right yes there is jurors associate drug dealers have gone so you have weak drug counts you throw that out there oh you lose all of yeah but the bleed is only the other side that's i don't think it disproved prejudice admitted to being a drug dealer he admitted to the crack cocaine to possessing the crack cocaine that form the basis of count two the government i think you know looking back on in hindsight took for granted some of those counts and spent a significant amount of time on the firearms count we had we had demonstrative evidence you know pointing out the d n a because we felt too confident i believe on the drug count so i think of anything the  direct examination the purpose for which she did she conducted a search of the vehicle a she indicated that the exclusive purpose for which conducting the search was because she wanted to protect the department the agency of any future claim vehicle as an exception to the search warrant requirement this court in united states versus banks and acadia that a proper inventory search is merely incidental administrative step following the arrest of an an individual to protect this that the offices in the department even those not present understand this allas and to be fair judge when there was no explicit i certainly can see there was no explicit written course a standard policy that might be informal it might be formal and i just sort of agreeing with you the bar is very low but it just seems like someone messed up and didn't check the box and to that was that there was no testimony regarding standard policy policy of the department there was no written policy that was submitted i think though if the court does consider the rationale of the inventory a whole separate question might know and the district court specifically found this  a good faith correct agree but that's not the whole test for us to be good faith and i have one or two other questions about this one what about the decision to impound the vehicle to tow it in the first place there's supposed to be a policy on that  believe that because they were unable to locate the actual owner deputy mcgregor didn't feel comfortable leaving it in a hotel parking lot all by itself and so an inventory search was done and there's certainly no evidence as as you mcgregor was driving in the opposite direction as the white cadillac saw it passed by or in the same area i don't get it why is it being stopped because they drove around the neighborhood three times and an anonymous phone call came in i dispute with the new the notion that was actually at january thirtieth two thousand and twelve so i'm glad you brought that point to my attention that the last thing i wanted to know on on that same firearm that was seized at the firearm that did not have the d n a of mr young was not charged in the indictment was only the amelia cunningham who at that time was the wife of mr young where it was a jailhouse conversation between the two of them mr young is referencing of the two firearms that were inside the vehicle saying that the passenger loading the fact that decision of united states versus lane the overwhelming evidence to support the mitigating instruction which i would note i knew this court and hawkins as well as in ballots those were circumstances where judge seymour gave the limiting instructions and struck advising the jury and instructing the jury that they were consider each count on their own merits and all of the evidence in this case shows that's what they did they compartmentalize the evidence they were able to do that pretty heavily and issued inconsistent statements here the strength of the evidence and the fact that every indication shows that the jury was able to fully abide by judge seymour's instruction compartmentalize the evidence  certainly you know if we take into account the fact that that drug dealers it's well accepted that drugs are tools of the trade of the firearms or tools of the trade for drug dealers and that that would certainly supply a that's what they did that's what they did as a priest counts one two or three we don't know that i've said he could have believed that he was a drug dealer we don't know what they believe you're right that they could have believed he was a drug dealer but yet acquitted him  charges correct right there's no way to know but the association with guns is drug deal you understand that's the prejudice that drug dealers and guns whether you specifically did this on different days for example you could walk around i don't know why people the rest these cases you can walk around and label has unfortunately many places and say you know i think those people a drug deal and see no transaction at all if you want you convinced t he was going around in a neighborhood what detention was he was a black person was he in the wrong neighborhood away because you bought black and because you said african americans were as always when i mentioned it because you said it was he in the wrong neighborhood mr young and the determination that he had a pending charge for driving under suspension i do understand and appreciate church gregory the point that you're making regarding the concern about even though he's acquitted  for being a drug dealer that could still have an impact i see him well past my time on the that the firearm counts i would i draw the court's attention to you know the supreme court's decision and lane this from course discussion regarding the mitigating transference of guilt or the order of admissibility may be reduced to a minimum by carefully crafted limiting instructions with a strict charge to consider the guilt or innocence of each different independently judge seymour during the course of the motion severance hearing  and we will get something we'll get something out of this and it's human nature and you know i listened to mr garner here this morning so they well we made a stop believe you but i'll tell you what i'll just lock you both up and it will figure out later you know that's what courts are for i don't need to figure it out right here silly but in the final can in the final stop in the hotel parking lot in january side my client gets out a driver side of an individual gets out of the pasture side leaves and you know my client gets arrested for driving under suspension after they run his tag and you know find out who  rs and say oh you you drive a nun with a suspended license we're taking you in and then at some point later and it's not it's not clear to me at all and i was layer at trial so i don't i'm sure it can be clear to anybody on this panel when the him and when the decision was made and we all we got a total vehicle we got to do and and so we'll have to do something do some sort of him into war search because that's what we do again i don't think that's in a record at all i the only thing i recall in the in deputy mcgregor status monye is that they tried to get in touch with the owner of the vehicle and that person they couldn't get him immediately they couldn't get him that night in that particular moment in time so they must have they must have total vehicle but point being finally when the  search was done and mr young has already been hauled off to the county jail of course and nobody knows anything about where mr you know anything about mr young anything having to do what was in the vehicle except that they've fallen for the two phone four found on the passenger side of the vehicle under the seat where the guy happened happened to walk away leave the scene leaving mr young standing beside the vehicle which he was the driver and has some he wouldn't go to walk away i don't i don't mean to suggest that he was going to flee his vehicle or  don't think the government can have it both ways they can't say well if the gun is in close proximity to the guy that we think is guilty because he's a drug dealer you know then what's good for the goose is good for the gander it is you can't you can't pick and choose the location location location and then say well i don't want you to stop i'm going to we must you know it's got to be a question about the council exchange where thirty knots on january thirtieth encounter and search more important if hypothetically and just assuming for the sake of argument for a moment we thought there were a problem with the warrantless search of the left with if the court left it with two convictions instead of three to each to each encounter each stop traffic stop two of those one other encounter that resulted in a conviction i don't think you left with this overwhelming sense of all this guy's guilty and i think you're left with well maybe maybe maybe not and maybe maybe not in mr young's instance resulted in a chordal on some counts already you know that were tried and we'd certainly like the opportunity to have a chance of trying the case without those counts being in the mix