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Parties Involved:
Anthony Thomas
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 12, 2005 Decided November 18, 2005

No. 04-3068

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

ANTHONY THOMAS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 03cr00458-01)

A. J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender, argued the cause

and filed the briefs for appellant. Michelle M. Peterson,

Assistant Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance.

John P. Gidez, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for

appellee. With him on the brief were Kenneth L. Wainstein,

U.S. Attorney, and John R. Fisher, Roy W. McLeese, III, and

George P. Eliopoulos, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and SENTELLE and

ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Chief Judge: Anthony Thomas challenges his

conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted

felon, arguing the district court erred in failing to suppress guns

and ammunition found during a “protective sweep” of his

apartment. See Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990). In the

alternative he challenges the mandatory application of the

United States Sentencing Guidelines to determine his sentence.

We affirm the order of the district court denying the motion to

suppress but, in accordance with United States v. Coles, 403

F.3d 764 (D.C. Cir. 2005), we remand the record for that court

“to determine whether it would have imposed a different

sentence, materially more favorable to the defendant, had it been

fully aware of the post-Booker sentencing regime.” Id. at 771.

I. Background

Between 6:00 and 6:30 one morning, five Deputy U.S.

Marshals arrived at an apartment in Washington, D.C. to execute

a warrant for the arrest of Anthony Thomas in connection with

a parole violation. The marshals, with weapons drawn, knocked

and announced their purpose and the door was opened. 

The front door to Thomas’ one-bedroom apartment opens

immediately into a hallway. A foot or two to the left is the

entrance to the living room and to the right are doorways off the

hallway leading to the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The

bedroom door at the far end of the hall is 15 feet from the

entrance to the apartment. 

The first officers to enter the apartment followed Thomas

from the hallway into the living room, where they found two

other individuals. Meanwhile, Deputy Marshal William Martin

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and a colleague searched the kitchen, the bathroom, and the

bedroom in order “[to make] sure there was nobody else in the

immediate area.” Upon entering the bedroom, the officers first

looked under the bed to see if anyone was hiding there, then

turned their attention to an open closet. In plain view on the top

closet shelf they saw a shotgun shell and a handgun atop a stack

of clothes. At the bottom of the closet, they saw a “big bulked

up blanket or comforter,” which was “dome shaped” and

approximately three feet high. Deputy Martin testified that “a

person could have easily fit underneath the comforter.” Upon

removing the comforter, the officers discovered an assault rifle

and a shotgun. From the time the officers entered the apartment

until they found the firearms, “not more than a minute” had

passed. 

Thomas was indicted on a single count of possession of a

firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).

He moved to suppress as the fruits of an unlawful search both

the weapons and ammunition seized from his bedroom and the

subsequent statement he made admitting possession of the

firearms. After the close of evidence at the suppression hearing,

Thomas raised an alternative ground for suppression, namely,

that the officers’ initial entry into his apartment was unlawful.

Deputy Martin had testified that the Marshal’s Service learned

where Thomas lived after an “investigation was done” and

Thomas’ address “turned up.” Thomas argued this evidence was

insufficient to establish that the officers had reason to believe

Thomas lived at the address searched or would be present at the

time of the search. 

The district court denied the motion to suppress in all

respects. The court concluded the officers’ entry into Thomas’

apartment was lawful because, per Deputy Martin’s testimony,

they had reason to believe Thomas lived at the address searched

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and “the early hour [of the arrest] heightened the probabilities of

locating the defendant” there. The court upheld the protective

sweep because Thomas’ bedroom “immediately adjoin[ed]” the

place of arrest, that is, “the hallway immediately inside his front

door.” Thereafter, a jury found Thomas guilty as charged and

the district court sentenced him to the minimum 188 months of

imprisonment allowed under the Sentencing Guidelines, which

specified a range of 188-235 months.

II. Analysis

Thomas argues the officers’ entry into his apartment and

their protective sweep of the bedroom violated his right under

the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. In

considering the denial of a motion to suppress, we review de

novo the district court’s conclusions of law, including its

determinations of reasonable suspicion and probable cause, but

we “review [its] findings of historical fact only for clear error.”

See Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996).

A. The Entry into Thomas’ Apartment

An arrest warrant “founded on probable cause” that the

suspect has committed a crime gives law enforcement officers

“the limited authority to enter a dwelling in which the suspect

lives when there is reason to believe the suspect is within.”

Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 603 (1980). As explicated

by five other circuits, the “reason to believe” standard is

satisfied by something less than would be required for a finding

of “probable cause.” See Valdez v. McPheters, 172 F.3d 1220,

1225-26 (10th Cir. 1999); United States v. Route, 104 F.3d 59,

62 (5th Cir. 1997); United States v. Risse, 83 F.3d 212, 216 (8th

Cir. 1996); United States v. Lauter, 57 F.3d 212, 215 (2d Cir.

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1995); United States v. Magluta, 44 F.3d 1530, 1535 (11th Cir.

1995). That is consistent with our decision in United States v.

May, 68 F.3d 515 (1995) (Fourth Amendment permits search of

suspect’s dwelling if officers have “reason to believe the suspect

is there”), where we upheld entry into a dwelling based upon an

address found in police records and upon testimony that the

suspect had slept there on the night of the murder, some two

days before the search. Id. at 516. The Ninth Circuit alone has

held that reason to believe “embodies the same standard of

reasonableness inherent in probable cause.” See United States

v. Gorman, 314 F.3d 1105, 1110 (9th Cir. 2002). We think it

more likely, however, that the Supreme Court in Payton used a

phrase other than “probable cause” because it meant something

other than “probable cause.” 

Accordingly, we expressly hold that an officer executing an

arrest warrant may enter a dwelling if he has only a “reasonable

belief,” falling short of probable cause to believe, the suspect

lives there and is present at the time. Applying this standard, the

entry into Thomas’ apartment was lawful. 

Thomas argues the Government’s evidence is insufficient

to establish the officers had even a reasonable belief he lived,

and was then present, in the apartment. Deputy Martin,

however, testified the marshals learned Thomas’ address after

an “investigation was done.” Thomas objects that Martin gave

no details of the investigation. Although the Government’s

evidence was succinct, to say the least, the word “investigation,”

even without details, denotes something at least akin to, as the

Government puts it, “a systematic official inquiry,” and in any

event more than a mere hunch, surmise, or suspicion.

That Thomas was a parolee and the marshals were

executing an arrest warrant for a parole violation lends support

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to the Government’s view. As a condition of his parole, Thomas

was required to keep his current address on file with his parole

supervision officer. See 28 C.F.R. §§ 2.85(a) & 2.204(a)(3),

(4)(ii). Therefore, we do not think the absence of testimony

about where the marshals got Thomas’ address is fatal to the

Government’s claim of reason to believe Thomas lived in his

apartment. Nor did Thomas’ counsel think the matter

insufficiently obvious to bother questioning Deputy Martin

about the details of his investigation. 

As for whether the officers had reason to believe Thomas

would be at home when they executed the warrant, the early

morning hour was reason enough. See, e.g., May, 68 F.3d at 516

(“[T]he logical place one would expect to find [defendant] on

that ... morning was at his home”); United States v. Terry, 702

F.2d 299, 319 (2d Cir. 1983) (agents reasonably concluded

suspect would be home on a Sunday morning at 8:45).

Accordingly, we hold the officers’ entry into Thomas’ apartment

was in all respects lawful.

B. The Protective Sweep

Thomas also argues the search of his bedroom exceeded the

bounds of a permissible “protective sweep,” which the Supreme

Court has defined as a “quick and limited search ... incident to

an arrest” of spaces where a person may be found, “conducted

to protect the safety of police officers or others.” Buie, 494 U.S.

at 327. A protective sweep may last “no longer than is

necessary to dispel the reasonable suspicion of danger” and “no

longer than it takes to complete the arrest and depart the

premises.” Id. at 335-36. 

The Supreme Court in Buie recognized two kinds of

protective sweeps. The first may be conducted “as a

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precautionary matter” and without probable cause or reasonable

suspicion, but it must be limited to “spaces immediately

adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be

immediately launched.” Id. at 334. The second may extend

beyond immediately adjoining spaces but must be based upon

“articulable facts which ... would warrant a reasonably prudent

officer in believing that the area to be swept harbors an

individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.” Id.

The Government does not claim the officers conducted the

second type of sweep described in Buie; it points to no facts

suggesting the officers had a reasonable belief that a person

posing a threat to them was in the apartment. The only issue,

therefore, is whether Thomas’ bedroom was a place

“immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack

could be immediately launched.” Id. 

Although Thomas was formally placed under arrest in the

living room, he was arrested, for the practical purpose of the

Fourth Amendment, when he was “apprehended ... at gunpoint,” In re Sealed Case, 153 F.3d 759, 767 n.3 (D.C. Cir.

1998), in the hallway immediately inside his front door. And,

as the district court found, every room swept “could be

immediately accessed from the hallway.” Because the entrance

to the bedroom was a straight shot down the hallway from the

spot where Thomas was arrested, the bedroom was a place

“immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack

could be immediately launched.” Buie, 494 U.S. at 334; see

also United States v. Ford, 56 F.3d 265, 270 (D.C. Cir. 1995)

(“because the arrest took place in the hallway, and the bedroom

from which Ford emerged was immediately adjoining the

hallway, [the agent] could legitimately look in the bedroom for

potential attackers”). 

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Thomas argues his “place of arrest” was just the area

“inside of the front door,” not the entire hallway of which it was

a part, and therefore the bedroom did not “immediately adjoin[]”

the place of arrest. According to Thomas, the immediately

adjoining spaces “included at most the living room, and the front

hallway.” Otherwise, in a small apartment such as this one the

“police would be entitled to sweep the entire premises without

a showing of reasonable suspicion.” 

We think Thomas’ concept of the place of arrest is

unreasonably narrow. He points to no case where the place of

arrest has been defined more narrowly than the entirety of the

room in which the arrest occurred. Nor should we narrowly

define the place of arrest, as Thomas suggests, citing United

States v. Curtis, 239 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2002), merely in

order to avoid permitting the police to sweep the entirety of a

small apartment. The safety of the officers, not the percentage

of the home searched, is the relevant criterion. Buie, 494 U.S.

at 327 (purpose of protective sweep is “to protect the safety of

police officers or others”). If an apartment is small enough that

all of it “immediately adjoin[s] the place of arrest” and all of it

constitutes a space or spaces “from which an attack could be

immediately launched,” id. at 334, then the entire apartment is

subject to a limited sweep of spaces where a person may be

found. 

Thomas also argues that because he was apprehended

immediately inside the entrance to his apartment, the protective

sweep was unnecessary to complete his arrest; he could have

been moved outside forthwith. The sweep was necessary to

complete the arrest safely, however, because in fact Thomas and

the officers had moved into the living room before the officers

had him under their control and formally placed him under

arrest. The officers therefore had to depart through the hallway,

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and they need not have done so without first taking the

precautionary measure of a limited protective sweep to avert a

potential attack from one of the rooms adjoining the hallway. 

In sum, the search of Thomas’ bedroom was a lawful

“protective sweep.” Therefore, the district court properly denied

his motion to suppress the physical evidence found in Thomas’

bedroom and the statement he made to a government agent

following his arrest.

C. The Sentence

Thomas, who was sentenced prior to the Supreme Court’s

decision in United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005), did

not challenge the mandatory application of the Sentencing

Guidelines to him until his case was on appeal. Therefore, we

review his sentence only for plain error. See Coles, 403 F.3d at

767. 

At sentencing the district court commented that application

of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1), “leads

to a harsh result, but it’s a harsh result that has been determined

by Congress and by the [G]uidelines and it’s not one that the

Court can avoid based on the facts that are before it.”

Consequently, as Thomas argues and the Government concedes,

it is unclear whether the district court would have exercised its

discretion to sentence Thomas to less than 188 months if it had

not believed itself bound by the Guidelines. As in Coles,

therefore, and as Thomas requests, we remand the record to the

district court “for the limited purpose of allowing it to determine

whether it would have imposed a different sentence, materially

more favorable to [Thomas], had it been fully aware of the postBooker sentencing regime.” Id. at 771.

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III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, Thomas’ conviction is affirmed

and this court will retain jurisdiction while the record is

remanded to the district court pursuant to Coles.

So ordered.

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