Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-97-03042/USCOURTS-caDC-97-03042-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Robert Gale
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 22, 1998 Decided March 10, 1998

No. 97-3042

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

ROBERT GALE,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 95cr00297-02)

Dennis F. Nee argued the cause for the appellant.

Rachel Adelman Pierson, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for the appellee. Mary Lou Leary,

United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and 

John R. Fisher, Elizabeth Trosman, G. Michael Lennon and 

William M. Sullivan, Assistant United States Attorneys, 

were on brief.

USCA Case #97-3042 Document #336217 Filed: 03/10/1998 Page 1 of 8
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Before: WILLIAMS, HENDERSON and GARLAND, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Appellant Robert Gale challenges his drug trafficking convictions on the 

ground that evidence admitted at trial was obtained through 

the unlawful search of an apartment he used to prepare drugs 

for distribution. He also appeals his sentence on the ground 

that it was based in part on drugs not properly attributable to 

him. We reject both challenges, concluding that Gale lacks 

standing to contest the apartment search and that the court's 

drug quantity findings are not clearly erroneous.

I.

On October 18, 1995 Johnny Moncrief received a report of 

water dripping into unit 103 of the apartment building he 

managed on Rhode Island Avenue, N.E. in Washington, D.C. 

Attempting to discover the source of the drip, Moncrief 

visited unit 203the apartment immediately above unit 103

which was leased to a "Mr. Creek." When no one responded 

to his knocks and he was unable to open the door lock, 

Moncrief obtained approval from his supervisor to enter the 

apartment forcibly and called the Washington Metropolitan 

Police Department for assistance with the entry.

Two uniformed officers, Tammy Lane and Michael Rorie, 

responded to Moncrief's call and accompanied him to unit 203. 

Lane knocked on the door twice but received no response. 

Moncrief had begun to pry the door open when he heard a 

voice from within call out: "I'm here. I was asleep. That's 

the reason I didn't open the door, let you in." Appellant's 

Appendix (App.) 50. The caller, who turned out to be Gale, 

was unable to open the door from inside and Moncrief finished breaking the lock. He then entered the apartment and 

went to the kitchen to check for a water leak. Lane remained in the living room and spoke with Gale. When 

Moncrief returned he overheard Gale identify himself to Lane 

USCA Case #97-3042 Document #336217 Filed: 03/10/1998 Page 2 of 8
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

as "Mr. Creek." Moncrief and the officers then left the apartment.

Once outside the apartment Lane asked Moncrief if the 

person inside was Mr. Creek and was told: "That's not Mr. 

Creek. He's not the tenant that we rented the apartment 

to." Id. 53. Lane then returned to the apartment and, 

standing in the doorway, asked Gale for identification. She 

ran a check for outstanding warrants in Gale's name but 

found none. While still in the doorway, Lane saw another 

man, John C. Grier, emerge from the kitchen with a dog. 

Gale explained that Grier had been holding the dog in the 

kitchen because dogs were not allowed in the apartment. 

Lane then walked into the kitchen where she noticed a box on 

the counter. When she looked inside she saw what she 

correctly surmised to be cocaine. She arrested both Gale and 

Grier and searched their persons. She discovered 118 ziplock 

bags of a mixture of cocaine and heroin in Grier's pants, a 

small amount of cocaine base in his pocket and $607 in Gale's 

pocket. Search warrants were obtained for both unit 203 and 

unit 614, which was the residence of Gale's uncle. When the 

two apartments were searched police discovered various 

items used for drug packaging, a bag of marihuana, $2,146 in 

cash, a semiautomatic pistol and ammunition.

In a superseding indictment filed January 4, 1996 Gale and 

Grier were charged jointly with (1) conspiracy to possess with 

intent to distribute cocaine, heroin and cocaine base, (2) 

possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, (3) possession with intent to distribute heroin, (4) possession with intent 

to distribute cocaine and (5) possession of marihuana. In 

addition, Gale was charged with felon possession of a firearm 

and felon possession of ammunition.

Gale and Grier each moved to suppress the physical evidence recovered from the two apartments on the ground that 

Lane's initial warrantless search of the kitchen in unit 203 

violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment to the 

United States Constitution to be free from unreasonable 

search and seizure. On April 2, 1996, after an evidentiary 

hearing, the district judge denied both defendants' motions, 

USCA Case #97-3042 Document #336217 Filed: 03/10/1998 Page 3 of 8
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

concluding that neither one had sufficient interest in unit 203 

to confer standing to challenge the search. After a second 

evidentiary hearing on May 15, the district judge again 

denied Gale's motion to suppress on the same ground. A 

short time later the case was transferred to a different 

district judge for trial.

The second judge severed the felon-in-possession counts 

and granted a motion for acquittal on the conspiracy count. 

Gale and Grier were then tried jointly on the four remaining 

drug counts in August 1996. The jury convicted Grier of 

possessing cocaine and heroin with intent to distribute but 

hung on the counts against Gale.

Gale was tried again, alone, on the four drug counts in 

November 1996. During the trial the district judge denied 

Gale's renewed motion to suppress. "Assuming standing," 

the judge concluded that Lane's search of the apartment was 

lawful. App. 190-91. The jury convicted Gale of possession 

of marihuana and possession of heroin with intent to distribute.

On April 3, 1997 the district judge sentenced Gale to 

concurrent terms of 121 months' imprisonment for possessing 

heroin with intent to distribute and 12 months for possessing 

marihuana. In calculating Gale's base offense level, the judge 

held him responsible for all of the drugs seized, including 

those found in Grier's pants. Gale appeals both the denials of 

his motion to suppress and the length of his sentence. We 

address each challenge separately.

II.

Gale first argues that all of the evidence seized as a 

consequence of Lane's initial search of unit 203 should be 

suppressed because the search violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. 

"The Fourth Amendment generally prohibits the warrantless 

entry of a person's home, whether to make an arrest or to 

search for specific objects." Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 

177, 180 (1990) (citing Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 

(1980); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10 (1948)). FurUSCA Case #97-3042 Document #336217 Filed: 03/10/1998 Page 4 of 8
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

ther, a criminal defendant "is assured by the trial right of the 

exclusionary rule, where it applies, ... that no evidence 

seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment will be introduced at his trial unless he consents." Id. at 183. Nevertheless, "[t]he 'capacity to claim the protection of the Fourth 

Amendment depends ... upon whether the person who 

claims the protection of the Amendment has a legitimate 

expectation of privacy in the invaded place.' " Rakas v. 

Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143 (1978) (quoting Katz v. United 

States, 389 U.S. 347, 430 (1967)). "A subjective expectation of 

privacy is legitimate if it is 'one that society is prepared to 

recognize as "reasonable," ' " Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 

91, 95-96 (1990) (quoting Rakas, 389 U.S. at 143-144 n.12)). 

Gale relies heavily on Olson in which the United States 

Supreme Court held that "status as an overnight guest is 

alone enough to show ... an expectation of privacy in the 

home that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable." 

Id. at 96. We conclude that the district court properly found 

that Gale was not an overnight guest and correctly concluded 

that he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in unit 203.

Gale did not claim that he rented the apartment or that he 

lived there. To the contrary, he gave a different "residence 

address ... to the court authorities when he was arrested," 

App. 148, and "items indicating he has residence elsewhere 

... were seized in that apartment," App. 150. Gale did claim 

that he was an "overnight guest" of the lawful tenant, Creek, 

who made no appearance (and was not otherwise identified) 

during the proceedings. After holding two hearings, the 

district court concluded that it did "not find credible" Gale's 

testimony that Creek "had given him permission to stay" in 

the apartment. App. 148. Because that finding of fact is not 

clearly erroneous, we must uphold it. See United States v. 

Garrett, 959 F.2d 1005, 1007 (D.C. Cir. 1992).

The court explained that its credibility determination was 

based in part on "judging [Gale's] credibility when he testified 

that he had been there 29 nights out of [the] 30 nights" before 

his arrest. App. 148. The court rejected Gale's claim in part 

because there was "no substantial amount of clothing associated with him that's been shown [and] there was almost no 

USCA Case #97-3042 Document #336217 Filed: 03/10/1998 Page 5 of 8
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

furniture in the apartment ... there's no evidence of any 

bureau or anything else." App. 144. The kitchen contained 

primarily drug paraphernalia. See App. 127.

Further support for the conclusion that Gale was not 

Creek's "overnight guest" derives from the court's finding 

that Creek himself "quite evidently [was] not living there in 

203." App. 146. As the court noted, Moncrief had seen 

Creek around the building only three times in two yearsand 

not at all in the few months before the searchand the rent 

on the apartment was in arrears. See App. 146, 148. Although the apartment was locked when Moncrief and the 

officers came to investigate the leak, and Gale may have had 

the key, Moncrief testified that it was not the key that had 

been given to the lawful tenant. Unknown to the building's 

managers, the lock had been changed, which was why Moncrief had to break it to enter the apartment. See 11/14/96 

P.M. Trial Tr. 9 1-92. All of this supports the court's 

surmise that Creek had abandoned the apartment, see App. 

146, and that Gale (whose uncle lived elsewhere in the building) had occupied the premises "solely for the business of 

packing for distribution narcotics." App. 149.

Under these findings, to the extent that Gale used or 

resided in the apartment, he did so without permission of its 

tenant. Without legal authority to be there, Gale lacked the 

"legitimate expectation of privacy" in the premises required 

to challenge the search. See Zimmerman v. Bishop Estate, 

25 F.3d 784 (9th Cir.) (squatters and their guest lacked 

"objectively reasonable expectation of privacy" in another's 

property and consequently were precluded from claiming 

search of shack on property violated Fourth Amendment), 

cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1043 (1994); United States v. Ruckman,

806 F.2d 1471, 1472-74 (10th Cir. 1986) (squatter lacked 

privacy expectation to challenge search of cave in which he 

resided on federal land in Utah); Amezquita v. HernandezColon, 518 F.2d 8, 11-12 (1st Cir. 1975) (squatters on farmland owned by Commonwealth of Puerto Rico lacked Fourth 

Amendment reasonable expectation of privacy to support 

USCA Case #97-3042 Document #336217 Filed: 03/10/1998 Page 6 of 8
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

injunction protecting their homes), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 916 

(1976).

In urging that the evidence below established his standing 

as a matter of law, Gale relies on evidence not considered by 

the judge in the two pre-trial denials, notably trial testimony 

by Moncrief that other people had "told" him Gale personally 

paid the rent for unit 203 "on several occasions" and that 

Moncrief "saw" him do so once "in the early months of '95." 

App. 165-66; see also id. 172. Moncrief's testimony on this 

point was itself weak because it was contradicted by his own 

earlier testimony, see 11/14/96 PM Trial Tr. 106, as well as by 

Gale's statement that he had never paid rent, App. 62. 

Further, even if the district court were to credit Moncrief's 

second position, Gale's payment of rent in early 1995 would do 

almost nothing to undermine the district court's conclusions 

that by October 1995 Creek had most probably abandoned 

the apartment and that Creek (who, according to Moncrief, 

was not involved in Gale's rent payment) had not given Gale 

permission to live there. Nor, in our view, would testimony 

of an isolated rent payment seven months in the past give 

Gale any independent ground on which to claim an October 

1995 privacy expectation. We see no reason to believe that 

this evidence, or any of the other evidence that emerged at 

trial, would have led the district court to conclude that Gale 

had a reasonable expectation of privacy in apartment 203 at 

the time of the search.

III.

Next Gale challenges his sentence on the ground that the 

district judge erroneously attributed to Gale drugs seized 

from Grier's person. The district judge included the drugs 

taken from Grier in Gale's relevant conduct calculation after 

finding Gale "responsible for possession of all the drugs in 

that apartment" because he and Grier were "aider[s] and 

abetter[s]" of each other, noting Grier's testimony at the first 

trial that "the drugs were in the kitchen initially and that he 

stuck the drugs into his crotch in an effort to hide the[m] 

from the police." App. 227-29. Because those findings are 

not clearly erroneous, we affirm the sentence. See United 

States v. Dingle, 114 F.3d 307, 313 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (upholding 

attribution to aider/abetter of virtually all drugs found in 

USCA Case #97-3042 Document #336217 Filed: 03/10/1998 Page 7 of 8
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

apartment where finding that principal and aider/abetter 

jointly possessed them was not clearly erroneous).*

For the preceding reasons, the judgment of the district 

court is

Affirmed.

USCA Case #97-3042 Document #336217 Filed: 03/10/1998 Page 8 of 8