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Parties Involved:
Roger Glen Kornegay
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

Fl LED 

United s.~u:s Court of Appeals 

J. end, Cir-:uit 

SEP 2 ~~ 1989 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk · 

v. 

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No. 88-1800 

ROGER GLEN KORNEGAY, a/k/a 

Richard Sanchez 

Defendant-Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D.C. No. 87-60-CR) 

Lynda Burris Linscott, Assistant United States Attorney, (Roger 

Hilfiger, United States Attorney, with her on the Brief) Muskogee, 

Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Stephen J. Greubel, Assistant Federal Public Defender, David Booth, 

Federal Public Defender, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellant. 

Before McKAY and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges, and BRATl'ON, Senior 

District Judge.* 

BRATl'ON, District Judge. 

* Honorable Howard C. Bratton, Senior United States District 

Judge for the· District of New Mexico, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 1 
Appellant Roger Glen Kornegay (Kornegay) was convicted in the 

court below of interstate transportation and sale of a stolen farm 

tractor, in violation of 18 u.s.c., §§ 2312, 2313. On appeal he 

urges as grounds for reversal, first, that the court below erred 

in failing to grant his motion to suppress evidence he claimed was 

seized during an illegal search, and, second, that the court below 

erred in denying his motion for a mistrial, which he based upon 

intentional misconduct by the prosecutor. 

Evidence adduced at the hearing below on the motion to 

suppress established that the indictment and conviction in the 

instant case actually grew out of an investigation conducted in 

another matter. One Gary Milton (Milton), an employee of an 

auction company in Howe, Texas, called the FBI and told Agent James 

Blanton that an individual named Richard Sanchez had consigned two 

tractors to the auction company and had requested that the proceeds 

of their sale be mailed to him in care of Triple S Farms at a post 

office box in Lone Star, Texas. The tractors had been sold, but 

the auction company employee had become suspicious about the 

tractors and was concerned about sending to a post office box a 

check for the substantial amount of money realized from the sale. 

Agent Blanton got in touch with the John Deere Company and 

discovered that the tractors had been stolen. He was unable to 

locate or identify the person who called himself Richard Sanchez 

and who had consigned the tractors to the auction company. In the 

small town of Lone Star, Texas, the agent could find no one who 

knew of a Richard Sanchez or Triple S Farms. He told Milton not 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 2 
to mail the check and, if Sanchez called, to tell him he must pick 

up the check in person. 

A man identifying himself as Richard Sanchez subsequently 

called the auction company about the proceeds of the sale, and 

Milton, pursuant to Agent Blanton's directive, told him he would 

have to come in person and get his check from the auction company. 

The next day Kornegay came to the auction company, parked his 

auto in the parking lot of the company, entered the building, and 

identified himself as Richard Sanchez. He was given the check by 

Milton, whereupon the FBI agents, who had been observing the 

transaction, placed him under arrest. 

Kornegay told the agents that he was Richard Sanchez and 

showed them a driver's license issued to a person of that name. 

The agents advised him that it was not his picture on the license. 

When the agents escorted him from the building, he identified his 

auto for them, and the agents noticed that a Missouri plate had 

been temporarily fastened over a Louisiana plate on the vehicle. 

They asked permission to inventory his automobile, since they were 

going to take him to jail, and they wanted to secure any valuables 

before the vehicle was towed to the impoundment lot. 

Even though permission was refused, an inventory of the 

vehicle was begun by a Texas state auto theft specialist who had 

accompanied the agents to the auction company. He conducted the 

inventory using a standard inventory form. A blue bank bag lying 

on the front seat was picked up and opened. It contained ten 

thousand dollars in cash, jewelry, and several wallets and sets of 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 3 
identification. After these items were removed, the vehicle was 

towed to the impound lot by a wrecker. 

The agents conducted a search of the impounded vehicle later 

that day after they had obtained a search warrant from a United 

States Magistrate. The search of the vehicle produced documents 

that showed the transportation of tractors across various states, 

gas receipts, and a legal pad with notations showing where various 

pieces of equipment had been disposed of, including a notation 

regarding the sale in Idabel, Oklahoma, of the tractor, stolen in 

Mississippi, that is involved in the instant case. 

Further investigation in the case revealed that the man 

calling himself Richard Sanchez was in fact Kornegay. 

The claim is made here, as it was in the court below, that the 

warrantless inventory search of his automobile, done without his 

consent, was unreasonable since his car was parked in the auction 

company's parking lot, it was not blocking traffic, and its removal 

had not been requested. In essence, his argument is that, under 

these circumstances, there was no need to move or to inventory the 

auto, and his refusal to consent to an inventory relieved the 

agents of any potential liability for failure to protect his 

property. His further argument is that, even if the inveptory was 

proper, the bank bag should have remained unopened and have been 

inventoried as a unit. 

The first question to be decided is whether the agents' 

decision to impound the vehicle was proper. The arrest of Kornegay 

took place inside the building, i.e., he was not arrested while in 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 4 
or near his automobile. Further, the auto was parked in the 

company's parking lot and was not in any manner illegally parked. 

Nor had the auction company requested its removal. 

It is argued that, under such circumstances, United States v. 

Pappas, 735 F.2d 1232 (10th Cir. 1984), is controlling. In Pappas, 

the defendant's car was legally parked in the parking lot of a 

local bar at the time of his arrest and removal from the scene. 

The defendant had had with him a lady friend who could have driven 

the car to the police station. He had other friends present who 

could have been asked to take the car into custody. He was a well 

known person in the community. His family lived close by and could 

have been called to take care of the car. The bar owner could have 

been asked if defendant's car could be left in the bar's parking 

lot until he returned. The trial court found that these 

alternatives to impoundment sufficiently protected the officers 

from any potential claims against them and suppressed evidence 

found in an inventory search of defendant's auto, and the court's 

decision was affirmed on appeal. 

The facts in the present case differ appreciably from those 

in Pappas. First, the agents here arrested a person whose real 

identity they did not know. Second, they did not know where he 

lived. Indeed, they had been unable to identify him as coming from 

Lone Star, the place of residence he had listed with the auction 

company. Third, he was alone, and there was no friend, relative 

or companion who could be asked to care for the car. Fourth, they 

did not know where the vehicle was from. Fifth, the vehicle was 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 5 
not parked on his property, and the agents had every reason to 

believe that he would not be returning anytime soon to the auction 

company's lot to care for it himself. Sixth, to have left the 

vehicle in the auction company's parking lot - a lot open to the 

public - could have subjected it to vandalism or theft. The fact 

that the vehicle was legally parked in a parking lot does not, in 

and of itself, require the finding that impoundment was 

unnecessary, see United States v. Staller, 616 F.2d 1284 (5th Cir. 

1980), cert denied, 449 U.S. 869 (1980); United States v. Gravitt, 

484 F.2d 375 (5th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1135 (1974), 

and the court in Pappas recognized this. In Staller, the 

automobile was legally parked but there was no one available to 

take custody of it; the defendant was unable to care for it by 

virtue of his arrest; and there was the potential for theft or 

vandalism present. Indeed, the court in Pappas distinguished 

Staller on that basis. 735 F.2d at 1234. 

There is no evidence that suggests that the agents' decision 

to impound the car was other than proper and reasonable under the 

facts of this case. 

This leaves the question of whether the inventory search was 

necessary and, if necessary, was extended too far by the opening 

of the bank bag. 

The Supreme Court has addressed these issues and has 

established principles and guidelines to apply to inventory 

searches. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 6 
The Court has held that inventory searches are a well-defined 

exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, and, 

inasmuch as inventory searches are routine noncriminal procedures, 

they are to be judged by the standard of reasonableness under the 

Fourth Amendment. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 372 

(1976). In Opperman, the Court set out the principles governing 

inventory searches. In that case, the contents of an automobile 

that had been towed to the city impound lot for overtime parking 

were inventoried by a police officer, including the unlocked glove 

compartment, where he found a bag of marihuana. The owner was 

subsequently arrested on charges of possession of marihuana, his 

motion to suppress the evidence garnered in the inventory was 

denied, and he was convicted. The state supreme court reversed, 

concluding that the evidence had been obtained in violation of the 

Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and 

seizures. The Court reversed the state court's decision, holding 

that the routine practice by police of securing and inventorying 

the contents of an automobile did not involve an unreasonable 

search under the Fourth Amendment. The Court found such standard 

procedures to serve the strong governmental interests in protecting 

the property while it was in police custody; in protecting the 

police from claims about lost or stolen property; and in protecting 

the police from potential danger. 

In Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367 (1987), the Court 

addressed the issue of the propriety of yet another inventory 

search. In Bertine, the owner of a van was arrested for driving 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 7 
while under the influence of alcohol. The police inventoried the 

van after his arrest and before it was removed to an impoundrnent 

lot. A backpack was found directly behind the front seat of the 

van and was opened by a police officer. Inside was a nylon bag 

containing metal canisters. The canisters were removed from the 

bag and opened, and narcotics were found. Currency was found in 

a sealed envelope located in an outside zippered pouch of the 

backpack. The Court upheld the inventory search, citing Opperman 

and Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640 (1983), a case in which it 

had upheld as reasonable an inventory search of the contents of a 

shoulder bag in the possession of someone being taken into custody, 

on the basis that it served the same kind of legitimate 

governmental interests as those identified in Opperman. The Court 

in Bertine also concluded that discretion exercised by the police 

in impounding the van rather than parking and locking it in a 

public parking place was permissible so long as that discretion was 

exercised according to standard criteria and on the basis of 

something other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity. 

Relying upon Opperman and Bertine, the court below concluded 

that the inventory was reasonable in that it was done pursuant to 

standard procedures and for the purposes of securing the vehicle, 

protecting Kornegay' s property, and protecting the agents from 

potential danger and claims for lost, stolen, or vandalized 

property. The court also found that the opening of the bank bag 

was reasonable, since the inventory would require an itemized 

account of all property held by the agents and for which they were 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 8 
responsible. The court further found that the fact that the 

vehicle could have been locked and left in the parking lot did not 

establish the unreasonableness of the inventory in the absence of 

a showing of a desire on the part of the agents to investigate 

criminal activity rather than to conduct a routine inventory of the 

vehicle of one who had been arrested and was going to be taken to 

jail. 

The record supports the district court's conclusions regarding 

the inventory of the vehicle. Testimony at the suppression hearing 

showed that an initial routine inventory was conducted pursuant to 

standard procedures by a specialist in attendance for that purpose. 

The bank bag was opened and its contents itemized so that the 

inventory would accurately reflect all of the property for which 

the agents would be responsible. They did the inventory because 

they were obligated to secure the vehicle's contents. The record 

reflects no written regulation requiring this, but the testimony 

of Agent Blanton established that it is the customary and standard 

practice when a vehicle is impounded. The record contains no 

showing that the inventory was a pretext used to investigate for 

evidence of criminal activity. on the contrary, it reflects that 

the opening of the bank bag and the separate cataloguing of its 

contents was a standard practice and was reasonable, serving as it 

did the strong governmental interests of protecting Kornegay' s 

property while it was in official custody and insuring that no 

claims could be made that it had been lost, stolen or vandalized. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 9 
The second claim of Kornegay, who represented himself at trial 

and did not take the witness stand, revolves around the conduct of 

the Assistant United States Attorney who tried the case in the 

court below. 

The alleged misconduct occurred during the prosecution's 

questioning of a government witness. The witness had had an 

intimate relationship with Kornegay, whose name she believed to be 

Craig Fleshman, during the three months preceding his arrest. 

In response to prosecution questions, the witness revealed on 

direct examination that the man she knew as Craig Fleshman had 

evoked her sympathy by telling her that his wife had died in an 

accident and that he had a little girl who was living with his 

wife's parents and was to be adopted by them. She was then asked 

if she had come to know whether he had told her the truth. 

Kornegay objected to the question as an attempt by the prosection 

to place his reputation and character in issue. In the dialogue 

at the bench concerning the objection, the court sustained the 

objection, characterizing the questions concerning what Kornegay 

had told the witness about his background and the objectionable 

question about whether he had been truthful as "trash". 

The prosecutor's first question on re-direct was a second 

attempt to elicit from the witness the information that Kornegay 

had lied to her about his family and background. Again, an 

objection was sustained. 

Three questions later, the witness was again asked if she had 

found out whether Kornegay had given her false information. Upon 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 10 
her response in the affirmative, she was asked to specify what 

false information he had given her, and she again referred to the 

marriage and child, stating that he had never been married and did 

not have a child. 

At this point another objection was registered, and a motion 

for a mistrial was made after the jury was excused for the lunchhour recess. The court reprimanded the prosecutor for failure to 

follow his directives but found the matter not so prejudicial as 

to require him to declare a mistrial. 

After the noon recess and before the jury had returned to the 

courtroom, the Assistant Public Defender, who had been sitting at 

counsel table with Kornegay throughout the trial, was given 

permission to address the court on the issue of the prosecutor's 

improper conduct. He argued that, since it was intentional, it was 

ground for a mistrial. The court agreed that the prosecutor's 

conduct was improper and intentional but found that the testimony 

was inter-related with other testimony and was evidence of another 

bad act rather than evidence of another crime, so that the 

prosecutor's misconduct was not sufficiently prejudicial to require 

a new trial. 

When the jury returned to the box the court directed that the 

members of the jury not consider the last question put to the 

witness and her answer in their deliberations in the case. 

On appeal it is claimed that this conduct by the prosecutor 

amounted to a comment on Kornegay's failure to take the stand and 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 11 
appealed to the passion or bias of the jury, denying him a fair 

trial. 

The question for resolution is not the culpability of the 

prosecutor but, rather, the fairness of the trial. Smith v. 

Phillips, 455 U.S. 209 (1982). It is the duty of the reviewing 

court to consider the trial record as a whole and to ignore errors 

that are harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, including most of 

those involving constitutional violations. United States v. 

Hasting, 461 U.S. 499 (1983). Prosecutorial misconduct alone does 

not require a new trial. Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. at 220. 

A determination must be made whether the alleged misconduct 

was in fact error, and,. if so, whether it requires reversal or 

whether it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States 

v. Record, 873 F.2d 1363, 1376 (10th Cir. 1989); United States v. 

Martinez-Nava, 838 F.2d 411, 416 (10th Cir. 1988). Only when 

misconduct can present a question of whether it influenced the 

jury's verdict does the failure to take appropriate steps to remove 

it require reversal. Marks v. United States, 260 F.2d 377, 383 

(10th Cir. 1959), cert. denied 358 U.S. 929 (1959). There is no 

need to examine in depth the existence of error where the record 

convincingly shows that the asserted error, whether or not actually 

error, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. 

Record, 873 F.2d at 1376; United States v. Martinez-Nava, 838 F.2d 

at 416. Under the harmless error doctrine, prosecutorial 

misconduct is evaluated by examining the court's actions with 

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regard thereto, the extent of the misconduct, and its role within 

the case as a whole. Id. 

In the present case, the district court gave a specific 

directive to the jury to disregard the offending evidence shortly 

after it was offered, before any other evidence intervened, and 

before the jury began deliberations. Further, there was no other 

like reference made or like question asked of anyone by the 

prosecutor. Finally, the evidence of guilt was so extensive that 

the challenged testimony could not been of critical, if any, 

importance to the jury's verdict. In short, the record reflects 

that the prosecutorial misconduct complained of here was harmless 

beyond a reasonable doubt. 

It should be noted that the above conclusion does not justify 

prosecutorial misconduct, but, accepting what happened here as 

improper, what is called into question is the competence and 

judgment of the prosecutor, not the fairness of the trial. See 

United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. at 512. 

AFFIRMED. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 14 
No. 88-1800 - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. ROGER GLEN KORNEGAY 

McKAY, Circuit Judge, dissenting: 

I regret I cannot join in the court's opinion. There are two 

impediments. The first is the court's conclusion that an inventory search of the automobile was justified over explicit objection. The key analytical problem is the court's assertion that 

''it was necessary to secure the vehicle and its contents." It is, 

of course, fairly settled that when officers remove a defendant 

from his car and arrest him, they can take steps to secure the 

care I would assume we would not uphold the arrest of a shoplifter in a store and allow the police to inquire where his or her 

car is parked and then find the car and determine it "necessary to 

secure the vehicle and its contents." In this case, the defendant 

had parked his car in a lawful place and left it there to go 

inside to do business. It was there that he was arrested. I 

believe it goes well beyond any established Supreme Court precedent and beyond logic to ratify an ''inventory" search based on 

the assertion that securing this vehicle under these circumstances 

was either necessary or permissible. The suggestion of some 

police duty to the car here argues too much. It was not unlawfully parked. It was not a traffic hazard. They had not stopped 

him while driving or otherwise removed him from his car. His 

arrest was no more associated with this car than the arrest of a 

shoplifter would be associated with his or her car. The facts of 

this case make what one often suspects is pretext, patent. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 15 
f 

/ • .,. l 

We previously invalidated an inventory search, under similar 

circumstances, in United States v. Pappas, 735 F.2d 1232 (10th 

Cir. 1984). There the defendant was indicted for possession of an 

illegal weapon found in his car. The evidence was conflicting as 

to whether the defendant entered his car prior to the arrest. The 

arresting officer testified that the defendant had entered the 

vehicle. At a minimum defendant was headed toward the car and 

about to enter it. In that case there was clearly a closer nexus 

between the defendant and the inventoried vehicle. We held that 

while the protective search of the compartment in defendant's car 

was reasonable, that initial search did not "extend to the inventory search of defendant's car." Id. at 1234. We distinguished 

South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976): 

Opperman cannot be used to justify the automatic inventory of every car upon the arrest of its owner. The 

justifications for the rule are too carefully crafted 

for this to be the intent. In this case the car was 

parked on private property and there was no need for the 

impound and inventory search. 

Id. at 1234. There was likewise no need for the impound and 

inventory here. 

I am also unable to agree that the willful introduction of 

inadmissible evidence over specific court instruction is harmless. 

While we often indulge the tenuous notion that a curative instruction in fact removes taint and often suggest that after the prosecutor has battled tooth-and-nail to get inadmissible evidence 

before the jury that it didn't influence the verdict, I don't 

think that is what we are really saying. Basically I believe we 

are just acknowledging that some mistakes have to be borne by 

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Appellate Case: 88-1800 Document: 01019937002 Date Filed: 09/25/1989 Page: 16 
I' 

defendants. In this case I believe we should not extend that 

principle which puts the burden of risk on the defendant where 

that risk was willfully created. While there is substantial 

evidence of guilt, the prosecutor knew that and still felt very 

strongly that this inadmissible evidence was important in 

persuading the jury. The court found that the prosecutor's 

conduct was willful. The court, by its cautionary instruction to 

the jury, puts the lie to any suggestion that it admitted this 

evidence as proper. I simply am unable to say that something so 

important to the prosecutor that she three times brought it before 

the jury, twice risking contempt, is harmless beyond a reasonable 

doubt. I just cannot say that a jury would not be influenced by 

this evidence in what otherwise appears to be a strong case. 

I would grant a new trial. 

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