Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01740/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01740-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
William Rivera
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

WILLIAM RIVERA and JUAN DUENAS,

Defendants-Appellants.

____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 13 CR 563 — Thomas M. Durkin, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 27, 2016— DECIDED MARCH 16, 2016

____________________

Before POSNER, KANNE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. The defendants pleaded guilty to 

conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine, in violation of 

federal law, 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a), and were sentenced to 

60 months (Rivera) and 48 months (Duenas) in prison. But 

they reserved the right to appeal from the district judge’s 

denial of their motions to suppress evidence consisting of 

drugs that federal agents had seized in searches of Duenas’s 

garage and Rivera’s truck, which was in the garage. The 

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
2 Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637

agents didn’t have search warrants, and the defendants contend that the searches therefore violated the Fourth 

Amendment. Contrary to popular impression, the Fourth 

Amendment does not require a warrant to search or to arrest—ever; its only reference to warrants is a condemnation 

of general warrants. (The amendment reads in full: “The 

right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but 

upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and 

particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”) The amendment has nevertheless been interpreted to require warrants in many cases—but 

not, as we’ll see, in cases such as this.

A confidential informant (with the help of another man, 

whom we can ignore) arranged to purchase cocaine that was 

being sold at Duenas’s garage. Trailed by federal agents at a 

discreet distance, the informant drove to the garage, parked 

outside, entered (the garage door, open when he arrived,

closed after he entered), and there discussed the transaction 

with Duenas and Rivera. He then left, ostensibly to get the 

money for the purchase of the cocaine from his car. Instead 

he got back into the car (which was parked nearby), drove a 

short distance, parked, and phoned one of the federal agents 

to report that there indeed was cocaine in the garage, in Rivera’s truck. Agents arrived shortly, arrested Duenas outside 

the open garage and Rivera inside it, and then searched the

garage and found and seized two kilograms of cocaine from

Rivera’s truck. Between the confidential informant’s departure from the garage and the agents’ arrival, only about 

three minutes had elapsed.

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637 3

The informant (of course not known to Duenas and Rivera to be such) had entered the garage with the consent of 

Duenas, the owner of the garage, and of Rivera, the owner of 

the truck that contained the drugs to be sold to the informant. Although the informant had returned to his car and 

driven a short distance off, Duenas and Rivera had remained, the garage door was now open, and it is a fair inference that they were expecting the informant to return soon 

with the money.

Obviously they had consented to the informant’s returning, and on this basis the district judge invoked the curious, 

or at least curiously named, doctrine of “consent once removed.” If an informant is invited to a place by someone 

who has authority to invite him and who thus consents to 

his presence, and the informant while on the premises discovers probable cause to make an arrest or search and immediately summons help from law enforcement officers, the 

occupant of the place to which they are summoned is 

deemed to have consented to their presence. See United 

States v. Jachimko, 19 F.3d 296 (7th Cir. 1994), and cases cited 

in it. On this basis the district judge rejected the defendants’ 

Fourth Amendment claim.

At first glance the doctrine of “consent once removed” is 

absurd. If one thing is certain it’s that Duenas and Rivera 

would never have consented to the entry of federal drug 

agents into Duenas’s garage, where the drugs to be bought 

by the informant were stored. The doctrine thus cannot, despite its name, be based on consent. This is well recognized. 

See, e.g., John F. Decker & Kathryn A. Idzik, “Disguising A 

New Exception to the Warrant Requirement: An Examination of the Consent-Once-Removed Doctrine and Its Hollow 

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
4 Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637

Justifications,” 61 Drake L. Rev. 127, 160–68 (2012); Ben Sobczak, “The Sixth Circuit’s Doctrine of Consent Once Removed: Contraband, Informants and Fourth Amendment 

Reasonableness,” 54 Wayne L. Rev. 889, 902–08 (2008). As 

Sobczak points out, citing Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 

(2006), if you invite someone to a party at your house he 

can’t, without your express or implied permission, bring 

others with him; that is, one can’t without permission extend 

an invitation that one has received to other persons, especially ones unknown to the host. It’s thus difficult to understand 

what was intended by the statement in United States v. 

Akinsanya, 53 F.3d 852, 856 (7th Cir. 1995), that “when 

Akinsanya gave his consent to Gilani to enter his apartment, 

he effectively gave consent to the agents with whom Gilani 

was working.”

But though misnamed, the doctrine has the following 

kernels of validity. First, an informant’s job, especially in 

cases such as this that come from the frequently violent 

world of drug trafficking, is often (though not always, even 

in the drug world, see, e.g., Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 

385, 393 (1997); United States v. Williams, 604 F.2d 1102, 1122–

23 (8th Cir. 1979)), risky, and likewise that of a lone undercover officer. The informant in our case may well have 

feared that if he returned to the garage with the money for 

the drugs, Rivera and Duenas would take the money but not 

give him the drugs—and maybe would kill him to prevent 

his retaliating against them for stealing his money. (He 

would be likely to have fared no better with them had he returned to the garage without any money—how would he 

have explained that to them?) It was therefore reasonable for 

him to arrange with the agents that when he was about to 

return to the garage with the money he would call them and 

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637 5

they would enter the garage at his heels in order to protect 

him. United States v. Jachimko, supra, and the cases cited in it,

rightly emphasize the lawful protective purpose of the misnamed “consent once removed” doctrine. See, e.g., United 

States v. Yoon, 398 F.3d 802, 809–10 (6th Cir. 2005). And in 

this case obtaining a search warrant on the basis of what the 

informant saw in the garage would not have been practicable. The interval between the informant’s notifying the 

agents that he had seen drugs in the garage and the agents’ 

swooping down on it and arresting its occupants was too

short—about one minute—for the agents to have been able 

to obtain a warrant.

But one doesn’t need the opaque label “consent once removed” to justify authorizing such a response to an emergency situation. The doctrine of “exigent circumstances” 

(where “exigent” means emergency) allows such a response 

in this case because the interval between the informant’s notifying the agents of the presence of the cocaine in the garage 

and the agents’ arrival at the scene was so short. They could 

have gotten a search warrant had they delayed their arrival—but by then Rivera and Duenas, worried by the failure 

of the buyer (not known to them to actually be an informant)

to show up with the money, might have removed the cocaine from the truck and hid it elsewhere.

The agents upon arrival in the garage could have phoned 

for warrants, meanwhile ordering Rivera and Duenas to remain in the garage. But the order would have been a seizure 

within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment—without a 

warrant.

We note parenthetically that consent to enter need not be 

invalid just because the person giving it lacks relevant 

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
6 Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637

knowledge of the person to whom he’s giving it. In United 

States v. White, 660 F.2d 1178 (7th Cir. 1981), two undercover 

agents obtained consent to enter the defendant’s apartment 

by concealing their identities as police officers. That was “real” consent, though uninformed. One of the agents left after 

a while, ostensibly to get the money for a deal (like the informant in our case)—and instead returned with other 

agents. The court declined to consider their entry “a separate 

intrusion” given that one agent had remained inside 

throughout. Id. at 1183 n. 3. The defendant might have consented to the entry of those other agents as well, had they 

concealed their identity as police officers. And had the informant in our case returned to the garage with a police officer disguised as a drug dealer, and the informant had told 

Duenas and Rivera that the newcomer was an expert in assessing the quality of a cocaine sample, they (Duenas and 

Rivera) might have consented to his presence.

But there was no newcomer invited or even permitted to 

join the party in this case. Nor was the informant, having 

driven away from the garage before the agents entered, and 

anyway not having returned, in danger from Rivera or Duenas such as would have justified his summoning law enforcement for aid and protection—he was well out of harm’s 

way. This case seems therefore not to fit either of the rationales that we’ve identified as justifying the “consent once removed” doctrine. But the district judge had a third ground, 

of which more later in this opinion, for denying the defendants’ suppression motion—“inevitable discovery.” See, e.g., 

Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444 (1984); United States v. Witzlib, 796 F.3d 799, 802–03 (7th Cir. 2015); United States v. 

Tejada, 524 F.3d 809, 812–13 (7th Cir. 2008). If officers search 

without a warrant, but it is certain they’d have obtained one

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637 7

had they applied for it, their omission is deemed harmless, 

and so is ignored.

We can’t find a case that mentions “consent once removed” in which the decision in favor of the government 

could not have been supported on another ground: United 

States v. White, supra, 660 F.2d at 1183 n. 3 (exigent circumstances); United States v. Janik, 723 F.2d 537, 547–48 (7th Cir. 

1983) (actual consent to entry); United States v. Diaz, 814 F.2d 

454, 457–58 (7th Cir. 1987) (inevitable discovery); United 

States v. Akinsanya, supra, 53 F.3d at 855–56 (same); United 

States v. Paul, 808 F.2d 645, 647–48 (7th Cir. 1986) (same). In 

light of these decisions we are inclined to think that the term 

“consent once removed” is not only opaque, but expendable.

Once the confidential informant alerted the agents to the 

fact that there was cocaine in Duenas’s garage, they had 

probable cause to search the garage. They could have obtained a search warrant by relaying what the informant had 

told them to whatever magistrate was available to rule on a 

warrant application. But there was no time. The agents had 

to move fast because Rivera and Duenas might panic when 

they realized that the (unknown to them) informant might 

not be returning, and remove the drugs from the garage. The

certainty (just as in United States v. Pelletier, 700 F.3d 1109, 

1117 (7th Cir. 2012) and many other cases) that the agents 

could have gotten a warrant to conduct a search that would 

have revealed the drugs should alleviate concern with the

warrantless search and arrests in this case. And if further 

justification is required (it isn’t), there is the doctrine of 

harmless error, which usually refers to procedural errors in a 

trial but is applicable as well to searches and arrests. As exCase: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
8 Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637

plained in United States v. Stefonek, 179 F.3d 1030, 1035–36

(7th Cir. 1999) (citations omitted),

Concern with the frequent disproportionality of the sanction of exclusion has led judges to create exceptions to the 

exclusionary rule, itself a rule of federal common law (that 

is, of judge-made law) rather than a part of the Fourth 

Amendment itself and so amenable to judge-made adjustment. ... [T]he exception that is most pertinent to this case 

goes by the name of ”inevitable discovery” and refuses to 

suppress evidence seized in an unconstitutional search if it 

is shown that the evidence would ultimately have been 

seized legally if the constitutional violation had not occurred. In other words, just as careless or even willful behavior is not actionable as a tort unless it causes injury, so 

there must be a causal relation between the violation of the 

Fourth Amendment and the invasion of the defendant’s interests for him to be entitled to the remedy of exclusion. In 

a case of inevitable discovery, the defendant would by definition have been no better off had the violation of his constitutional rights not occurred, because the evidence would 

in that event have been obtained lawfully and used lawfully against him ... . There is an exception for errors deemed 

to go to the very heart of due process, but we know that a 

violation of the Fourth Amendment is not such an error, 

because the Supreme Court greatly restricts its use as the 

basis for a collateral attack on a state conviction. ... [A] 

Fourth Amendment violation committed before any litigation began, though not a harmless trial error, no more automatically invalidates the conviction than a harmless trial 

error would.

In sum, the search and arrests in this case invaded no 

lawful interest, no protected right of privacy of the defendants; a pause to enable warrants to be obtained would have 

risked the disappearance of the contraband; and an attempt 

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637 9

to obtain warrants before the informant phoned in the information that he’d found the contraband might well have 

been denied for lack of proof of probable cause, thus distinguishing this case from cases such as United States v. Camou, 

773 F.3d 932, 943 (9th Cir. 2014), in which “police had probable cause but simply did not attempt to obtain a warrant.”

The important point is that had time permitted, the agents 

would without question have obtained a warrant. See United 

States v. Pelletier, supra, 700 F.3d at 1117.

Because “the officer[s] who conducted the search complied with then-binding precedent, the evidence obtained 

from the search should not be excluded[,] because the search 

was conducted with the objectively reasonable good-faith 

belief that it was lawful.” United States v. Gary, 790 F.3d 704, 

705 (7th Cir. 2015). (The binding precedent—actually precedents—in this case are the “consent once removed” cases—

with which the agents faithfully complied.)

The clincher is our recent decision in United States v. 

Witzlib, supra, 796 F.3d at 802, which presented a parallel issue to this case, though it involved contraband explosives 

rather than contraband drugs. We offered “an alternative 

justification, besides consent and exigency, for the initial 

search (which happens also to have been the search that 

turned up by far the most important evidence of Witzlib’s 

guilt). Had the police sought a search warrant from the moment they finished talking to the uncle and aunt, it’s a certainty that it would have been issued—such was the probable cause created by what they told the police. So whether 

they got a warrant or not there was no way that Witzlib’s 

fireworks stash was going to remain undiscovered by the 

authorities” (citations omitted).

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
10 Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637

Similarly, had the agent in our case followed routine 

procedure—which as we said he would have done had he 

not been planning to rely on consent—a warrant would certainly have been issued on the basis of the informant’s 

knowledge: he had seen the cocaine stash in Rivera’s truck. 

So for Witzlib’s stash of explosives substitute our defendants’ cocaine stash and one sees that Witzlib governs this 

case. And Witzlib does not stand alone. For similar cases similarly decided see United States v. Pelletier, supra, 700 F.3d at 

1117; United States v. Marrocco, 578 F.3d 627, 639–40 n. 21 (7th 

Cir. 2009); United States v. Are, 590 F.3d 499, 507 (7th Cir. 

2009). If ever a warrantless search and seizure were warranted, it was in this case. It would be a miscarriage of justice to 

allow the defendants to go scot-free in so open and shut a 

case of criminal drug trafficking as this case is.

AFFIRMED

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637 11

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and concurring in the judgments. I join the portion of the majority’s 

opinion that jettisons the odd doctrine of “consent once removed” to justify some warrantless entries and searches. I 

also agree that we should affirm the defendants’ convictions, 

though on a much narrower ground than my colleagues offer.

“Consent Once Removed”: To avoid seeking a warrant and 

to justify the warrantless entry and search, the agents, the 

prosecution, and the district court relied primarily on the 

theory of consent once removed. Our precedents provided 

some support for that theory, at least as a general matter, but 

no prior case had stretched that doctrine as far as the agents 

stretched it here, to enter and search the private space (the 

garage) after the informant had left that space and was no 

longer in a danger zone.

By recognizing that the fictional notion of “consent once

removed” should be abandoned, the majority opinion improves the Fourth Amendment law of this circuit. Most of 

the cases using the doctrine to avoid suppressing evidence 

should be understood as applications of inevitable discovery 

or exigent circumstances, allowing the police to protect an

undercover agent or confidential informant who was in danger.

Inevitable Discovery: I am convinced that we should affirm 

the denial of defendants’ motions to suppress based on the 

“inevitable discovery” exception to the exclusionary rule, at 

least under our circuit’s precedents. 

The inevitable discovery exception does not apply merely 

because the police had probable cause to search and could 

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
12 Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637

have obtained a search warrant. To invoke the doctrine under our circuit precedent, “the government must show (1) 

‘that it had, or would have obtained, an independent, legal 

justification for conducting a search that would have led to 

the discovery of the evidence’; and (2) ‘that it would have 

conducted a lawful search absent the challenged conduct.’” 

United States v. Pelletier, 700 F.3d 1109, 1116 (7th Cir. 2012), 

quoting United States v. Marrocco, 578 F.3d 627, 637–38 (7th 

Cir. 2009); see generally Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 442–44 

(1984) (murder victim’s body inevitably would have been 

discovered by search already under way when police obtained information by violating suspect’s right to counsel).

The first requirement was satisfied here. The agents had 

probable cause when their informant left the defendants’ 

garage and signaled that he had seen the cocaine. The second requirement presents a much closer question in my 

view. These agents had no plans to seek a search warrant 

and no interest in doing so. From the outset of the operation, 

they planned to claim consent once removed to justify a warrantless entry after the informant gave the signal.

To invoke the inevitable discovery exception, some other 

circuits require the government to show it was actively pursuing other, lawful grounds for obtaining the evidence. See, 

e.g., United States v. Cherry, 759 F.2d 1196, 1205–06 (5th Cir. 

1985) (government would need to show it was actively pursuing a substantial, alternative line of investigation at time of 

constitutional violation); United States v. Conner, 127 F.3d 663, 

667 (8th Cir. 1997) (same); United States v. Virden, 488 F.3d 

1317, 1323 (11th Cir. 2007) (same); United States v. Camou, 773 

F.3d 932, 943 (9th Cir. 2014) (exception does not apply “to 

excuse failure to obtain search warrant where police had 

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637 13

probable cause but simply did not attempt to obtain a warrant”); see generally The Exclusionary Rule, 44 Geo. L.J. Ann. 

Rev. Crim. Proc. 249, 265 n.670 (2015).

In United States v. Tejada, 524 F.3d 809, 812–13 (7th Cir. 

2008), however, we explained why we have rejected the active pursuit requirement. We have opted instead to allow the 

government to invoke the inevitable discovery exception if it 

can “prove that a warrant would certainly, and not merely 

probably, have been issued had it been applied for.” Id. at 

813. The government has satisfied that standard in this case. 

After the informant saw the cocaine in the defendants’ garage and signaled that information to the agents, any magistrate judge would have issued immediately a warrant to 

search the garage. And as the majority points out, even if the 

agents had waited to obtain a warrant, the defendants were 

not going anywhere. The agents had ample authority to detain them (i.e., to seize them) while they waited for the warrant. See Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U.S. 326 (2001).

Other Grounds: I am not persuaded, however, by the other 

grounds offered by my colleagues to affirm the denial of the 

motion to suppress. The circumstances here were not exigent 

in that there was no threat of danger to any person and no 

indication that the evidence was in danger of being destroyed. See Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 459–62 (2011) 

(summarizing exigent circumstances exception); Brigham 

City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006). At worst, if the defendants had become nervous about the informant’s failure 

to return as quickly as expected, they might have hidden the 

cocaine again. I find it hard to believe, though, that capable 

federal agents would not have found two kilograms of cocaine in a space as small as a garage.

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14
14 Nos. 15-1740, 15-2637

The majority also excuses the agents’ failure to obtain a 

search warrant as a “harmless error,” quoting at length from

United States v. Stefonek, 179 F.3d 1030, 1035–36 (7th Cir. 

1999). The full scope of the Stefonek opinion is not entirely 

clear, but I do not read it as providing a new distinct and independent ground for avoiding the exclusionary rule.

Finally, the majority says the exclusionary rule should 

not apply here because the agents were relying reasonably 

on then-binding circuit precedent. See Davis v. United States, 

564 U.S. 229 (2011); United States v. Gary, 790 F.3d 704, 705 

(7th Cir. 2015). The warrantless search was not justified in 

this case by our prior “consent once removed” cases. In fact, 

the government did not try to make a Davis argument to excuse the warrantless search. In all of our prior cases using 

the theory, at least one undercover officer or informant who 

had been admitted to the premises was still present or at 

least still in a danger zone. That was not true here. The Davis

exception for good faith reliance on controlling precedent 

does not reach so far as to excuse mistaken efforts to extend

controlling precedents.

For these reasons, I concur in the judgments.

Case: 15-1740 Document: 39 Filed: 03/16/2016 Pages: 14