Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-01315/USCOURTS-ca8-04-01315-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Bobby R. Leveringston
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-1315

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Western

* District of Missouri.

Bobby R. Leveringston, *

*

Appellant. *

* 

___________

Submitted: September 16, 2004

Filed: February 16, 2005

___________

Before COLLOTON, HEANEY, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges.

___________

COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

Bobby R. Leveringston entered a conditional plea of guilty to a charge of

possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute. He reserved the right to appeal

the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized from his hotel

suite after his arrest. We agree with the district court that the police had sufficient

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
1

The Honorable Scott O. Wright, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri.

-2-

justification to enter the hotel suite without a warrant, and we therefore affirm the

judgment of the district court.1

I.

On November 17, 2002, Officers Jason Quint and Michael Ward of the Kansas

City Police Department responded to reports of suspicious drug activity at the

Marriott Residence Inn. The manager of the hotel told the officers that he suspected

drug activity had been occurring in Leveringston's suite, because people had been

coming to the suite throughout the day and staying only two to three minutes before

leaving. The manager told the officers that he was unwilling to tolerate drug activity

at his motel, and that he planned to evict Leveringston. 

The two officers knocked on the door of the suite. Leveringston opened the

curtains, saw the officers, looked surprised, and closed the curtains again. The

officers knocked again and heard loud noises coming from inside the suite, including

what sounded like dishes breaking, pots and pans slamming, and a garbage disposal

and water both running. The officers pounded on the door and called out, "Police.

Open the door. Is everything okay?," but received no response. As he continued to

knock on the door, Quint called for a second patrol car to assist in forcing entry, if

necessary. The officers continued knocking for two or three minutes. Quint then

announced, "Open the door or we're going to kick in the door." The loud noises

stopped (except for the garbage disposal and running water), and Quint heard what

he believed to be a window opening from inside the suite. Quint looked around the

corner and saw Leveringston jump from the second-story window of the suite.

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
-3-

Both officers chased Leveringston as he ran through the hotel complex. As

they pursued him, Leveringston jumped over a six-foot wrought iron fence

surrounding the hotel complex, fell fifteen feet to the ground, and then continued

running. A third policeman in a second patrol car arrived on the scene and

apprehended Leveringston. After Leveringston was stopped, Officers Quint and

Ward returned to their patrol car and drove to where Leveringston was located. A

search of Leveringston's person discovered $1,355 in cash and a key card to the hotel

suite. Both officers noticed that Leveringston's hand was wounded and that his hand

and shirt were covered in blood. Quint called for an ambulance and for a wagon to

transport Leveringston to police headquarters. Quint and Ward returned to the hotel

after Leveringston was taken from the scene.

Back at the hotel, the officers arranged for the manager to admit them to

Leveringston's suite. The officers looked around the living room, bedroom, and

bathroom, where they observed blood near a sink, a scale, plastic baggies, a razor

blade, and what they believed to be crack cocaine.

Detective Jeanelle Cesena of the Drug Enforcement Unit was then called to the

scene, and she obtained a search warrant for the suite approximately two or three

hours later. Upon conducting a search pursuant to the warrant, police seized 25.1

grams of cocaine base and 47.31 grams of cocaine from baggies on the floor and from

inside the garbage disposal.

Leveringston was charged with possessing with the intent to distribute five

grams of more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and

841(b)(1)(B), and possessing with the intent to distribute cocaine base in violation of

21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(C). He moved to suppress evidence on the

ground that the searches of the hotel suite were conducted in violation of his rights

under Fourth Amendment. The district court, adopting a magistrate judge's report and

recommendation, denied the motion to suppress. Leveringston then entered a

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 3 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
-4-

conditional plea of guilty to the first count of the indictment, reserving his right to

appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. He was sentenced to 120 months'

imprisonment.

II.

Leveringston asserts that the evidence of drug trafficking seized from his hotel

suite was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment's proscription against

unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment generally prohibits

entry to a home without a warrant, unless the circumstances meet an established

exception to the warrant requirement, such as the presence of exigent circumstances.

See Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589-90 (1980). Leveringston observes that

"the protections against warrantless intrusions into the home . . . apply with equal

force to a properly rented hotel room during the rental period," United States v.

Rambo, 789 F.2d 1289, 1295 (8th Cir. 1986), and argues that the warrantless entry

into the hotel suite by Officers Quint and Ward was unjustified by exigent

circumstances. Although the disputed evidence was seized only after police obtained

a warrant to search the suite, Leveringston contends that the initial warrantless entry

tainted the seizure.

The government counters that the later-obtained warrant provides a sufficient

basis for the disputed seizure, even assuming the initial entry was unlawful, so there

is no need to decide whether exigent circumstances justified the warrantless entry.

The government's position is premised on the "independent source doctrine," which

rests upon the policy that "while the government should not profit from its illegal

activity, neither should it be placed in a worse position than it otherwise would have

occupied." Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 542 (1988). In this case, the

government contends that although the affidavit in support of the search warrant

included information gained during the initial entry, the remaining information in the

affidavit established probable cause to search the hotel suite. Thus, says the

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 4 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
-5-

government, the warrant was obtained "independent" of any possible illegality in the

initial entry.

We cannot accept the government's position on this point, because it

understates the showing required to establish that a search warrant is genuinely

independent of an earlier entry. The Supreme Court has explained that a search

warrant obtained after an illegal entry is not an independent source of evidence if "the

agents' decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what they had seen during the

initial entry, or if information obtained during that entry was presented to the

Magistrate and affected his decision to issue the warrant." Murray, 487 U.S. at 542

(footnote omitted). The government's argument in this case is directed only to the

second part of that equation: because the affidavit established probable cause to

search the suite based on information not obtained during the initial entry, the

information obtained during that entry did not affect the magistrate's decision to issue

the warrant. See United States v. Packer, 730 F.2d 1151, 1156 (8th Cir. 1984);

United States v. Williams, 633 F.2d 742, 745 (8th Cir. 1980). 

Murray makes clear, however, that to employ the independent source doctrine,

the government also must establish that the police would have sought a warrant if

they had not earlier entered the hotel suite. It is not sufficient, under Murray, for a

court of appeals to infer from the circumstances that the police inevitably would have

sought a warrant; findings of fact by the district court are required. 487 U.S. at 543.

Here, the district court found that after the initial warrantless entry, "Sergeant Arroyo

called Detective Cesena of the Drug Enforcement Unit who arrived on the scene and,

based on her observations of the suite, obtained a no-knock search warrant for the

suite approximately two or three hours later." (D.R. 3) (emphasis added). While this

finding does not preclude the possibility that officers other than Detective Cesena

would have sought a warrant even if they had been prevented from entering the suite

without a warrant, it is not our function to determine the facts, and the district court

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 5 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
-6-

certainly did not "explicitly find that the agents would have sought a warrant if they

had not earlier entered the [hotel suite]." Murray, 487 U.S. at 543.

When the government seeks to rely on the independent source doctrine in a

case involving a later-obtained warrant, it should present specific evidence that the

officers were not prompted by allegedly unlawful activity to obtain the warrant, and

should seek a finding on that point from the district court. In this case, it turns out,

the government never even raised the independent source doctrine in the district

court, so it is little wonder that the district court made no pertinent finding.

The government's alternative argument echoes the district court's conclusion

that the disputed evidence was admissible because the initial warrantless entry to the

hotel suite was justified by exigent circumstances. At the time the officers first

knocked and announced their presence at the hotel suite, there is no doubt that the

police had both probable cause to investigate and exigent circumstances that would

have permitted a warrantless entry. The hotel manager had informed the officers of

signs of suspicious drug activity in Leveringston's suite, that is, frequent visitors to

the suite who stayed only two or three minutes before leaving. The occupant of the

suite reacted to police knocking by looking through curtains, expressing surprise, and

then immediately shutting the curtains. This response was followed by sounds of pots

and pans slamming, dishes breaking, water flowing, and a garbage disposal running.

The officers reasonably could infer that these sounds indicated the destruction of

evidence of drug trafficking in response to the presence of the police. Police then

observed Leveringston flee from the suite, suggesting at least consciousness of guilt

on his part. If the officers had entered the suite at that moment, we believe it is clear

that entry without a warrant would have been justified by probable cause that

evidence of drug trafficking was within and that destruction of evidence was

imminent. 

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 6 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
-7-

The police officers, however, did not enter immediately in response to this

exigency. When Leveringston lept from the window and fled the hotel suite, Officers

Quint and Ward participated in the pursuit and apprehension of Leveringston, and

they remained with Leveringston until he was transported from the scene. The

officers then returned to the hotel, and asked the hotel manager to open

Leveringston's suite. Leveringston contends that the delay occasioned by the chase

and arrest removed any exigency that might have justified entry at an earlier point in

time. 

In evaluating whether a warrantless entry was justified by exigent

circumstances, we consider the circumstances that confronted the police at the time

of the entry. As with most issues arising under the Fourth Amendment, we apply an

objective standard to evaluate the reasonableness of an assertion that exigent

circumstances justified a warrantless entry. United States v. Morales, 737 F.2d 761,

764 (8th Cir. 1984); United States v. Selberg, 630 F.2d 1292, 1295-96 (8th Cir. 1980).

Our analysis, therefore, is not limited to the subjective beliefs of the police officer

who actually made the entry. We examine, rather, what an objectively reasonable

officer on the scene could have believed, for if such an officer would have had

sufficient grounds to believe there was an exigency, then the Fourth Amendment did

not require a warrant, and the suspect's constitutional rights were not violated by a

warrantless entry. See generally United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 122 (2001);

United States v. Jones, 990 F.2d 405, 408 (8th Cir. 1993); Klingler v. United States,

409 F.2d 299, 304 (8th Cir. 1969).

In this case, we believe that two separate concerns created a legitimate need for

immediate action that "could not brook the delay incident to obtaining a warrant."

Dorman v. United States, 435 F.2d 385, 392 (D.C. Cir. 1970) (en banc). The first is

destruction of evidence. The risk that evidence will be destroyed during the time

required to obtain a search warrant can be an exigent circumstance that justifies a

warrantless entry. Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 750 (1984); Schmerber v.

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 7 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
-8-

California, 384 U.S. 757, 770-71 (1966). With water continuing to run and a garbage

disposal continuing to grind inside Leveringston's hotel suite, the police had grounds

to believe there was a fair probability that evidence of drug trafficking – a serious

felony offense – would be lost if they did not make immediate entry. For one thing,

the officers could not be assured that after Leveringston fled, no accomplice (perhaps

one of his "frequent visitors") remained behind to continue the destruction of drug

trafficking evidence by feeding it through a garbage disposal. And even if the suite

were empty, it was likely that Leveringston himself had placed evidence in the

garbage disposal prior to fleeing, such that the continuing flow of water threatened

to dissolve or wash down the drain a quantity of drugs or other evidence. Indeed, the

police ultimately did seize cocaine from the garbage disposal after making the

warrantless entry.

We also believe that the discovery of blood on Leveringston's hand and shirt

at the time of his arrest, combined with the sounds of dishes breaking and pots

slamming immediately before Leveringston's flight, gave the police a sufficient basis

to believe that there may be a person in need of immediate aid within the hotel suite.

See Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392 (1978). While it was of course possible

that the blood that covered Leveringston was simply his own blood flowing from

injuries incurred during his flight from the hotel suite, a reasonably prudent officer

– having heard the loud commotion in the suite and witnessed the blood on

Leveringston – also could infer a fair probability that another party was injured in the

suite after some sort of struggle with Leveringston. The Fourth Amendment does not

require certitude before police may act without a warrant to protect persons or

evidence; as we understand the Supreme Court, a showing of probable cause is

sufficient. See Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 100 (1990). In our judgment, the

circumstances here were sufficient to lead a police officer of reasonable caution to

conclude that prompt investigation into the potential of an injured party in need of

assistance was warranted.

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 8 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
2

Officers Quint and Ward first arrived at the hotel at 2:52 p.m. (Hrg. Tr. 3).

They spoke with the acting manager, and then knocked on the door to Leveringston's

suite for at least two minutes before leaving to chase the fleeing suspect. (Id. at 4-7).

The officers then returned to the suite, and entered with the assistance of the manager.

After their entry, the officers telephoned Detective Cesena, who testified that she

traveled to the scene and arrived between 3:20 and 3:30 p.m. (Id. at 47).

-9-

Our recent opinion in United States v. Janis, 387 F.3d 682 (8th Cir. 2004), is

instructive on this point. In Janis, the defendant had shot himself in the leg with a

firearm while in his own home, and then left the firearm in the home when he traveled

to a hospital. Police learned of the incident while at the hospital, and then progressed

to the home, where they found a puddle of blood in the driveway, and a trail of blood

between the driveway and the front door. Although the police had no specific

information the blood was from any person other than Janis, or that any other person

was injured, we held that a warrantless entry of the home "could be justified for the

officers to determine whether anyone else was injured or in danger." Id. at 688

(emphasis added). Because the officers in Janis reasonably could have believed that

exigent circumstances were present, the entry was consistent with the Fourth

Amendment. Id. So too here.

Leveringston makes much of the fact that Officers Quint and Ward did not

enter the hotel suite until after Leveringston was apprehended, searched, and removed

from the scene. We are not persuaded, however, that the delay between the initial

encounter at the door of the hotel suite and the warrantless entry undermines the

district court's finding of exigent circumstances. While the record does not reveal a

precise time line of events, it suggests strongly that no more than twenty minutes

elapsed between Leveringston's flight from the suite and the warrantless entry.2

 This

is far less than the two hours that eventually were required to obtain a warrant, and

for the reasons discussed, we do not believe the delay eliminated the reasonableness

of a concern that evidence would be destroyed if the officers did not enter promptly.

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 9 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319 
-10-

See generally United States v. McEachin, 670 F.2d 1139, 1145 (D.C. Cir. 1981)

(delay before search did not eliminate exigent circumstances).

The delay is largely irrelevant to the concern that there may have been a person

within the suite in need of immediate aid. While the officers heard loud noises in the

suite before the suspect fled, the officers did not observe the blood on Leveringston's

hands and shirt until he was apprehended, and it was that observation that gave rise

to the heightened concern of a second exigency. Thus, that the officers failed to enter

the suite prior to chasing and apprehending Leveringston does not refute the

conclusion that a reasonable officer could have believed after the suspect's

apprehension that the totality of circumstances justified an entry to investigate

whether any other person was injured and in need of assistance. See United States v.

Gill, 354 F.3d 963, 967 (8th Cir. 2004).

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

 ______________________________

Appellate Case: 04-1315 Page: 10 Date Filed: 02/16/2005 Entry ID: 1868319