Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-03339/USCOURTS-ca10-89-03339-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Christopher Paul McMahon
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United ira~ f~ E l) -~ "-'1-llltt of Ap,-..1 Tenth c1 • ,-.;c.1s .ra 11r 

ocr 11 1990 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT AOBERT L. HOECJ<E 

Clerk R 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

CHRISTOPHER PAUL McMAHON, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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No. 89-3339 

(D. Kansas) 

(D.C. No. 89-40027-01) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before LOGAN, MCWILLIAMS, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges. 

Defendant-appellant Christopher McMahon was convicted of possession with intent to distribute methylenedioxymethamphetamine 

(MOMA) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in violation of 21 

u.s.c. § 84l(a)(l), and of using the mails to distribute drugs in 

violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b). He appeals on the ground that 

certain evidence should have been suppressed. We affirm. 

On Friday, June 9, 1989, Postal Inspector Laura Stewart 

obtained from a federal judge a search warrant in order to open an 

Express Mail package. Her affidavit alleged the following facts: 

Under the Express Mail Narcotic Profile, factors which are often 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-3339 Document: 010110059569 Date Filed: 10/11/1990 Page: 1 
present when Express Mail packages are used to transport drugs are 

(a) origination in narcotic source cities, such as those in 

southern California and southern Florida; (b) handwritten labels 

to residential addresses; (c) fictitious return names and/or addresses; (d) fictitious or unknown addressee names; and (e) that 

packages arrive repeatedly. Numerous Express Mail packages had 

arrived over the previous six months for delivery to 1005 Indiana, 

Apartment 5, and 433 Ohio, Second Floor, both in Lawrence, Kansas, 

to Steven Perceval and Jeff Clardy. Previous mailings to Perceval 

at 1005 Indiana bore nonexistent or fictitious return addresses. 

Surveillance showed traffic between the two apartments by Perceval 

and Clardy. 1 On June 8, an Express Mail package arrived for 

delivery to 1005 Indiana, addressed to Janet Fitzgerald. The 

package bore the handwritten return address of Coast Shell & 

Jewelry, 516 Shrader, San Francisco, California, but was mailed 

from Santa Cruz, California. Another package, bearing the same 

handwriting and return address, and mailed at the same time, arrived for delivery to Jeff Clardy at 1005 Indiana. Address checks 

with the post office revealed that 516 Shrader was a non-existent 

address, and that no Janet Fitzgerald resided at 1005 Indiana. 

The package addressed to Fitzgerald was inspected by a police 

2 narcotics-detection dog, which indicated the presence of drugs. 

1 McMahon argues that it was unclear whom had been surveilled, 

Perceval, Clardy, or Fitzgerald. Because only Perceval and Clardy 

had been mentioned in the affidavit at this point, see R. Vol. I, 

Tab 11, App. A at 1, it is obvious that they were the surveillance 

subjects. 

2 McMahon claims that the affidavit did not specify which 

package was inspected, the Fitzgerald package or the Clardy 

[footnote continued] 

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Appellate Case: 89-3339 Document: 010110059569 Date Filed: 10/11/1990 Page: 2 
The package was found to hold seven plastic bags of MOMA and 

one bag of blotter paper containing LSD. It was then resealed and 

Stewart attempted to deliver it on Saturday, June 10, but nobody 

was home. The package was delivered on Monday, June 12. 

Fitzgerald and McMahon, who had lived at 1005 Indiana since the 

end of May, were arrested shortly thereafter, and a warrant to 

search the premises was obtained from Douglas County District 

Judge Pro Tern Andrew Ramirez. The search recovered the drugs. 

McMahon's motion to suppress the drugs was denied, and he was 

convicted and sentenced to seventy-eight months in prison. On 

appeal, he argues that the first search warrant was not supported 

by probable cause, 3 and, consequently, the second warrant was 

[footnote continued] 

package. Again, he has misread the affidavit. The Fitzgerald 

package was the subject of the affidavit. The Clardy package was 

mentioned only to support Stewart's suspicions regarding the 

Fitzgerald package. It is clear to us that the package inspected 

was the one addressed to Fitzgerald. 

3 He also appears to argue that the warrant was invalid because 

some of the statements therein were incorrect. This argument was 

not made below. See R. Vol. I, Tab 11 at 1-3. "[W]hen, as here, 

'there is no showing of an impediment to the appellant that 

precluded his raising the issue,'" United States v. Lotspeich, 796 

F.2d 1268, 1271 (10th Cir. 1986) (quoting United States v. 

Mitchell, 783 F.2d 971, 995 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 

860 (1986)), we will not consider an issue raised for the first 

time on appeal "unless the ground not raised constitutes 'plain 

error resulting in manifest injustice,'" United States v. Orr, 864 

F.2d 1505, 1508 (10th Cir. 1988) (quoting United States v. Taylor, 

800 F.2d 1012, 1017 (10th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 838 

(1987)). This is not a case of plain error, for the inaccuracies 

to which he points are rather minor: that the return address was 

non-existent when in fact it was merely fictitious (i.e., 516 

Shrader does, contrary to the affidavit, exist, but it does not 

house Coastal Shell & Jewelry), and that Janet Fitzgerald did not 

reside at 1005 Indiana when in fact she had moved in there 10 days 

earlier. The first misstatement does not detract at all from the 

support for the warrant. The second misstatement detracts only in 

that it causes the fictitious-addressee prong of the profile to be 

absent. 

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J 

llfruit of the poisonous tree," Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 

471, 488 (1963). 

We review a finding of probable cause "with 'great deference.' The Fourth Amendment probable cause standard deals with 

probabilities and common sense conclusions, not certainties. A 

'fair probability' or a 'substantial basis' for believing evidence 

of a crime will be found ... constitutes probable cause." 

United States v. Orr, 864 F.2d 1505, 1508 (10th Cir. 1988) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 236, 238 (1983)). 

The first warrant clearly was supported by probable cause. A 

police dog indicated that the package contained drugs. We 

recently held that such alerts constitute probable cause to 

search. United States v. Morales-Zamora, No. 89-2172, slip op. at 

13 (10th Cir. September 6, 1990). Police dog sniffs of legally 

detained objects, such as the package in this case, are not 

searches within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and do not 

require articulable suspicion. Id. at 7-11. Additionally, most 

of the profile factors were present: handwritten label to a 

residential address, fictitious addressee and return address, and 

repeated deliveries. 

Because the first warrant was valid, it was not a poisonous 

tree of which the second warrant was fruit. 

McMahon also argues that the second warrant was invalid 

because the state judge was not authorized to issue it. Because 

this argument was not made below, we review only for plain error. 

See note 3, supra. Judge Pro Tem Ramirez was a neutral judicial 

officer authorized to hear "emergency matters" while the county's 

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full-time judges attended a judicial conference. Because the 

package was sent by Express Mail, it had to be delivered as soon 

as possible. It was not plainly erroneous to consider the 

government's need to search 1005 Indiana before the drugs could be 

removed to be an emergency. 

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Stephen H. Anderson 

Circuit Judge 

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