Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_09-cr-00485/USCOURTS-caed-2_09-cr-00485-10/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kenneth Franklin Beals
Defendant
USA
Plaintiff

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff, Cr. No. S-09-485 KJM 

vs.

KENNETH FRANKLIN BEALS, 

Defendant. ORDER

 /

Defendant Beals is charged by indictment with being a felon in possession of a

firearm. Defendant has moved to dismiss the indictment based on outrageous government

conduct, and has requested an evidentiary hearing in connection with the motion. This case was

on calendar most recently on March 28, 2012, for a status hearing, at which Robert M. Holley

appeared for defendant Kenneth Beals, who was present in custody in court; William Wong,

Assistant United States Attorney, appeared for the government. The court noted at the hearing

that it would issue an order in the near future resolving the motion to dismiss. That order

follows. For the reasons addressed below, and after careful consideration, the court denies

defendant’s motion and request for an evidentiary hearing.

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I. Background

Defendant is charged with one count of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). ECF No. 1. On February 3, 2011, defendant filed a motion

to suppress the gun, which was seized during a search of his Dodge van. He relied on the

description of the October 19, 2009 incident contained in a police report prepared by Sacramento

Police Officer Harshbarger and argued that Harshbarger and the other arresting officer did not

have reasonable suspicion to approach the van, which was parked in front of a liquor store, much

less probable cause to conduct a warrantless search. ECF No. 13. In the report, Officer

Harshbarger said that he approached the van because he knew “this model of Caravan is

commonly stolen,” and that when defendant said he was on probation and the passenger said he

was on parole, Harshbarger and his partner ordered the van’s occupants detained. ECF No. 13-1

at 1. A warrants check showed active Lake County warrants for defendant. Id. The officers

searched the van and found a gun in the area where defendant had been sitting. Id.

The government submitted Officer Harshbarger’s declaration as part of its

opposition to the motion to suppress. Officer Harshbarger averred that on October 19, 2009, he

was looking for this particular 1994 Dodge Caravan because he “had been given information

from a confidential informant that Kenneth Beals was a convicted felon and was possibly armed

with a handgun” and was driving such a van. ECF No. 19-1 at 2 ¶ 4. Harshbarger had followed

up after his contact with the informant by requesting defendant’s criminal history and driving

record from dispatch; approximately two hours after submitting the request, Harshbarger

received information that defendant’s driver’s license was suspended, that he was wanted on the

two outstanding warrants from Lake County, and that defendant was on probation. Id. ¶ 6. 

About a half hour after receiving this information, Harshbarger found the van parked in front of a

liquor store. Id. at 3 ¶ 7. Harshbarger recognized defendant from a prior contact and ordered

him out of the van. Id. ¶ 10. He averred that “in order to maintain the confidentiality of the

identity of my informant, I used a ruse to explain my presence at the scene.” Id. ¶ 11. During

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the encounter, Jennifer Critchfield, who had been a passenger in the van, came out of the liquor

store. She was detained but then released. At defendant’s request, Harshbarger gave Critchfield

defendant’s keys and she was allowed to drive the van away so it would not be impounded. Id. 

¶ 14. Defendant later acknowledged that the gun the officers found was his. Id. ¶ 16. 

Harshbarger concluded his declaration by saying, “I omitted from my report any mention of the

fact that I had received information from a confidential informant . . .. because I wanted to

protect the identity of the confidential informant for the informant’s safety.” Id. at 4-5 ¶ 17. 

On June 6, 2011, defendant suspended litigation of his motion to suppress and

filed a motion to dismiss for outrageous government conduct and a motion for disclosure of the

informant’s identity and several categories of information about the informant. In the briefing on

the motion to disclose and in the motion to dismiss, defendant asserts, without evidentiary

support, that the officers told him the van, which belonged to his uncle, could be impounded for

his uncle to retrieve later or that “maybe the woman passenger could drive it back to the uncle’s

house for him.” ECF No. 31 at 7; ECF No. 30 at 9. Defendant continues, that “Ms. Critchfield,

the uncle’s van, and thousands of dollars of personal property taken from the uncle’s residence,

disappeared that night, never to return.” ECF No. 31 at 7; ECF No. 30 at 9. In his motions,

defendant theorizes that Critchfield, who had been texting shortly before the arrest, was the

informant and that had he known, he would not have authorized giving his uncle’s keys to her. 

ECF No. 31 at 7; ECF No. 30 at 9. 

In considering defendant’s motions to disclose and to dismiss, the court

conducted an in camera examination of Officer Harshbarger, later releasing the transcript to the

parties. During the examination, Harshbarger identified Critchfield as the informant, said he was

aware she was on probation for non-violent offenses, and explained that she had been

exchanging money for information for approximately three years. ECF No. 52 at 4-5. The

officer said he had heard that Critchfield was currently in prison. Id. at 21. 

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Harshbarger testified that after arresting defendant, he tried to reach defendant’s

uncle, the registered owner of the van, but when he could not, he followed usual police practice

by giving defendant the option of having a responsible party take the van rather than having it

towed and impounded; defendant opted to have Critchfield take the van. Id. at 12, 14-15. 

Harshbarger did not look at the key ring he gave Critchfield, and did not realize there was a

house key on the ring. Id. at 12-13. Defendant did not volunteer that the ring contained a house

key. Id. 

In preparing for the court’s in camera examination, Officer Harshbarger learned

that there were no reported crimes from the uncle’s address, from the date of defendant’s arrest

until a month or two before the examination. Id. at 16. 

Officer Harshbarger did not tell the U.S. Attorney’s Office about the existence of

the informant until three months before the in camera hearing, nearly two years after the grand

jury indicted defendant. Harshbarger testified he was acting to protect the informant. Id. at 16. 

His desire to protect Critchfield’s identity also prompted him to omit any mention of her from

the police report and to claim instead as a “ruse” that he approached the van because it was a

commonly stolen model and was improperly parked. Id. at 18.

After the in camera hearing and the court’s release of the transcript, defendant

filed a supplemental memorandum of points and authorities, which attached an investigator’s

report of an interview with one Adam Susko, an inmate at Deuel Vocational Center. Susko

identified a picture of Critchfield as someone who was “kind of like family” to him “when he

was out on the streets.” ECF No. 46-1 at 1. Sometime in October 2009, Susko called Critchfield

for a ride. She reportedly arrived in a white van, drove him to a house on Greenholm Street and

asked for Susko’s assistance in “robbing the house,” but he refused. Id. at 2. Despite having

obtained this report, defendant has never submitted a declaration from Susko, or defendant’s

uncle, or a police report or insurance claim or any other documentary evidence supporting his

contention that the uncle’s house was burglarized after Harshbarger gave Critchfield defendant’s

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keys. Nor has defendant suggested that Susko would be willing to testify about this incident, or

offered to make Susko available for examination. 

Upon review of defendant’s supplemental memorandum, the court ordered the

government to provide a transcript of the grand jury proceedings related to defendant’s

indictment. After in camera review, the court released this transcript to defendant. That

transcript of the proceeding, held on November 12, 2009, shows that the case was presented

through the testimony of an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

The agent based her testimony on a review of the police reports and responded affirmatively

when the Assistant United States Attorney asked, “did the officers indicate that they had

observed Mr. Beals commit some type of parking violation?” ECF No. 54 at 3. 

In his most recent supplemental memorandum of points and authorities, defendant

argues that Officer Harshbarger’s actions in allowing defendant to authorize giving his keys to

Critchfield, who was the cause of defendant’s arrest, coupled with the officer’s falsification of

his police report, tainted the grand jury proceedings. ECF 59 at 2:18-20, 3:1-3.1

II. Analysis

Defendant argues he is entitled to dismissal of the indictment because Officer

Harshbarger allowed or perhaps encouraged defendant to give his uncle’s keys to Critchfield, the

officer falsified the police report and did not reveal his ruse to the U.S. Attorney’s Office until

the defense filed its suppression motion, and also because the essence of the false police report

was presented to the grand jury. Defendant argues the court may dismiss on due process grounds

or under its supervisory authority. While defendant notes that there is no authority directly on

point to support his position, he argues that the lack of authority is unsurprising given the nature

of his motion as raising a question of first impression.

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 Defendant also references for the first time “physical abuse of the defendant during the

arrest,” without providing any evidentiary support for this allegation. ECF 59 at 2:21-22. 

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As a threshold matter, the court does not condone Officer Harshbarger’s actions,

beginning with his provision of defendant’s keys to the informant, to falsifying the police report

and then failing to reveal his deception to the U.S. Attorney’s Office until defendant filed his

motion to suppress. The court is particularly troubled by the false report which, as defendant

argues, both the public and a criminal defendant should be able to accept at face value. As

untoward as Officer Harshbarger’s actions were, the court finds they do not warrant dismissal of

the indictment. Given its concerns about the officer’s actions, however, the court will direct that

a copy of this order be served on the head of his employing agency, for consideration of any

actions that agency may deem appropriate. 

A. Due Process

In order to show outrageous government conduct, which violates the due process

clause, defendant must show conduct that is “‘grossly shocking and so outrageous as to violate

the universal sense of justice.’” United States v. Stinson, 647 F.3d 1196, 1209 (9th Cir. 2011)

(quoting United States v. Restrepo, 930 F.2d 705, 712 (9th Cir. 1991)), cert. denied, U.S. ,

2012 WL 425232 (Mar. 19, 2012). In Stinson, for example, the Court of Appeals upheld the

district court’s refusal to dismiss an indictment based on the fact that a government witness with

a history of perjuring himself, including perjury in a related case, received government payments

for his testimony. In United States v. Childs, 447 F.3d 541 (7th Cir. 2006), the Seventh Circuit

Court of Appeals refused to dismiss an indictment even though it characterized the prosecutor’s

conduct as “designed deliberately to mislead the court and defendant counsel” about two

informants’ theft of some of the drug evidence they had purchased from defendant. Id. at 545. 

The Court of Appeals said that defense counsel was able to make use of the information once it

was revealed to him and so dismissing the indictment in the absence of prejudice “would be to

confer an unearned windfall.” Id. In this case, similarly, defendant is aware of Officer

Harshbarger’s deception in time to make use of it if the case goes to trial. There is no evidence

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that Harshbarger’s deception directly tainted the prosecutor’s eliciting of testimony before the

grand jury to obtain the indictment of defendant; the evidence rather is to the contrary. 

The suggestion that Critchfield burglarized defendant’s uncle’s home, if true, is

similarly disturbing, but it does not rise to the level of a due process violation. First, Officer

Harshbarger testified he did not pay attention to the keys on the ring: his carelessness or

inattention does not violate due process. Second, and most significantly, the wrong Harshbarger

allegedly facilitated was not aimed at defendant, but rather at his uncle: the uncle’s house was

burglarized and the uncle’s property taken. In United States v. Edmonds, 103 F.3d 822 (9th Cir.

1996), the Ninth Circuit observed that even if the affidavit in support of a search warrant of

another’s home was based on a number of falsehoods, the defendant was not entitled to a

dismissal of the indictment because “[t]he rights affected by the search of [the other person’s]

home were not those of [defendant,]” and so the defendant failed to “establish a link between the

improperly executed search warrant and the deprivation of his own due process rights.” Id. at

825-26; see also United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727 (1980) (cannot suppress evidence under

supervisory powers when authorities’ illegality was directed at a third party). 

B. Supervisory Authority

Defendant asks the court to dismiss the indictment in an exercise of its

supervisory authority. The court may exercise this power “‘to remedy a constitutional or

statutory violation; to protect judicial integrity by ensuring that a conviction rests on appropriate

considerations validly before the jury; or to deter future illegal conduct.’” Stinson, 647 F.3d at

1210 (quoting United States v. Barrera-Moreno, 951 F.2d 1089, 1091 (9th Cir. 1991)). In this

case, Officer Harshbarger’s actions do not go to defendant’s guilt or innocence, which counsels

against dismissal. See United States v. Williams, 978 F.2d 1133, 1135 (9th Cir. 1992)

(upholding district court’s refusal to dismiss even though grand jury heard perjured testimony,

because the perjured testimony was not material to guilt or innocence). Although Officer

Harshbarger did perpetuate a lie in his police report, his falsehoods and omissions did not relate

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to defendant’s guilt of the charges. In addition, although the officer’s release of the keys to

Critchfield represented extremely poor judgment, this court cannot say that poor judgment has

had an impact on the case before this court or on any evidence relating to defendant’s guilt or

innocence. 

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that:

1. The motion to dismiss for outrageous government conduct (ECF No. 31)

is denied. Defendant’s request for an evidentiary hearing in connection

with the motion to dismiss also is denied.

2. The Clerk of the Court is directed to serve a courtesy copy of this order on

the Chief of Police of the Sacramento Police Department, City of

Sacramento. 

3. At the status hearing set for April 11, 2012, the parties shall be prepared to

discuss the status of defendant’s pending motion to suppress and

additional briefing with respect to that motion. 

DATED: April 9, 2012.

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