Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01384/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01384-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Joseph R. Grooms
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

1

18 U.S.C. § 924(e) provides that, if the defendant has been convicted of three

“violent felonies” or “serious drug offenses,” as defined in the statute, then the

prescribed punishment for a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is not less than fifteen

years in prison.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 07-1384

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Western

* District of Missouri.

Joseph R. Grooms, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: March 19, 2010

Filed: April 28, 2010

___________

Before BYE, BOWMAN, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

___________

BYE, Circuit Judge.

On June 7, 2005, a federal grand jury returned an indictment in the Western

District of Missouri charging Joseph R. Grooms with (1) being a felon in possession

of firearms, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(e)(1);1

 (2) possession with

intent to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C); and

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The Honorable Dean Whipple, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri.

3

The Honorable Sarah W. Hays, United States Magistrate Judge for the Western

District of Missouri.

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(3) possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21

U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C).

On February 7, 2006, Grooms moved to suppress evidence found in his vehicle.

The district court2

 adopted the findings of the magistrate judge,3 holding the search

was permitted as a search incident to arrest under the rationale of New York v. Belton,

453 U.S. 454 (1981), and Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615 (2004).

On September 12, 2006, Grooms pleaded guilty to all three counts, reserving

the right to appeal the district court's suppression order. The district court sentenced

Grooms as an armed career criminal to 188 months of imprisonment on each count,

to be served concurrently, followed by five years of supervised release. Grooms

appealed the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence found in his vehicle.

We affirmed the district court, holding the search of Grooms's vehicle was a

lawful search incident to arrest. United States v. Grooms, 506 F.3d 1088, 1089 (8th

Cir. 2007). The Supreme Court reversed, Grooms v. United States, 129 S.Ct. 1981,

1981 (2009), and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Arizona v.

Gant, 129 S.Ct. 1710 (2009).

Because the search of Grooms's vehicle was supported by independent probable

cause, we once again affirm.

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Grooms's passenger was released at the scene because there were no warrants

for his arrest. 

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I

Early on the morning of January 28, 2005, Grooms was involved in a verbal

altercation with security personnel ("the bouncer") at America’s Pub, a nightclub in

the Westport Entertainment District of Kansas City, Missouri. Grooms told the

bouncer he was returning to his truck to get a gun to use on the bouncer.

Having received a physical description of Grooms, Westport public safety

("WPS") officers identified Grooms as he drove away in his truck. Because Grooms

appeared to be leaving the Westport area, the WPS officers did not attempt to stop

him. Grooms, however, returned, and legally parked the truck about one-half block

from the America’s Pub in a valid, unmetered parking spot. As the WPS officers were

exiting their vehicles to approach him, Grooms and his passenger exited his truck and

shut their doors. Grooms was standing very close to his vehicle, so the WPS officers

moved him away from the truck door. Because he had threatened to retrieve a firearm

to use on the bouncer, the WPS officers patted him down for weapons and placed him

and his passenger in handcuffs. The WPS officers called the Kansas City Missouri

Police Department (KCPD) and police officers responded to the scene within minutes.

When the KCPD officers arrived, Grooms was standing next to his truck in

handcuffs. The truck was locked and his keys had been taken from him. A KCPD

dispatcher confirmed Grooms had an outstanding warrant in Kansas City, Missouri,

for a moving violation, and an extraditable warrant in Jackson County from Missouri

State Highway Patrol for failure to secure a load.4

 The KCPD officers arrested

Grooms on his outstanding warrants.

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Prior to the search of the truck, the KCPD officers asked Grooms a few times

for his consent to search; Grooms refused. On the dash camera videotape of the

incident, an officer can be heard saying to Grooms: “You have an extraditable

warrant that gives me the right to search your car.” Less than eight minutes after their

arrival on the scene, the KCPD officers searched Grooms’s truck and found a black,

hard plastic case, which appeared to be a gun case. A search of the gun case revealed

two handguns. The officers also found a locked gray Sentry lockbox. In the driver’s

side door compartment of the vehicle, the officers found Grooms’s key ring containing

the key to the lockbox. Upon opening the locked box, the KCPD officers discovered

clear plastic bags containing narcotics and a digital scale. When Grooms was

searched, the officers discovered he had a large amount of cash on his person.

Grooms was indicted on drug and gun violations. As a result of his motion to

suppress the evidence, the district court held an evidentiary hearing. The Magistrate

Judge concluded the search was contemporaneous to Grooms's arrest and justified

under Belton. Grooms entered a conditional plea to all counts.

On his first appeal, Grooms argued the search was unconstitutional and all

resulting evidence should be suppressed. We affirmed. Grooms, 506 F.3d at 1089.

Under the precedent as it existed in this circuit at the time, we read the Supreme

Court's decisions in Belton and Thornton as laying down a bright-line rule that when

an officer makes "a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may,

as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that

automobile.” Belton, 453 U.S. at 460.

After we affirmed, the Supreme Court handed down Gant. Gant clarified the

scope of law enforcement's authority to search incident to arrest. Gant held that police

may "search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only when the arrestee is

unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of

the search." Gant, 129 S.Ct. at 1719. In addition, the Gant Court concluded the

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"circumstances unique to the vehicle context justify a search incident to a lawful arrest

when it is 'reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be

found in the vehicle.' " Id. (quoting Thornton, 541 U.S. at 632, 124 S.Ct. 2127

(Scalia, J., concurring in judgment)). In light of Gant, the Supreme Court granted

Grooms's petition for a writ of certiorari, vacated our decision, and remanded.

Grooms, 129 S.Ct. at 1981.

II

Grooms renews his argument that the search of his vehicle violated the Fourth

Amendment. The government defends the admissibility of the evidence discovered

in the course of the search with three arguments: first, the government argues the

search of Grooms's vehicle was supported by probable cause to believe the vehicle

might contain evidence relevant to Grooms's alleged threat made to the bouncer;

second, the government argues the search was lawful under Gant's second prong,

which permits a search incident to a lawful arrest when it is reasonable to believe

evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle; finally, the

government contends that even if the search was illegal, suppression of the evidence

discovered during the search is an inappropriate remedy because the police acted in

good-faith reliance on this court's caselaw, which, prior to Gant, routinely upheld

searches similar to the search at issue here. Because we affirm along the lines of the

government's first argument, we need not consider the others today.

A

When an appellant challenges the denial of a suppression motion, we review the

lower court's factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. United

States v. Black Bear, 422 F.3d 658, 661 (8th Cir. 2005).

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B

Under Missouri law, making certain threats is a crime. "A person commits the

crime of peace disturbance if [h]e unreasonably and knowingly disturbs or alarms

another person or persons by . . . [t]hreatening to commit a felonious act against any

person under circumstances which are likely to cause a reasonable person to fear that

such threat may be carried out . . . ." Mo. Stat. § 574.010(1) (2009). Peace

disturbance is a misdemeanor. See Mo. Stat. § 574.010(2).

“Probable cause exists when there is a fair probability that contraband or

evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” United States v. Palega, 556

F.3d 709, 714 (8th Cir. 2009) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Here, we

have no difficulty concluding probable cause existed to search Grooms's vehicle for

evidence related to the alleged threat he made to the bouncer. That Grooms was

arrested on outstanding warrants is of no moment in our analysis. In Devenpeck v.

Alford, 543 U.S. 146 (2004), the Supreme Court rejected the lower court's holding

that "the probable-cause inquiry is . . . confined to the known facts bearing upon the

offense actually invoked at the time of arrest, and that (in addition) the offense

supported by these known facts must be 'closely related' to the offense that the officer

invoked." Id. at 153. The Supreme Court stated that "[o]ur cases make clear that an

arresting officer's state of mind (except for the facts that he knows) is irrelevant to the

existence of probable cause." Id. (citations omitted). Instead, "[t]hose are lawfully

arrested whom the facts known to the arresting officers give probable cause to arrest."

Id. at 155. In light of Grooms's threat–Grooms told the bouncer he was returning to

his truck to get a gun to use on the bouncer–any gun discovered in Grooms's vehicle

would be circumstantial evidence tending to prove that he in fact threatened "to

commit a felonious act"–murder–against the bouncer. Cf. Michigan v. Clifford, 464

U.S. 287, 294 (1984) ("[A] criminal search warrant may be obtained only on a

showing of probable cause to believe that relevant evidence will be found in the place

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to be searched." (emphasis added)). Therefore, probable cause existed to search

Grooms's vehicle.

Finally, because we conclude the search of Grooms's vehicle was supported by

probable cause, it is no longer necessary to justify the warrantless nature of the search

as a search incident to arrest; rather, the warrantless search can be justified under the

automobile exception. As a rule, "searches conducted outside the judicial process,

without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the

Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and

well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967)

(footnote omitted). The Supreme Court has made clear, however, that one of these

well-delineated exceptions is the warrantless search of vehicles. See California v.

Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 388 (1985). The Supreme Court justified the departure from

the traditional warrant requirement because of the lower expectation of privacy in

vehicles and also their unique mobility. Id. at 390-91. This "automobile exception"

authorizes a search of any area of the vehicle in which the evidence might be found.

United States v. Wells, 347 F.3d 280, 287 (8th Cir. 2003). Because law enforcement

officers in this case confined their search to the areas of Grooms's vehicle where a gun

may have been hidden, the search fits comfortably within the automobile exception

to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. We thus conclude that the search

of Grooms's vehicle was constitutionally reasonable.

III

We affirm.

______________________________

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