Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-02-03094/USCOURTS-caDC-02-03094-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Malachi Goree
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

Federal Reporter or U.S.App.D.C. Reports. Users are requested to notify

the Clerk of any formal errors in order that corrections may be made

before the bound volumes go to press.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 20, 2003 Decided April 30, 2004

No. 02-3094

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

MALACHI GOREE,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 01cr00319–01)

A. J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender, argued the cause

for appellant. With him on the briefs was Sean C. Grimsley,

Assistant Federal Public Defender.

Valinda Jones, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. On the brief were Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., U.S.

Attorney, John R. Fisher, Kathleen M. Konopka, and Roy W.

McLeese III, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

 Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

USCA Case #02-3094 Document #819582 Filed: 04/30/2004 Page 1 of 15
2

Before: EDWARDS and GARLAND, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge: Malachi Goree pled guilty to

unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), but reserved his

right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress incriminating evidence and statements. Because we do not have a

sufficient factual record upon which to assess the constitutionality of the search that produced this evidence, we remand for

further proceedings.

I

In the late morning of June 22, 2001, Metropolitan Police

Department Officers Maradiaga and Moon received a radio

dispatch reporting a domestic assault in progress at Apartment 204, 2540 Elvans Road, in Southeast Washington, D.C.

The officers arrived on the scene within minutes and knocked

loudly on the door of the apartment. There was no response.

They then radioed their dispatcher, who advised that a representative of the building’s management company would meet

them with a spare key. When the representative arrived, he

used a two-way radio to call the eyewitness to the assault,

another employee of the management company. As Officer

Maradiaga listened, the employee explained that he had seen

a man accost a woman and drag her by her hair into

Apartment 204.

The officers opened the apartment door with the spare key

and announced themselves as police. The apartment was

dark: drapes covered the windows, and only a dim light was

on in the dining room area. Peering inside, the officers saw a

man and woman — later identified as defendant Goree and

his then-girlfriend (and the apartment’s leaseholder) Kenzie

Lemons — walking toward them from a rear room. Officer

Maradiaga ordered the defendant to stop moving and to put

his hands in the air. Goree did not comply; instead, he

continued to come toward the officers. Maradiaga then enUSCA Case #02-3094 Document #819582 Filed: 04/30/2004 Page 2 of 15
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tered the apartment, grabbed Goree’s hands, and handcuffed

him.

As discussed below, the testimony at the suppression hearing concerning the apartment’s layout lacks significant details. It does establish, however, that the apartment was

small, and that it consisted of one bedroom off a main

hallway, a combined living room-dining room area, and a

kitchen adjacent to the dining room area. The sequence of

events following Goree’s handcuffing is also unclear, but at

some point soon thereafter, the police made a brief visual

sweep of the apartment to ensure that no other individuals

were present.

Officer Maradiaga then asked Goree to sit at the dining

room table. Goree physically and verbally resisted, insisting

that he wanted to sit on the living room couch instead. But

because the couch was covered with boxes, Maradiaga proceeded to walk Goree into the dining area, where the officer

saw a loaded, semiautomatic gun magazine (an ammunition

clip) in plain sight on the dining room table.

Concerned that the presence of the magazine indicated the

presence of a weapon, Maradiaga asked Lemons and Goree

whether there was a gun in the house. Goree did not

respond; Lemons said there was no gun. Maradiaga, however, was not persuaded. He testified that he had had considerable experience investigating domestic-violence incidents,

and that in his experience, ‘‘whoever is the complainant at the

time, will not be responsive to the police and will usually lie to

cover for the other partner.’’ App. 195–96. He therefore

asked Lemons for permission to search for a weapon. Although Maradiaga testified that she responded, ‘‘Fine. Go

ahead,’’ the district court later concluded that it was ‘‘not

persuaded TTT that what she gave was consent.’’ Id. at 178.

Maradiaga testified that Officer Moon then walked into the

kitchen, where he saw a semiautomatic pistol lying on top of

the refrigerator. At some point during the course of this

search, two police sergeants also arrived on the scene.

After discovering the gun, the officers formally placed

Goree under arrest and drove him to the police station.

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There he was read his Miranda rights and questioned about

the gun and ammunition. At the conclusion of the interview,

Goree signed a document stating that he was ‘‘holding’’ the

gun for a man called ‘‘L.B.,’’ and that L.B. ‘‘put the clip on top

of TTT the kitchen table.’’ Id. at 2–4.1

Goree moved to suppress both the gun and the statements

as fruits of an unlawful, warrantless search. Although the

district court rejected the government’s contention that the

officers had obtained valid consent to search the kitchen, it

nonetheless denied the motion to suppress, relying primarily

on the ‘‘exigent circumstances’’ exception to the Fourth

Amendment’s warrant requirement.2

 After losing the motion

1 Lemons was also questioned by the officers immediately after

the gun was found and later signed a written statement. The

parties agree that her statement plays no part in this appeal.

2 The district court also relied on the ‘‘inevitable discovery’’

doctrine, under which unlawfully obtained evidence is admissible if

it ‘‘ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful

means.’’ Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444 (1984); see also United

States v. Gale, 952 F.2d 1412 (D.C. Cir. 1992). The government

based its inevitability claim on the testimony of Officer Maradiaga

and Sergeant Caldwell, each of whom testified that, but for Maradiaga’s mistake about consent, he would have stopped the search and

sought a warrant. We are dubious that such conjectural testimony

is adequate to support applying the doctrine to this case. See Nix,

467 U.S. at 444 n.5 (holding that ‘‘inevitable discovery involves no

speculative elements but focuses on demonstrated historical facts

capable of ready verification or impeachment’’). Moreover, while

the circuits disagree over the scope of the doctrine, neither this nor

any other circuit has yet extended it as far as would be required to

justify the gun’s seizure here. See, e.g., Gale, 952 F.2d at 1415

(holding that drugs seized from defendant’s person and automobile

trunk, based on statements taken without Miranda warnings, would

inevitably have been discovered in a search incident to arrest and a

post-impoundment inventory search); United States v. Dice, 200

F.3d 978, 986 (6th Cir. 2000) (holding that the government must

‘‘proffer clear evidence of an independent, untainted investigation

that inevitably would have uncovered the same evidence as that

discovered through the illegal search’’) (internal quotation marks

omitted); United States v. Allen, 159 F.3d 832, 839–40 (4th Cir.

USCA Case #02-3094 Document #819582 Filed: 04/30/2004 Page 4 of 15
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to suppress, Goree entered a conditional plea of guilty pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2), reserving

his right to take this appeal.

II

Under the Fourth Amendment, a ‘‘search or seizure carried

out on a suspect’s premises without a warrant is per se

unreasonable, unless the police can show that it falls within

one of a carefully defined set of exceptions.’’ Illinois v.

Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 191 (1990) (quoting Coolidge v. New

Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 474 (1971)). One such exception is

for ‘‘exigent circumstances,’’ and the ‘‘Supreme Court has

consistently held that a warrantless search of a residence

does not violate the fourth amendment when exigent circumstances exist.’’ United States v. Mason, 966 F.2d 1488, 1492

(D.C. Cir. 1992) (citing, inter alia, Mincey v. Arizona, 437

U.S. 385, 393–94 (1978), and Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294,

298 (1967)). ‘‘The police,’’ however, ‘‘bear a heavy burden in

attempting to demonstrate an urgent need that might justify

1998) (holding that inevitability was not established by an officer’s

testimony that, if she had not mistakenly thought that the defendant’s bag had been abandoned, she would have used her narcotics

dog to sniff the bag and establish probable cause for a warrant).

Compare United States v. Silvestri, 787 F.2d 736, 745–46 (1st Cir.

1986) (concluding that, although ‘‘[i]n cases where a warrant is

obtained TTT the active pursuit requirement is too rigid,’’ a requirement that the police were actively pursuing an alternative lawful

means of obtaining the evidence may ‘‘be appropriate in illegal

search cases where no warrant is ever obtained’’), with United

States v. Cherry, 759 F.2d 1196, 1206 (5th Cir. 1985) (holding that

the prosecution normally must show ‘‘that the government was

actively pursuing a substantial alternate line of investigation at the

time of the constitutional violation’’ for the inevitable discovery

exception to apply). Because application of the exigent circumstances exception should be straightforward once the factual discrepancies discussed below are resolved, we defer a ruling on the

more novel inevitable discovery claim unless and until it becomes

necessary to resolve this case.

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warrantless searches.’’ Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740,

749–50 (1984).

Although the Supreme Court has never provided a complete catalog of the exigencies that satisfy the exception, see

United States v. Dawkins, 17 F.3d 399, 405 (D.C. Cir. 1994), it

has recognized that ‘‘[t]he need to protect or preserve life or

avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency.’’ Mincey, 437

U.S. at 392 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted).

As the Court said in Warden v. Hayden, the ‘‘Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to delay in the course of

an investigation’’ in order to obtain a warrant, ‘‘if to do so

would gravely endanger their lives or the lives of others.’’

387 U.S. at 298–99.3

 The ‘‘question of whether there were

‘exigent circumstances’ is judged according to the totality of

the circumstances,’’ and the standard ‘‘is an objective one,

focusing on what a reasonable, experienced police officer

would believe.’’ In re Sealed Case, 153 F.3d 759, 766 (D.C.

Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted);

see United States v. Socey, 846 F.2d 1439, 1446–47 (D.C. Cir.

1988).

Finally, in addition to the requirement that ‘‘the police have

a reasonable belief in the existence of the exigency,’’ the

subsequent search must be ‘‘no broader than necessary.’’

Mason, 966 F.2d at 1492. Courts adjudicating the lawfulness

of a search under this exception weigh the degree of intrusion

against the exigency that is its rationale. See Socey, 846 F.2d

at 1448; United States v. Lopez, 989 F.2d 24 (1st Cir. 1993).

As the Court said in Mincey, ‘‘a warrantless search must be

‘strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its

initiation.’ ’’ Mincey, 437 U.S. at 393 (quoting Terry v. Ohio,

392 U.S. 1, 26 (1968)).

3 See Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 100 (1990) (noting that ‘‘a

warrantless intrusion may be justified by TTT the risk of danger to

the police or to other persons’’) (citations omitted); In re Sealed

Case, 153 F.3d 759, 765–66 (D.C. Cir. 1998); Dorman v. United

States, 435 F.2d 385 (D.C. Cir. 1970) (en banc).

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We review de novo the district court’s legal conclusion that

a warrantless search was justified by the exigent circumstances exception, Sealed Case, 153 F.3d at 764, but review its

‘‘findings of historical fact only for clear error and TTT give

due weight to inferences drawn from those facts,’’ Ornelas v.

United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996). In Part III we

address the legal issues posed by the search of the kitchen in

this case. In Part IV we address the factual uncertainties

that occasion a remand.

III

Goree maintains a single challenge on this appeal. He

concedes that ‘‘exigent circumstances justified the initial warrantless entry of the apartment and subsequent seizure of the

gun magazine clip’’ in the dining room area. Appellant’s Br.

at 17. And he does not dispute that the officers’ first look

into the adjoining rooms — including the kitchen — was

justified as a ‘‘protective sweep’’ for dangerous persons under

Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990). See id. at 334 (‘‘[A]s

an incident to the arrest the officers could, as a precautionary

matter and without probable cause or reasonable suspicion,

look in closets and other places immediately adjoining the

place of arrest from which an attack could be launched.’’).4

Goree argues only that the seizure of the gun was the product

of a second warrantless search of the kitchen, unjustified by

exigent circumstances. To explore the validity of this claim,

we first address it in light of the government’s view of the

facts.

The officers were called to the scene by a radio report of a

‘‘code one,’’ indicating that a violent crime — in this case, a

domestic assault — was in progress. Officer Maradiaga

testified that, in his experience, domestic disturbances are

unpredictable and dangerous, both to the participants and to

the investigating officers. App. 195–97; see Tierney v.

Davidson, 133 F.3d 189, 197 (2d Cir. 1998) (noting ‘‘the

4 The government, for its part, forswears reliance on Buie as

justification for the search that actually resulted in discovery of the

gun. Appellee’s Br. at 12 n.3.

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combustible nature of domestic disputes’’).5

 The 911 call that

prompted the dispatch was confirmed by a second contact

when the police arrived on the scene: a building employee

reported having seen a man drag a woman into the apartment

by her hair. The officers’ concern was heightened when the

apartment’s occupants failed to respond to their knock at the

door. When the officers opened the door, they found the

apartment poorly lit. Their apprehension was heightened

still further by Goree’s defiance of their initial order to stop

approaching them, and by his resistance to their efforts to

seat him in the dining area. Although Lemons told the police

that there was no problem, Maradiaga testified that, in his

experience, victims of domestic violence may lie to protect

their partners. See also United States v. Bartelho, 71 F.3d

436, 442 (1st Cir. 1995). Finally, the officers’ anxiety ripened

into full-blown fear of violence when they spotted a loaded

magazine for a semiautomatic weapon. As Maradiaga testified, his ‘‘first thought upon seeing [the] magazine’’ on the

dining room table was that there was a weapon in the house

that could be used against him or his partner. App. 195.

These events combined to generate a reasonable belief that

the officers were faced with an exigency requiring immediate

action to avoid serious injury or loss of life. The presence of

the ammunition provided probable cause both to arrest Goree

for unlawful possession of the magazine, and to believe that

the firearm that the magazine fit was nearby.6

 That gun

5 That fact alone is not enough, of course, to create an exception

to the warrant requirement. See Mincey, 437 U.S. at 395 (rejecting

a ‘‘murder scene exception’’ to the warrant requirement).

6 Cf. United States v. Brown, 334 F.3d 1161, 1171 (D.C. Cir. 2003)

(holding that ‘‘the presence of a gun’’ in a car’s passenger compartment supported the possibility that the car’s trunk ‘‘contained

ammunition, additional weapons, and/or other contraband’’); United

States v. Christian, 187 F.3d 663, 669 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (noting that

‘‘the presence of one weapon may justifiably arouse concern that

there may be more in the vicinity’’); United States v. Abdul–

Saboor, 85 F.3d 664, 670 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (holding that, having

already uncovered two guns ‘‘and a magazine, the arresting officers

could well anticipate that other weapons were stowed throughout

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posed a serious danger to the police if Goree were to obtain it

in an effort to resist arrest. The gun also posed a threat to

Lemons if Goree were to obtain it in an effort to continue

their reported domestic dispute. As the district court noted,

such disputes: ‘‘are extremely volatile and unpredictable.

And for police officers to conclude that they better find that

gun lest the situation explode in some unpredicted fashion is

not an unreasonable decision to make.’’ App. 237. The fact

that Goree was handcuffed reduced, but did not eliminate, the

risk to the officers: although handcuffed, he was not immobilized. Cf. United States v. Abdul–Saboor, 85 F.3d 664, 670–71

(D.C. Cir. 1996) (sustaining warrantless search of a room in

which the defendant had been arrested, notwithstanding that

he was ‘‘handcuffed, sitting on a chair’’ four feet outside the

room with two marshals, because the room was ‘‘conceivably

accessible’’ to him).

Nor was Goree the only potential threat. It was also

reasonable to fear that Lemons would try to use the gun to

protect her boyfriend from the police. She was, as she later

testified, hostile to the officers’ presence. App. 138–40. Nor

could the police be certain that, if Lemons obtained the gun,

she would not use it to retaliate against Goree himself: the

officers were told that a man had just dragged a woman into

Apartment 204 by her hair. As described by the government,

Lemons was not restrained during this period, but was moving ‘‘freely’’ about the apartment. Appellee’s Br. at 28.

Finally, we must consider whether the search that the

police conducted in response to these perceived threats was

‘‘limited in scope and proportionate to the exigency excusing

the warrant requirement.’’ Socey, 846 F.2d at 1448. As

noted above, Goree does not dispute the officers’ lawful

presence in the dining room.7

 Hence, the only incursion at

the apartment, perhaps even within the area in which [the defendant] was seated’’).

7 Nor does he dispute that a warrantless search of the dining area

itself would have been justified as a search incident to arrest. Oral

Arg. Tape at 4:05–6:15; see Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752

(1969); Sealed Case, 153 F.3d at 767–68. The government did not

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issue is whatever further steps were required to put Officer

Moon in a position to see the gun on top of the refrigerator.

Indeed, because Goree also does not challenge the officers’

first look into the kitchen for possible confederates, the only

incremental incursion was Moon’s second, wider look at that

same space. The district court described the scope of that

incursion as follows:

The search for the gun took them to an adjacent room

which was the kitchen and that is where the gun was

discovered. The gun was not discovered under a mattress or behind a curtain. The gun was not discovered in

a drawer or in a pocketbook. The gun was discovered

out in plain view on top of a refrigerator.

The person who discovered it was 6’–2’’. The refrigerator was shorter than that, and it is not unreasonable to

conclude that upon his entering the room and scanning

it, the gun became immediately visible to him.

App. 237 (emphasis added).

One inference from the court’s statement that the gun

became immediately visible ‘‘upon his entering the room’’ is

that the only incursion that took place was Moon’s crossing of

a threshold separating the dining area from the kitchen.

Such a step or two would certainly be limited and proportional to the exigency. As we have said, the presence of the

ammunition clip provided probable cause to believe that a

firearm was nearby. And it was reasonable for the officers to

fear that Goree or Lemons could obtain that weapon if it were

located just steps inside an ‘‘adjacent’’ room. Id. Crossing a

threshold (or even opening a door, although no witness mentioned a door) would not have precluded either of them from

grabbing the weapon.8

 Nor would the fact that Goree was

argue, however, that the search-incident-to-arrest exception extended to the kitchen.

8 Cf. Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1049 (1983) (upholding the

search of a car, next to which the defendant had been standing at

the time of a Terry stop, because of the possibility that he could

enter the car and obtain a knife); Christian, 187 F.3d at 671 (same

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handcuffed. See Abdul–Saboor, 85 F.3d at 670–71. Accordingly, on this inference from the district court’s description, it

would appear that the necessary exigent circumstances existed to justify the search that led to the discovery of the

semiautomatic pistol.

Goree objects that such a conclusion is inconsistent with

our decision in United States v. Ford, 56 F.3d 265 (D.C. Cir.

1995). In that case, the court held that the ‘‘protective

sweep’’ exception of Maryland v. Buie authorized an FBI

agent to look for possible confederates in a bedroom adjacent

to the hallway in which he had arrested the defendant, and to

seize an ammunition clip that he found there in plain view.

Ford, 56 F.3d at 266. As Goree stresses, however, Ford

further held that the ‘‘agent could not TTT lawfully search

beyond that — neither under the mattress nor behind the

window shades’’ — under either the protective sweep or the

exigent circumstances exception. Id. For that reason, the

court concluded that evidence seized from under the mattress

and behind the shades was inadmissible at trial. Id.

On the government’s view of the facts, Goree’s case is quite

different from Ford’s. First, the nature of the exigency was

more concerning. In Ford, the court stressed that ‘‘the crime

which gave rise to Ford’s arrest warrant occurred months,

not minutes before the police arrived at his mother’s apartment, and the seizures occurred after, not prior to or contemporaneous with Ford’s arrest.’’ 56 F.3d at 271. Here, by

contrast, the police were responding to a crime (the domestic

assault) in progress, and the officers’ arrival, Goree’s arrest,

and the seizure all took place contemporaneously. While

Ford ‘‘did not resist,’’ id. at 267, Goree did. In Ford there

were six officers present who ‘‘had secured all the persons in

the apartment’’ before the search began. Id. at 271; see id.

at 266. Here, there were only two officers on-scene at the

start of the search.9

 Moreover, the government asserts that,

where the car door was closed and locked but the defendant had the

key).

9 Although the testimony was unclear as to whether two additional officers (the sergeants) arrived before or after the gun was found,

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unlike the other persons in the Ford apartment, id. at 270,

Lemons was not secured but rather was ‘‘moving freely about

the apartment.’’ Appellee’s Br. at 28–29.

Second, the scope of the incursion was more intrusive in

Ford than it was here. In Ford, the court objected neither to

the agent’s look into the adjacent bedroom, nor to the seizure

of contraband that he found there in plain view, but rather to

the agent’s upending of the mattress and trolling beneath the

shades. Here, by contrast, the district court found: ‘‘The

gun was not discovered under a mattress or behind a curtain.

The gun was not discovered in a drawer or in a pocketbook.

The gun was discovered out in plain view on top of a

refrigerator.’’ App. 237. See United States v. Lopez, 989

F.2d 24, 25–27 (1st Cir. 1993) (upholding search in adjacent

room because ‘‘the intrusion, although not minimal, was limited: the officer saw the opening in the bathroom ceiling

through an open door, entered the empty room, and with

little effort saw the butt of the weapon. There was no new

entry into a private residence; the police were lawfully in the

kitchen.’’). Indeed, to the extent that Officer Moon searched

an area beyond that which Goree concedes was permissible,

that search consisted of nothing more than a second look into

a room that he had already lawfully swept once pursuant to

Buie. In sum, on the facts that we have so far assumed,

Officer Moon’s search of the kitchen (and discovery of the

gun) was permissible under the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

IV

This brings us to the remaining question: do the facts

support the scenario that we have just described and, as

described, validated? Goree presses two points that give us

some pause.10

there was no dispute that they had not arrived at the time the

search began. See Appellant’s Br. at 8; App. 102 (Maradiaga

testimony); id. at 210, 212–13 (Sergeant Caldwell testimony).

10 Goree also presents a number of additional factual claims that

are readily dismissed. First, he challenges as clearly erroneous the

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First, Goree disputes the extent of the claimed exigency,

contending that there is no support for the government’s

assertion, Appellee’s Br. at 28–29, that Lemons was ‘‘moving

freely about the apartment’’ during the search, and thus that

she posed a potential danger. The testimony upon which the

government bases its assertion is at best inconclusive: Officer

Maradiaga testified that Lemons was in the living room when

the search began, App. 100, and Sergeant Caldwell testified

that she was in the bedroom when he arrived, id. at 213. As

Goree points out, there was no testimony as to how Lemons

got from one place to the other and, particularly, whether the

police themselves moved her. As Goree also correctly notes,

the district court made no finding at all about Lemons’

location during the course of the search, let alone as to

whether she was ‘‘secured’’ or ‘‘moving freely about.’’ Put

simply, more facts relating to Lemons’ situation are required

in order to determine whether she posed a threat.

Second, Goree takes issue with the government’s description of the scope of the intrusion. As we said above, one

possible inference from the court’s finding that the gun

became immediately visible ‘‘upon [Officer Moon’s] entering

the room’’ is that the officer saw the weapon as soon as he

court’s finding that the gun was ‘‘discovered in plain view on top of

a refrigerator,’’ App. 237, because Maradiaga merely testified that

the gun was ‘‘located on top of the refrigerator,’’ id. at 102. Goree

contends that it is thus possible that the officer meant — although

he did not say — that the gun was covered by something. While

that may be possible, the court’s inference that the officer meant

that the gun was in plain sight is reasonable. Goree also disputes

that anyone could have seen a gun high atop a refrigerator. But

the court’s explanation for finding the officer’s testimony credible is

again reasonable: Moon was four inches taller than the refrigerator. Id. at 236–37; see id. at 206. Finally, Goree further challenges Maradiaga’s credibility by asking how, if the gun really was

in plain sight, the police could have failed to see it the first time

they looked in the room — during the Buie sweep for possible

confederates. In context, however, the answer to that question is

clear: unlike an officer searching for a gun, an officer looking for a

person is not likely to focus on the top of a refrigerator.

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took a step or two into the kitchen. But the court did not say

that expressly, and neither did the testimony. All that

Maradiaga said was that Moon found the gun ‘‘on top of the

refrigerator,’’ App. 102; Moon did not himself testify. Moreover, although there was evidence that the apartment was

small and that the kitchen was ‘‘adjacent’’ to the dining room,

there were no findings or testimony regarding the details of

the apartment’s layout: we do not know how far it was from

the dining room table to the kitchen’s threshold or how far it

was from that threshold to the refrigerator. Nor do we know

whether the path to either location was direct or obstructed.

Nor — because we do not know how, or how well, Goree was

secured — can we determine how readily he could have

obtained a weapon located just a step or two into the kitchen.

In short, without further findings of fact on these issues,

which may require taking additional testimony, the record is

inadequate to establish whether sufficient potential danger

remained, even after Goree’s detention, to create an exigency

justifying the warrantless search. In such circumstances, a

remand for further proceedings is appropriate. See United

States v. Hutchinson, 268 F.3d 1117, 1118 (D.C. Cir. 2001)

(remanding because the district court failed to make ‘‘findings

of fact essential to decide [the] legal issue’’ of whether a

Terry stop was excessive); United States v. Williams, 951

F.2d 1287, 1291 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (remanding for factual findings supporting district court’s denial of suppression motion);

see also FED. R. CRIM. P. 12(d) (providing that ‘‘[w]hen factual

issues are involved in deciding a motion, the court must state

its essential findings on the record’’); Murray v. United

States, 487 U.S. 533, 543–44 (1988) (remanding for more

explicit findings to resolve a suppression motion).11

11 We further note that, if on remand the district court were to

determine that the gun is inadmissible, it would then have to

determine whether Goree’s subsequent incriminating statements

regarding the magazine and gun are inadmissible as well. That, in

turn, would depend on whether Goree would have made those

statements if his encounter with the police had ended with his

concededly lawful arrest for possession of the magazine, but without

the discovery of the gun. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S.

USCA Case #02-3094 Document #819582 Filed: 04/30/2004 Page 14 of 15
15

V

For the foregoing reasons, the case is remanded for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

471, 486–88 (1963); James v. United States, 418 F.2d 1150, 1151–52

(D.C. Cir. 1969). Both Goree and the government agree that a

remand is required to resolve such factual issues.

USCA Case #02-3094 Document #819582 Filed: 04/30/2004 Page 15 of 15