Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-95-03044/USCOURTS-caDC-95-03044-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Muhammad Abdul-Saboor
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 18, 1996 Decided June 7, 1996

No. 95-3044

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

MUHAMMAD ABDUL-SABOOR,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cr00305-01)

Allen E. Burns, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant, with whom A.J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender, was on the briefs.

Pamela S. Satterfield, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellee, with whom

Eric H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, John Fisher, and Thomas C. Black, Assistant United

States Attorneys, were on the brief.

Before: WILLIAMS, GINSBURG and SENTELLE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG,Circuit Judge: Appellant Muhammad Abdul-Saboor challenges the district court's

denial of his motion to suppress the drugs and guns seized from his apartment during a warrantless

search. The district court ruled that the search was valid as a protective sweep or, alternatively,

because the evidence inevitably would have been discovered in the warranted search for documents

conducted the next day. The court did not reach the Government's further argument that the evidence

was seized as the result of a lawful search incident to the defendant's arrest.

When his suppression motion was denied, Abdul-Saboor entered a conditional plea of guilty

to charges of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, commonly known as crack, in

violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C), and possession of a firearm in relation to that

offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). The only question on appeal, therefore, is the validity

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*Testifying at his suppression hearing, Abdul-Saboor acknowledged that the handgun was on

the table but denied that he ever picked it up, claiming instead that he was only reaching to turn

off the television. On appeal Abdul-Saboor cites that testimony but does not otherwise dispute

the findings of the district court in any relevant respect; indeed, his argument proceeds from the

premise that he did pick the gun up from the table. 

of the search. The dispute over the proper answer to that question is narrowed by the Government's

concession that the search here cannot be upheld as a protective sweep in view of our holding in

United States v. Ford, 56 F.3d 265 (1995) (protective sweep requires articulable suspicion that area

to be searched harbored individual posing danger).

For the reasons that follow, we hold that the drugs and firearms were lawfully seized from

Abdul-Saboor's apartment incident to his arrest. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of

Abdul-Saboor's motion to suppress that evidence without reaching the inevitable discovery doctrine

invoked by the district court. See Molerio v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 749 F.2d 815, 820

(D.C. Cir. 1984) (court of appeals may affirm judgment of district court upon any valid ground).

I. Background

In July 1993 Deputy U.S. Marshals Robert Parker and Karen Skillman went to AbdulSaboor's apartment in order to arrest him on a bench warrant issued in an unrelated case. The

defendant, who had opened the door wearing a bathrobe, asked and was allowed to change clothes

before leaving the apartment. Entering his bedroom, which was lit only by the glow of a television

set, he stealthily picked up a loaded .45 caliber handgun from the television table and tried to hide it

in front of his body.* Fortunately Deputy Parker saw the maneuver; he drew his weapon and ordered

the defendant to drop the gunwhich Abdul-Saboor did not do until the officer threatened to shoot

him. Deputy Skillman then handcuffed Abdul-Saboor and seated him in a chair at a point she later

estimated to be four feet outside the bedroom doorway.

Deputy Parker testified that when he returned to the bedroom in order to pick up AbdulSaboor's handgun he noticed a loaded semi-automatic MAC-11 pistol and a magazine with

ammunition in it lying on the television table. He took the weapons and the magazine to the kitchen,

then guarded Abdul-Saboor while Deputy Skillman went to the car to request assistance in order to

process the crime scene. When Skillman returned, Parker revisited the bedroom. As he opened the

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blinds for light he saw on top of the television set, partially obstructed by a framed picture, several

small bags of what looked like crack. Parker then searched the apartment for additional weapons.

He discovered a sawed-offshotgun under a mattress and another shotgun wrapped in a white plastic

trash bag lying on the floor, protruding from the doorway of an open closet. Back in the kitchen,

Parker found a stun gun on top of the refrigerator. He also noticed boxes of ammunition on open

shelves in the dining room. When the police arrived they found $420 in a plastic cup on the kitchen

table.

The next day Parker obtained and executed a search warrant for evidence that Abdul-Saboor

lived in the apartment. He and other officers thoroughly searched the entire apartment, finding ample

documentary and physical evidence that the defendant lived there.

On appeal Abdul-Saboor argues that the district court should have suppressed the evidence

that Deputy Parkerseized fromhis apartment as a result ofParker'sreturning to the bedroom, namely

the drugs and the shotguns. He objects to the Government's inevitable discovery rationale upon two

grounds. First, the record does not show that the apartment was secured between the warrantless

search that followed his arrest and the warranted search conducted the next day; accordingly, he

argues, "the Government failed to make the required showing, by a preponderance of the evidence,

that the drugs and the other gunsstillwould have been in the apartment when the search warrant was

executed." Second, the Government did not demonstrate that the search for documents and other

evidence that the defendant lived in the apartment would routinely have extended to those places

where the drugs and guns were found.

The Government respondsfirst that the contents of the apartment do not appear to have been

disturbed between the arrest and the search of the following day. Abdul-Saboor testified that his

uncle and hislandlord had keysto the building, but he made no representation that anyone other than

himself had a key to his apartment. Moreover, claims the Government, the entire apartment was

thoroughly examined during the document search; neither the drugs nor the shotguns could possibly

have escaped detection.

The Government's alternative theory is that the search was validly conducted incident to the

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defendant's arrest. In opposition to that theory Abdul-Saboor asserts that the area searched was not

accessible to him at the time ofthe search. The Government counters that the marshals were entitled

to search the area that was within Abdul-Saboor's immediate control at the time of his arrest

notwithstanding that he had been subdued by the time of the search.

We express no view upon the question whether discovery was inevitable in this case. We

need not resolve that issue because we agree with the Government that the search was incidental to

the arrest.

II. Analysis

A warrantless search or seizure inside a home is presumptively unreasonable within the

meaning of the Fourth Amendment, United States v. Dawkins, 17 F.3d 399, 402 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

There are certain exceptions, though, one of which isfor the search, incident to a lawful arrest, ofthe

area within the arrestee's "immediate control." Chimel v. United States, 395 U.S. 752, 763 (1969)

("ample justification ... for a search of the arrestee's person and the area "within his immediate

control'construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a

weapon or destructible evidence"). This exception reflects the "potential dangers lurking in all

custodial arrests." United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 14 (1977). Accordingly, even though the

reasons for conducting a search incident to arrest, namely "to disarm and to discover evidence," may

be stronger in some situations than in others, the Government is not obliged to justify each such

search in the particular context in which it occurs. United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235

(1973).

For our purposes, therefore, the determinative inquiry is simply whether Abdul-Saboor's

bedroom was an area within his immediate control at the relevant time, bearing in mind that "the

articulation and definition ofthe "area within immediate control'[is] a question oflaw." United States

v. Johnson, 18 F.3d 293, 294 (5th Cir. 1994). We review questions of law de novo, as do we review

the district court's "application oflegalstandardsto the facts ofthe case." Spencer v. National Labor

Relations Board, 712 F.2d 539, 563 (1983).

The Government contends, first, that the question whether the drugs and shotguns were

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within Abdul-Saboor's area of immediate control is to be answered by reference to the time at which

the arrest occurred, not the time at which the search occurred. For this point the Government relies

heavily upon New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), in which the Supreme Court, applying

Chimel, approved the admission of evidence obtained from the search of an automobile conducted

while the former occupants, who had been arrested, were being detained by the side of the road. Id.

at 456. The search authorized in Belton extended precisely to the areas within the arrested persons'

immediate control at the time they were arrested, encompassing the passenger compartment of the

car and any containers found therein but excluding the trunk. Id. at 460 & n.4.

As Abdul-Saboor reminds us, however, the Court in Belton was doing "no more than

determin[ing] the meaning of Chimel's principles in this particular and problematic context." Id. at

460 n.3. So what are the defining characteristics of the context to which the Court was referring?

Abdul-Saboor would have us read Belton as a case peculiarly about automobile passenger

compartments and the containers found in them. Of course, the Court's reference to the "particular

and problematic context" of that case is susceptible to a wide range of interpretations; it could refer

to the nature of the conduct for which the defendants were arrested (possession of drugs), or the

potentially menacing situation of a single officer arresting four people, or to the presence of other

inculpatory evidenceeach of which the Court noted,see id. at 457or to any combination ofthese

or of other variables. To the extent that Belton might be thought to apply only to automobiles,

however, we have already rejected that interpretation. See United States v. Brown, 671 F.2d 585,

587 (D.C. Cir. 1982) ("Belton covers cases such asthis one in which the search is contemporaneous

with a lawful custodial arrest and is confined to containers in hand or within reach when the arrest

occurs").

In Brown the contents of a zippered pouch were admitted into evidence even though by the

time it was searched the pouch had been moved beyond the reach of the defendant, who was being

detained on a street corner. Id. at 586. Furthermore, the Court in Belton itselfsaid "there is no need

here to consider whether the search and seizure were permissible under the so-called "automobile

exception,' " 453 U.S. at 462-63 n.6, which certainly suggests that some other factor or factors

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determined the outcome. Finally, to the extent that Brown might be thought to apply Belton only to

containers, it is of no help to Abdul-Saboor: the drugs found in his apartment were contained in small

bags and even one of the shot guns was wrapped in a plastic trash bag.

Asfor the temporal as opposed to the spatial dimension of an arrestee's "immediate control,"

we think it significant that the Supreme Court in Belton looked to the time of the arrest, not to the

time of the search, id. at 456, 460; we expressly followed suit in Brown, 671 F.2d at 587. From

these two casesthe Government concludesthat the determination ofimmediate controlmust be made

when the arrest occurs.

We agree. As we stated in Brown, a search is conducted incident to an arrest so long as it is

an "integral part of a lawful custodial arrest process." Id. Indeed, we specifically advised trial courts

not to focus upon "whether the suspect held the item in his grasp or could have reached for it at the

moment of the arrest." Id. The relevant distinction turns not upon the moment of the arrest versus

the moment of the search but upon whether the arrest and search are so separated in time or by

intervening events that the latter cannot fairly be said to have been incident to the former. See, e.g.,

Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 15 (search conducted long after defendant taken into custodyheld not incident

to arrest); Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367 (1964) (search not incident to arrest ifremote

in time from arrest).

Indeed, if the courts were to focus exclusively upon the moment of the search, we might

create a perverse incentive for an arresting officer to prolong the period during which the arrestee is

kept in an area where he could pose a danger to the officer. That danger is not necessarily terminated

by the arrest. As the Supreme Court pointed out in Belton responding to an analogous argument, "no

search or seizure incident to a lawful custodial arrest would ever be valid [if] by seizing an article ...

an officer may be said to have reduced that article to his "exclusive control' "and thus to have

ended the defendant's control. 453 U.S. at 461-62 n.5. Likewise if by arresting and securing the

defendant, an officer may be said to have put the area where the arrest took place under his own

controland thus outside the arrestee's "exclusive control"then, the law would truly be, as Mr.

Bumble said, "a ass."

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Abdul-Saboor insists nonethelessthat there is no sound basis upon which to conclude that the

drugs and guns were within his immediate control either at the time of his arrest or at the time of the

search. He was arrested at his apartment door when he first answered the marshals' knock. All of

the relevant contraband wasin the bedroom. Deputy Parker testified that at the time of the disputed

(second) search of the bedroom, Abdul-Saboor was handcuffed and seated in a chair in the entrance

area that also served asthe dining room, about four feet from the bedroom door. (Deputy Skillman's

testimony placed Abdul-Saboor approximately one foot into the hallway outside the apartment

doorwhich could, as far as the record shows, still be about four feet from the bedroom door.)

In our view Abdul-Saboor artificially segments his arrest and the search; they were, as a

practical matter, one continuous event. The defendant was unclothed when the marshals announced

their purpose to arrest him. At his request the marshals permitted him to go to the bedroom, where

he armed himself with a pistol and might well have thereby gained control over the other weapons

and the drugs but for one of the arresting officers' having seen him grab the gun. By arming himself

after the process of arrest had begun, Abdul-Saboor turned the routine execution of a bench warrant

into a life-threatening processwhich began at the door of the apartment, continued into the

bedroom, and was not over until Abdul-Saboor was handcuffed and seated some four feet outside

the bedroom.

InChimel the Supreme Court held that a search of any "area from within which [the arrestee]

might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence" is uniquely justified. 395 U.S. at 763.

In this case the room that was searched was within the area where the arrest occurred; moreover,

it was not only an area from which the defendant in theory "might gain possession of a weapon" but

the area from which he had in fact obtained a weapon.

Abdul-Saboor insists, however, that we must construe Chimel differently in the light of our

1983 holding in United States v. Lyons, 706 F.2d 321. There we established the following standard:

"To determine whether a warrantless search incident to an arrest exceeded constitutional bounds, a

court must ask: was the area in question, at the time it was searched, conceivably accessible to the

arresteeassuming that he was neither an acrobat [nor] a Houdini." Id. at 330. Lyons does add

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another element to the "immediate control" test, and the new element clearly relates to the time of

the search: If, when the search occurs, the arrestee has been "immobilized" so that the area to be

searched is not "conceivably accessible" to him, then the search is no longer incident to his arrest.

Showing that the area searched was "conceivably accessible at the time of the search" was not meant

to be difficult, however. As the court acknowledged in Lyons itself:

Custodial arrests are often dangerous; the police must act decisively and cannot be

expected to make punctilious judgments regarding what is within and what is just

beyond the arrestee's grasp. Thus, searches have sometimes been upheld even when

hindsight might suggest that the likelihood of the defendant reaching the area in

questionwasslight. See, e.g., United States v. Mason, 523 F.2d 1122, 1125-26 (D.C.

Cir. 1975) (sustaining search of a closet "three or four feet" away from a standing,

handcuffed defendant who had attempted to obtain a jacket hanging therein).

706 F.2d at 330.

At the time of the disputed search in Lyons, the arrestee was handcuffed and sitting on a chair

near the doorway of his hotel room; the closet being searched was "several yards away"; there were

six police officers in the room, of whom four "presumably" were armed. No weapons had yet been

uncovered. The court found it "inconceivable that Lyons could have gained access" to the closet in

which police found a gun in the pocket of a trench coat. Moreover, the court thought these facts

significant: "Lyons never made any attempt to reach the closet, nor did he even request access to it,"

id. at 330-31; after his arrest Lyons briefly "collapsed" and had been "revived and immobilized"

before the search began, id. at 324; the arresting officers knew for a fact that Lyons was alone, id.

at 324; and one of the officers admitted that at the time of the search he did not fear for his personal

safety, id. at 325.

The facts here are roughly similar in a couple of respects. Like Lyons, Abdul-Saboor was

handcuffed, sitting on a chair not far from the area to be searched. And in each case at least one

police officer was armed. But there the similarities end. In all other relevant respects, the facts of

the two cases are significantlydifferent. First, unlike Lyons, Abdul- Saboor had specifically requested

entry to the area searched; once there, he seized and attempted to hide a loaded handgun. Second,

the arresting officer had discovered yet another loaded weapon and a magazine in Abdul-Saboor's

apartment prior to the disputed search. Third, the record does not indicate that Abdul-Saboor

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suffered any infirmity that would impede his physical ability; by comparison, Lyons had collapsed

shortly after his arrest. Fourth, Lyons was handcuffed and "immobilized" prior to the search; there

is no indication that Abdul-Saboor, although handcuffed, was otherwise physically restrained. Fifth,

as part of an undercover investigation, police had arranged for the hotel room in which Lyons was

staying, id. at 324; thus the search took place on comparatively neutral turf as contrasted with

Abdul-Saboor's apartment, which was unfamiliar to the arresting officers but a known cache of

weapons to the arrestee.

As these facts indicate, Abdul-Saboor had demonstrated both the capacity and the desire to

avoid arrest. Lyons had demonstrated neither. A willful and apparently violent arrestee, faced with

the prospect of long-term incarceration, could be expected to exploit every available opportunity,

including any opening that enabled him to flee from one officer, run a few feet to the bedroom, and

seize a deadly weapon. As the Ninth Circuit has pointed out, "Chimel does not require the police to

presume that an arrestee is wholly rational. Persons under stress may attempt actions which are

unlikely to succeed." United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1207 (1984) (in banc). For that

matter, having already uncovered a loaded handgun, a loaded semi-automatic pistol, and a magazine,

the arresting officers could wellanticipate that other weaponswere stowed throughout the apartment,

perhaps even within the area in which Abdul-Saboor was seated.

Absent some objective basis upon which to conclude that the arresting officer had no reason

to fear either the arrestee or the environment in which the arrest unfolded, we agree with our sister

circuitsthat a search ofthe area where the arrest occurred in circumstancessuch asthis case presents

is a search incident to arrest. See, e.g., Davis v. Robbs, 794 F.2d 1129, 1130-31 (6th Cir. 1986)

(arrestee handcuffed and placed in squad car prior to seizure of rifle in house); United States v.

Cotton, 751 F.2d 1146, 1147-48 (10th Cir. 1985) (arrestees handcuffed and apparently guarded by

officer while state trooper searched vehicle); United States v. Silva, 745 F.2d 840, 847 (4th Cir.

1984) (arrestees handcuffed and guarded by agents prior to search of room for weapons); United

States v. Palumbo, 735 F.2d 1095, 1096-97 (8th Cir. 1984) (arrestee surrounded by several officers

and may have been handcuffed prior to search of room); United States v. Roper, 681 F.2d 1354,

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1357-59 (11thCir. 1982) (arrestee handcuffed in hallwayofmotel and escorted inside roombyagents

prior to search of briefcase); Virgin Islands v. Rasool, 657 F.2d 582, 585, 588-89 (3d Cir. 1981)

(arrestee handcuffed and removed from automobile prior to search of vehicle); all cited in United

States v. Queen, 847 F.2d 346, 352-54 (arrestee guarded by two armed officers, hands cuffed behind

his back, prior to search of closet three feet away). In short, the Government has satisfactorily

demonstrated both that the area in question was within Abdul-Saboor's "immediate control" at the

time of his arrestas required by the Supreme Court in Chimel and Beltonand that the area was

"conceivably accessible" to Abdul-Saboor at the time of the searchas required by this court in

Lyons.

III. Conclusion

For the reasonsstated, we hold that the warrantlesssearch of Abdul-Saboor's apartment was

a lawfulsearch incident to his arrest. Accordingly, the district court properly denied Abdul-Saboor's

motion to suppress the evidence seized from his apartment during that search. His conviction is

therefore

Affirmed.

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