Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02098/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02098-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Augustin Lopez-Rodriguez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 04-2098

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United States of America,

Appellee,

v.

Augustin Lopez-Rodriguez,

Appellant.

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No. 04-2149

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United States of America,

Appellee,

v.

Janice Marie Bagley,

Appellant.

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Appeals from the United States

District Court for the

Southern District of Iowa.

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 Submitted: November 16, 2004

 Filed: February 3, 2005 (corrected February 4, 2005)

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Appellate Case: 04-2098 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/03/2005 Entry ID: 1863061 
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The Honorable Ronald E. Longstaff, Chief Judge, United States District Court

for the Southern District of Iowa. 

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Before MURPHY, HANSEN, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges. 

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HANSEN, Circuit Judge.

Following the district court’s1

 denial of their joint motion to suppress evidence,

Augustin Lopez-Rodriguez conditionally pleaded guilty to Possessing with Intent to

Distribute Methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) & (b)(1)(A)

(2000), and Janice Marie Bagley conditionally pleaded guilty to Maintaining a Drug

House in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 856 (2000). Lopez received a 120-month sentence,

and Bagley received a 30-month sentence. They appeal the denial of their motion to

suppress, and we affirm.

I.

Narcotics detectives obtained records of a call placed to 2050 King Avenue,

Apartment #24, Des Moines, Iowa, from a cellular telephone that the detectives

recovered following the arrest of two individuals for drug-related activity. Special

Agents Ken Ardhuser and Pat Waymire of the Iowa Department of Public Safety,

Division of Narcotics, and Detective Curtis Pote of the Ankeny Police Department

went to the King Avenue address. Upon arriving about 4:20 p.m., Agent Ardhuser

knocked on the apartment door, identifying himself as a police officer and

announcing that he was following up on a drug investigation. After several moments,

Bagley opened the door. The testimony at the suppression hearing is contradicted as

to whether the officers asked permission to enter the apartment or whether Ardhuser

stepped inside the door without asking permission, but in any event, the officers

entered the apartment. The district court found that Bagley did not verbally invite the

officers into the apartment. 

Appellate Case: 04-2098 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/03/2005 Entry ID: 1863061 
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Once inside, the officers explained to Bagley and Lopez that they had received

“complaints” of drug activity related to the apartment. Bagley admitted that there was

marijuana in the apartment. Ardhuser asked to see it, and Bagley verbally agreed to

a search of the apartment. Lopez showed Ardhuser to the bedroom where the

marijuana was located along with a small chunk of methamphetamine. Ardhuser

discovered a large amount of methamphetamine under a bag in a trash can in the

bedroom. Ardhuser immediately returned to the kitchen and informed Bagley and

Lopez of their Miranda rights. One of the officers obtained a consent-to-search form

from his car, and within ten minutes from when the officers first knocked on the door,

both defendants had signed a consent to search the apartment and Bagley’s car.

The defendants moved to suppress the methamphetamine and statements made

by them on the basis that there was no search warrant and no valid consent given to

search the apartment. The district court denied the motion, and both defendants

conditionally pleaded guilty. Lopez and Bagley each appeal the denial of the motion

to suppress. 

II.

Appellants argue that the officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights to

be free from unreasonable searches because the officers entered the apartment without

the appellants’ consent, and the officers searched the apartment without their

voluntary consent. The district court found that Bagley at least implicitly granted the

officers permission to enter the apartment. It also found that both appellants verbally

consented to the officers’ search of the apartment once inside. Whether consent is

voluntarily given is a fact-finding that we review for clear error. See United States

v. Sanders, 341 F.3d 809, 818 (8th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 124 S. Ct. 1525 (2004).

The Fourth Amendment (applicable to state actors by way of the Fourteenth

Amendment) protects individuals from unreasonable searches of their homes. Law

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enforcement officers generally must obtain a warrant, supported by probable cause,

before they can search an individual’s home. Neither a warrant nor probable cause

is needed, however, when the individual voluntarily consents to the search. See id.

The government must establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the consent

to the search was legally sufficient before the fruits of the search may be admitted

into evidence. See id.; United States v. Cedano-Medina, 366 F.3d 682, 684 (8th Cir.),

petition for cert. denied, __ U.S.L.W. __ (U.S. July 28, 2004) (No. 04-5708).

Because the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches, a search is

not unconstitutional as long as the officers reasonably believed that consent was

voluntarily given. See Cedano-Medina, 366 F.3d at 684. “In other words, a person

can render a search legal by behaving in a way that would cause a reasonable person

to believe that he or she has knowingly and voluntarily consented, whether or not the

person actually intends to consent.” Id. at 684-85. 

The appellants make much of the fact that Agent Ardhuser testified that his

normal procedure is to attempt to step inside the home once the door is opened

without requesting permission, if the occupant allows it. (See Suppression Tr. at 20.)

Although Agent Ardhuser testified that he did not request permission from Bagley to

enter the apartment when she opened the door, he did testify that Bagley “opened the

door and invited us in.” (Id. at 16.) Agent Waymire testified that Bagley agreed to

let them in after they identified themselves and asked if they could talk with her. (Id.

at 51.) Bagley was twice asked at the suppression hearing whether she gave the

officers permission to enter the apartment, and both times she responded vaguely that

she opened the door and the officers came in. (Id. at 78.) She never refuted the

officers’ testimony that she invited them in, nor did she testify that she asked them

to leave or stop their search. An occupant can grant permission for officers to enter

a home by his or her actions. See Cedano-Medina, 366 F.3d at 686 (finding officer’s

belief that consent was given to be reasonable where defendant opened the door to

his truck, stood back along the side of the road while the officer searched the truck,

and never attempted to stop the search, despite an apparent language barrier during

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the officer’s attempt to obtain oral consent to the search). Given the divergence of

the testimony, and the district court’s superior perspective in analyzing the credibility

of the witnesses, we cannot say that the district court clearly erred in determining that

the officers reasonably believed that Bagley gave them permission to enter the

apartment. See id. at 687 (affirming denial of suppression motion and noting that

while the appellate court may have had concerns with the evidence if it were

reviewing the case in the first instance, the district court’s conclusion was not clearly

erroneous); United States v. Boyd, 180 F.3d 967, 978 (8th Cir. 1999) (officers

reasonably believed that they had permission to enter a home when the person who

answered the door pointed up the stairs and stated that the defendant was “up in his

room”).

Once inside, the officers asked Bagley if it was okay to search the apartment,

to which she responded “yes.” (Suppression Tr. at 80, 86.) Agent Waymire testified

that both Bagley and Lopez consented to the officers’ request to search the apartment.

(Id. at 42.) Prior to the officers beginning their search, Bagley offered the

information that there was marijuana in the apartment, and Lopez led Agent Ardhuser

to the bedroom to show him the drugs. Contrary to appellants’ contentions on appeal

that Bagley was intimidated by the officers and felt she had no choice but to consent

to a search, Bagley testified at the suppression hearing that the officers were in plain

clothes, she never saw any guns, and the officers were not threatening. (Id. at 87-88,

92.) Regardless of Bagley’s unvoiced, subjective feelings about whether she could

decline the officers’ request to search the apartment, the evidence establishes that the

officers reasonably believed that Bagley and Lopez voluntarily consented to the

search of the apartment. The district court did not clearly err in determining that the

officers searched the apartment pursuant to a valid consent. 

III.

We affirm each of the district court’s judgments. 

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Appellate Case: 04-2098 Page: 5 Date Filed: 02/03/2005 Entry ID: 1863061