Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-14-01669/USCOURTS-ca8-14-01669-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Acie A. Evans
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-1669

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Acie A. Evans

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City

____________

 Submitted: November 14, 2014

 Filed: March 23, 2015

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Before BYE, SHEPHERD, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

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SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.

Acie Evans entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of

a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and was sentenced to 180 months

imprisonment. Evans now appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to 1

The Honorable Dean Whipple, United States District Judge for the Western 1

District of Missouri, adopting the report and recommendations of the Honorable

Robert E. Larsen, United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of

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suppress. In particular, Evans argues that the court erred in denying his motion to

suppress a firearm recovered during an inventory search of his vehicle and later

incriminating statements because police officers unlawfully towed his vehicle and

conducted the inventory search with an investigatory motive. We affirm.

I.

On the morning of September 4, 2012, Kansas City, Missouri police officers

responded to a call of a rape in progress at a residence. After arriving and beginning

an investigation, one officer observed a tan four-door car leave an apartment complex

roughly 1,000 feet away from the residence. The car stopped at a stop sign about half

a block from the residence and remained idle for 30 to 45 seconds, even though no

other traffic was at the intersection. Meanwhile, crime scene investigators at the

scene recovered a Missouri identification card on the ground by the window that the

assailant had broken into to gain accessto the residence. The identification card bore

the name Acie Evans and contained a photograph of an African-American male.

Officers then observed the same tan four-door car drive by the crime scene, traveling

at a speed of less than five miles per hour. One officer identified the driver as the

same man whose photograph appeared on the identification card. The officer

memorized the license plate number, and another officer ran the plate through the

department’s system, revealing the car wasregistered to a Bobby Evans. Because the

last name on the registration matched the photograph on the identification card and

the officer identified the driver asthe man pictured on the identification card, officers

decided to follow the car into the nearby apartment complex.

Arriving at the complex, the officers observed the car parked in front of one of

the apartment buildings. The officers believed the driver had gone into that building,

and went to speak with the apartment manager to determine if anyone named Evans

Missouri.

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was leasing a unit. The apartment manager indicated that no one by the name of

Evans had leased any units but that an Acie Evans waslisted as an emergency contact

for one of the lessees. The apartment manager also remembered having shown an

apartment to a man by the name Acie Evans before leasing it to its current occupant. 

While one officer spoke with the apartment manager, another entered the four-unit

apartment building officers believed the driver had entered. Noticing that the door to

one unit was partially open, the officer knocked on the door, and a man resembling

the driver answered the door. The officer asked if he had any identification, and

accompanied the man to his bedroomwhere he produced a Kansas identification card

identifying him as Acie Evans. The officer conducted a computer check for

outstanding warrants and discovered that Evans’s license had been suspended. He

then arrested Evans for driving without a license.

The officer informed other officers at the scene that he had arrested Evans and

asked what should be done with Evans’s vehicle. By this time, news crews were

arriving at the location and the apartment manager wanted them to leave the private

property. Officers informed the apartment manager that they believed they had a

suspect in custody for the nearby rape and that Evans told the officers he resided in

the unit, but the mother of his child had rented that apartment for him because an

involuntary manslaughter conviction would have prevented him from renting the

apartment on his own. The apartment manager informed the officers that she wanted

both Evans and his vehicle removed from the property.

The officers decided to tow Evans’s vehicle because of the apartment

manager’s request and the fact that Evans was under arrest and no other responsible

party was on the scene to take custody of the vehicle. Although officers never asked

Evans if there was someone else to take the vehicle, he offered that the mother of his

child would be arriving within five to ten minutes. Five to ten minutes had already

elapsed, and the officers decided they could wait no longer for someone to arrive to

take the vehicle. Pursuant to the Kansas City Police Department Towing Policy,

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officers towed the vehicle to the police station and conducted an inventory search of

the vehicle. During the search, officers recovered a loaded Jennings .380 caliber

pistol from the center console of the vehicle. During later questioning about the

firearm,Evans made incriminating statementsregarding his ownership ofthe weapon.

Evans was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm pursuant to 18

U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Evans filed a motion to suppress the firearm and his subsequent

incriminating statements, alleging that the inventory search of his vehicle was

unlawful because the police officers did not follow the department’s towing policy

when deciding to tow his vehicle and because the officers carried out the search with

an investigatorymotive. The district court denied the motion to suppress, finding that

the decision to tow the vehicle waslawfully based on the department’s towing policy

and that the officers did not have an investigatory motive in carrying out the search

because they did not expect to find any evidence relating to the rape they had initially

been called to investigate. Evans entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right

to appeal the suppression ruling, and the district court sentenced him to 180 months

imprisonment. Evans now appeals the denial of his motion to suppress. 

II.

Evans asserts that the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress was in

error because the officers unlawfully towed the vehicle from the apartment complex,

rendering the inventory search invalid, and that, even if they lawfully towed the

vehicle, the inventory search remained invalid because the officers conducted it with

an investigatory motive. When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we

review a district court’s factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo.

United States v. Harris, 747 F.3d 1013, 1016 (8th Cir. 2014).

Evansfirst argues that the inventory search wasinvalid because the officers did

not make the decision to tow his vehicle pursuant to the police department’s towing

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policy. Police officers are entitled to use their discretion in deciding to impound a

vehicle, provided that their decisions are based on standard criteria and not upon

suspected criminal activity. Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 375 (1987). Here,

the officers’ decision to impound Evans’s vehicle was based upon the Kansas City

Police Department Towing Policy. The department’s towing policy, in relevant part,

provides:

[I]n the officer’s discretion, vehicles may be towed when: . . . []Any

vehicle is parked on private property or upon an area developed as an offstreet parking facility without the consent of the owner, lessee or person

in charge of any such property or facility, and upon complaint to the

police department by the owner, lessee or person in charge of such

property or facility, and a summons has been presented to the owner or

operator or affixed to the vehicle.

App. 16.

The district court found the decision to tow was consistent with the

department’s towing policy because Evans’s vehicle was parked on private property,

he was under arrest, and the apartment manager requested that the authorities remove

the vehicle from the property. Evans assertsthat thisfinding wasin error because the

district court erroneously found that the apartment manager requested that the vehicle

be removed from the property. This argument is based on allegedly contradictory

statements by the apartment manager. The manager’s initial post-incident written

statement to police describing the events includes no reference to her request to have

Evans’s vehicle removed from the property. In an interview with defense counsel

about six weeks after the incident, the manager indicated that she had not requested

that the police officers remove Evans’s vehicle. She later testified that she

understood defense counsel to have been generally questioning her about whether the

defendant drove a car when she answered no to their question. And, in a later police

interview, she indicated that she believed she had requested that the officers remove

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Evans’s vehicle from the apartment complex because she “want[ed] his vehicle and

[] him gone.” At the suppression hearing she testified that she specifically asked

officers to remove the vehicle from the property, and one of the responding officer’s

testimony corroborated this account. 

After reviewing the evidence, we conclude that the district court’s

determination that the manager requested the vehicle be moved was not clearly

erroneous. See United States v. Sanders, 130 F.3d 1316, 1317 (8th Cir. 1997)

(explaining that our court should find clear error if the finding of the district court is

“‘unsupported by substantial evidence, based on an erroneous interpretation of

applicable law, or, in light of the entire record, we are left with a firm and definite

conviction that a mistake has been made’” (quoting United States v. Ruiz, 935 F.2d

982, 984 (8th Cir. 1991))). Although the apartment manager did not mention her

request that the vehicle be towed in her initial post-incident statement to police, her

statement did not deny that she had made such a request, and she clarified in a

subsequent police interview that she had requested that the vehicle be moved. She

also provided testimony explaining her contradictory statement to defense counsel. 

The district court was permitted to credit this testimony. See Anderson v. City of

Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 575 (1985)(affording trial judges great deference

in making credibility determinations because they are in the best position to assess

a witness’s testimony for credibility). Evans’s vehicle was parked on private property

without the consent of the apartment manager, and although the officers did not

present him with a summons, they had arrested him for driving without a valid

license. We therefore believe that the officers removed Evans’s vehicle pursuant to

the police department’s towing policy, and the decision to tow the vehicle and

conduct an inventory search was thus lawful.

Evans next argues that the inventory search was invalid because officers

conducted it with an investigatory motive. If an impoundment is otherwise valid, an

investigatory motive does not prevent police from towing a vehicle and conducting

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an inventory search. United States v. Garner, 181 F.3d 988, 991-92 (8th Cir. 1999). 

An investigatory motive does not render an inventory search invalid unless that

motive is the officers’ sole motivation in carrying out the search. United States v.

Marshall, 986 F.2d 1171, 1176 (8th Cir. 1993). Departing from standardized

proceduresfor conducting an inventory search is evidence that helps prove the search

was a pretext and that the officers’ sole motive in carrying out the search was

investigatory. See United States v. Rowland, 341 F.3d 774, 780-82 (8th Cir. 2003). 

But, officers may be alert for the presence of incriminating evidence during an

inventory search. Marshall, 986 F.2d at 1176.

The district court, in adopting the magistrate judge’s report and

recommendations, specifically found that no evidence indicated the officers expected

to find any evidence tying Evans to the rape by conducting an inventory search of his

vehicle. Nothing in the record indicates that this factual finding constitutes clear

error, and we will not disturb the district court’s finding. Further, even if the district

court had found the officers to have acted with an investigatory motive, no evidence

indicates that it was their sole motive in carrying out the search. The officers

followed the standardized procedure for conducting an inventory search and Evans

provided no evidence showing the officers’ inventory search was a pretext for further

investigating the rape claim. Because we do not believe the officers acted with an

investigatory motive that would render the inventory search invalid, Evans’s

subsequent incriminating statements need not be excluded as fruit of the poisonous

tree. The district court did not err in denying Evans’s motion to suppress.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of Evans’s

motion to suppress. 

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