Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-06087/USCOURTS-ca10-90-06087-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
William James McAlpine
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FI LEO 

United Statei 0>1.m: ()f Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

NOV 2 7 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

No. 90-6087 

WILLIAM JAMES MCALPINE, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Oklahoma 

(D.C. No. CR-89-257-A) 

William P. Earley, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Oklahoma 

City, Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellant. 

Leslie M. Kaestner, Assistant u.s. Attorney (Timothy D. Leonard, 

United States Attorney with her on the brief), Oklahoma City, 

Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Before SEYMOUR, BALDOCK, and BRORBY, Circuit Judges. 

SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge. 

Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 1 
William McAlpine appeals the district court's denial of his 

motion to suppress evidence obtained during a warrantless search 

of his residence. We affirm. 

r. 

On October 8, 1989, the Oklahoma City Police Department 

received a phone call from Dianne Hale, who reported that she was 

being held against her will by two men who had been sexually 

assaulting her. She advised the police that the men had 

threatened her with guns. The two responding officers, Sergeants 

Culbertson and Wise, called for backup and proceeded to the 

residence, located in a trailer park. When the officers knocked 

on the trailer door, Ms. Hale let them in. 

Once inside the residence, Sergeant Culbertson began 

interviewing Ms. Hale. She told the officers that Mr. McAlpine 

had sexually assaulted her for six months, two of those months at 

the trailer, and that she did not leave because she was afraid 

that Mr. McAlpine would find her and kill her if she did. She had 

made the decision to call the police when Mr. McAlpine left her 

alone in the trailer. She also told the officers that McAlpine 

had forced her to take drugs and threatened her with weapons. She 

told them that she regularly slept in the bedroom located in the 

back of the trailer, where she had been handcuffed to the bed 

while Mr. McAlpine sexually assaulted her and took pictures of 

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Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 2 
other men doing the same. Ms. Hale also reported to Sergeants 

Culbertson and Wise that this bedroom was where the guns were kept 

that were used to threaten.her if she did not comply with Mr. 

McAlpine's demands. She further stated that she had personal 

property scattered throughout the rest of the residence. The 

officers testified at trial that Ms. Hale seemed afraid. 

During the course of the interview, the officers noticed a 

hand-drawn silhouette of a police officer with the word "cop" on 

it. The silhouette had several bullet holes in the head. At this 

point the officers asked Ms. Hale to show them where the guns were 

located. When she pointed to the back of the trailer, Sergeant 

Wise walked down the hallway, scanning the bathroom and the front 

bedroom as he approached the bedroom in the rear. In the rear 

bedroom, he observed two guns, numerous handcuffs, gun cases, and 

ammuniti9n lying on the headboard of the bed, along with various 

letters and documents with Mr. McAlpine's name on them. Sergeant 

Wise testified that all of these items were in plain view and that 

he did not search any closets, drawers, boxes or other closed 

containers. The officers stayed at the trailer for approximately 

fifteen to twenty minutes and then left with Ms. Hale, who had 

packed a small bag with some of her personal possessions. Nothing 

was seized from the residence at that time. 

Based on the information obtained from the October 8 search, 

along with corroborating evidence gathered from an informant, a 

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Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 3 
search warrant was executed on the trailer on October 24. 1 During 

the course of the search, the police seized, among other things, a 

semi-automatic pistol, a sawed-off shotgun barrel, a bullet-proof 

vest, pamphlets describing how to convert firearms to machine 

guns, an improvised weapons manual, and numerous boxes of 

high-powered ammunition. A grand jury subsequently returned an 

indictment charging Mr. McAlpine with three firearm violations. 

Mr. McAlpine filed a motion to suppress, arguing that the 

warrantless October 8 search was in violation of his Fourth 

Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and 

seizures. He contended that because the warrant obtained for the 

later search was substantially based on the product of the prior 

illegal search, the warrant was deficient under the 

fruit-of-the-poisonous tree doctrine. That is, Mr. McAlpine 

claimed that there would not have been sufficient evidence to 

support the magistrate's probable cause determination without the 

information procured in the warrantless search. 

After an evidentiary hearing, the district court held that 

the October 8 search .was constitutional, basing its conclusion on 

three separate grounds: first, the search constituted a protective 

sweep; second, the search was necessary to corroborate Ms. Hale's 

1 Prior to the search, the police verified with the trailer 

park's resident-manager that Mr. McAlpine had leased, and still 

resided in, the trailer. 

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Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 4 
story; and third, Ms. Hale gave an effective consent to the 

search. Because we agree that Ms. Hale effectively consented, we 

need not address the merits of the first two grounds. 

II. 

In an appeal of the denial of a defendant's· motion to 

suppress evidence, our standard of review is to accept the trial 

court's findings of fact, unless clearly erroneous, and to 

consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Government. United States v. Soto-Ornelas, 863 F.2d 1487, 1490 

(10th Cir. 1988); United States v. Rios, 611 F.2d 1335, 1344 (10th 

Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 918 (1981). 

"[A] search or seizure carried out on a suspect's premises 

without a warrant is per.§.§. unreasonable, unless the police can 

show that it falls within one of a carefully defined set of 

exceptions •••• " Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 474 

(1971). One specifically delineated exception.is a search based 

on consent. See Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 548-49 

(1968). Someone other than the subject of the search may give 

effective consent if she has a sufficient relationship to the 

property searched. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 110 S. Ct. 2793, 2797 

(1990) (citing United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 163, 171 n.7 

(1974)). 

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Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 5 
The government bears the burden of proving by a preponderance 

of the evidence that the consenter had mutual use of the property 

searched by virtue of her joint access to it, or control for most 

purposes over it. Id. at 2797. This notion of "common authority" 

over the object of the search does not rest solely on abstract 

principles of property, but rather stems from a practical 

understanding of the way in which the parties to a given 

relationship have access to and share certain property. See 

Matlock, 415 U.S. at 170-71 & n.7; United States v. Falcon, 766 

F.2d 1469, 1474 (10th Cir. 1985); United States v. Sor-Lokken, 557 

F.2d 755, 757 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 894 (1977); see 

also Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 740 (1969) (cousin who jointly 

used duffel bag with defendant situated to give valid consent). 

If common authority is established, the person whose property is 

searched is unjustified in claiming an expectation of privacy in 

the property because that person cannot reasonably believe that 

the joint user will not, under certain circumstances, allow a 

search in her own right. See Matlock, 415 U.S. at 171 & n.7; 

Sor-Lokken, 557 F.2d at 757; see also Rodriguez, 110 S. Ct. at 

2804 (Marshall, J., dissenting) ("person voluntarily has 

relinquished expectation of privacy by sharing access or control 

over [her or] his property with another person"). Thus, in 

Matlock, the Court found a sufficient relationship when the 

consenter had slept for several months with the defendant in the 

bedroom searched and had kept her clothes in a dresser drawer on 

the premises. See 415 U.S. at 168-69 & n.3; see also White v. 

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Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 6 
United States, 444 F.2d 724, 726 (10th Cir. 1971)(joint occupant 

authorized to consent to search contents of motel room registered 

in defendant's name); United States v. Jones, 580 F.2d 785, 786-87 

(5th Cir. 1978)(man who slept in defendant's apartment for week 

and kept clothes there gave effective consent). 

In the present case, the consenting third party had resided 

for two months in the premises searched. There was uncontradicted 

evidence that Ms. Hale regularly slept in the back bedroom where 

the guns were found and that she kept personal possessions 

throughout the trailer. Mr. McAlpine could not have had a 

reasonable expectation of privacy in property that the consenter 

had mutual access to and used on a daily basis. 

Mr. McAlpine contends, however, that a victim of a crime 

cannot, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, consent to a search 

of the alleged perpetrator's residence. He argues that because 

Ms. Hale was a "kidnap victim," she could not have had sufficient 

authority over his property to give effective consent. He further 

argues there was no evidence that either Sergeant Culbertson or 

Sergeant Wise believed "the woman was anything more than what she 

purported to be, the victim of a crime," Appellant's Brief at 15, 

and, therefore, the officers could not have reasonably believed 

she was in a position to give valid consent. 

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Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 7 
Because Mr. McAlpine's argument rests on false premises, its 

logic is deficient in several respects. First, as Matlock makes 

clear, the relevant analysis in third-party consent cases focuses 

on the relationship between the consenter and the property 

searched, not the relationship between the consenter and the 

defendant. While the character of the relationship between the 

consenter and the defendant may bear on the nexus between the 

consenter and the property, it is not dispositive of the issue of 

effective consent. Thus, there can be no per se rule that a crime 

victim cannot consent to a search of the perpetrator's residence. 2 

2 Mr. McAlpine's argument implicitly relies on the line of 

cases that analyzes the validity of third-party consent within the 

context of an agency framework, pursuant to the Supreme Court's 

statement in Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483 (1964), that the 

Fourth Amendment right "was a right •.• which only the 

petitioner could waive by word or deed, either directly or through 

an agent." Id. at 489. Courts engaging in this analysis deem a 

third party situated to give effective consent only if.the subject 

of the search authorized that party, either expressly or 

impliedly, to "waive" the subject's Fourth Amendment right. See, 

~, United States v. Stone, 471 F.2d 170, 175 (7th Cir. 

1972)(Swygert, C.J., dissenting), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 931 

(1973) (disagreeing with majority holding that consent could be 

based on equal use and occupancy; advocating instead requirement 

of agency relationship); Akin Distrib., Inc. v. United States, 399 

F.2d 306, 307 (5th Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 905 (1969); 

United States v. Greer, 297 F. Supp. 1265, 1270 (N.D. Miss. 1969); 

People v. Flowers, 23 Mich. App. 523, 179 N.W.2d 56, 58 (1970); 

see also 3 w. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth 

Amendment§ 8.3(a) at 238-39 (2d ed. 1987); Comment, Third-Party 

Consent Searches: An Alternative Analysis, 41 u. Chi. L. Rev. 121, 

128-31 (1973). Because the object of the relationship between a 

principal and an agent is to further the interests of the 

principal, an action taken by the agent that is antagonistic to 

the principal's interest does not fall within the scope of the 

agency. Restatement (Second) of Agency§ 39 (1958) ("[A]uthority 

to act as agent includes only authority to act for benefit of the 

principal."). 

Therefore, courts have refused to recognize as valid a 

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Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 8 
Second, to the extent Mr. McAlpine contends specifically that 

a kidnap victim cannot give effective consent to a search of her 

captor's premises, because a kidnapper never would allow the 

victim mutual use of or access to his residence and a police 

officer could therefore not reasonably believe that he did, his 

argument is premised on an inapt analogy. By defining Ms. Hale as 

a kidnap victim, Mr. McAlpine evoke.s the concept of a victim held 

for ransom tied to a chair in a secluded room, struggling to 

escape. Whether a police officer could reasonably believe that 

such a victim could effectively consent to a search of her 

captor's residence is a question we need not address, because Ms. 

Hale does not fit this paradigm. 3 Rather, she is a member of that 

consent to search a defendant's ~esidence, even when the consenter 

cohabitates with the defendant, if the consent was given for the 

purpose of implicating the defendant in a crime, against the 

consenter or otherwise. See State v. Gonzalez-Valle, 385 So.2d 

681, 682 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1980); Kelley v. State, 184 Tenn. 

143, 146, 197 S.W.2d 545, 546 (1946); see also May v. Texas, 780 

S.W.2d 866, 872-73 (Tex. Ct. App. 1989) (court considered animus 

of estranged wife in determining effectiveness of consent). But 

cf. State v. Radcliffe, 483 So.2d 95 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1986) 

(calling into question reasoning in Gonzalez-Valle). 

As our discussion above reveals, however, the agency analysis 

should have been put to rest by the Supreme Court's reasoning in 

Matlock; that is, it is the consenter's relationship to the 

property, not the tenor of her relationship with the defendant, 

that is determinative of whether she can permit a search in her 

own right. See 3 La Fave, supra note 2, at 242; see also United 

States v. Crouthers, 669 F.2d 635, 642-43 (10th Cir. 

1982)(engaging in property nexus test despite evidence of 

consenter's antagonism toward defendant). 

3 In fact, Ms. Hale had gone to Mr. McAlpine's trailer 

voluntarily, and when she attempted to leave he would not let her. 

She told the police that she did not attempt to leave again 

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Appellate Case: 90-6087 Document: 01019956433 Date Filed: 11/27/1990 Page: 9 
class of victims who actually cohabitate with their abusers and 

who are not free to leave for fear of their physical or 

psychological well-being. Because these crime victims both sleep 

and carry out daily activities in the same residence with the 

perpetrator, they are entitled to give consent to a search of the 

residence in their own right. See Matlock, 415 U.S. at 171 n.7. 

And, conversely, by virtue of this mutual access, the perpetrator 

cannot maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the shared 

property. See id.; Rodriguez, 110 S. Ct. at 2802 (Marshall, J., 

dissenting). 4 

Whether the police officer could reasonably believe Ms. Hale 

could give effective consent. "must 'be judged against an objective 

standard: would the facts available to the officer at the moment 

• "warrant a man of reasonable caution in the· belief"' that 

the consenting party had authority over the premises." Rodriguez, 

110 S. Ct. at 2801 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22 

because she was afraid Mr. McAlpine would kill her if she did, and 

also that he would send the photographs of her to her estranged 

husband, which would jeopardize her custody of their children. 

4 We do not believe society is prepared to recognize as 

reasonable the expectation that the victim of one's assault will 

not seek aid from the police. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 

347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring)(establishment of 

constitutionality protected privacy interest requires 

demonstration that (1) defendant exhibited subjective expectation 

of privacy, and (2) the expectation be one that society is 

prepared to recognize as reasonable); see also Comment, supra note 

2, at 136 (unreasonable for defendant to believe that victim will 

preserve his privacy); 3 La Fave, supra note 2, at 244-45 

(defendant's expectation- of privacy diminished by virtue of 

antagonism toward co-inhabitant). 

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(1968)). Responding to what they called a "domestic disturbance," 

Sergeants Culbertson and Wise could have reasonably believed that, 

given the circumstances, Ms. Hale, although a crime victim, 

nonetheless was qualified to give effective consent to a search of 

the entire premises, including the back bedroom. We are 

disinclined to share, or impute to the police officers, Mr. 

McAlpine's myopic view of a universe of crime victims that 

excludes those who are victimized i_n the domestic arena. 

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court's denial of Mr. 

McAlpine's motion to suppress. 

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