[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________ No. 14

- 10340 Non

- Argument Calendar

________________________ D.C. Docket No. 0:13

- cr - 60195

- DMM

- 1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff

- Appellee,

versus TONY CYRIL FULLER, Defendant

- Appellant.

________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida

________________________ (Jul y 21, 2014) Before TJOFLAT , PRYOR and MARTIN , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM: Tony Cyri l Fuller appeals his conviction for being a felon in possession of a Case: 14-10340 Date Filed: 07/21/2014 Page: 1 of 62 firearm and ammunition, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922 (g)(1), 924(a)(2). 1 Fuller raises one issue: Whether the District Court erred in denying his motion to
suppress a firearm and ammu nition Detectives of the Lauderhill, Florida, P olice Department obtained during a warrantless search of his backyard and statements he made following his arrest. Fuller argues that a lthough the detectives were engaged in the “hot pursuit” of a stolen

- car suspect, their approximately 12

- minute pursuit of the suspect had become “cold” by the time one of the detectives entered his backyard. We find no error in the court’s ruling and accordingly affirm.
I. The circumstances unde r which the police wound up in Fuller’s backyard, as depicted at the hearing on Fuller’s motion to suppress, are these. On June 10, 2013, at 1:48 p.m., as Detective LaG rasta, his partner, Detective Session, and another d etective of the Lauderhill Police D epartment were attempting to stop a stolen automobile, the car’s three male occupants jumped out while the car was rolling and ran. 2 Two went west, a third east. La G rasta and Session ran after t h e
t w o headed w e s t; the third detective remained o n t h e s c e ne, at 3 32 1 NW 6 th
C o u rt. D e t e c t i v e L a G r a s t a q u i c k l y ca u g h t o n e o f t h e two suspects, the driver of

1 As of the date of his arrest, Fuller had been convicted of multiple felonies

— six as a juvenile and four as an adult

— and thus was prohibi ted from possessing a firearm. 2 After the suspects jumped out of the car, it crashed into a house. Case: 14-10340 Date Filed: 07/21/2014 Page: 2 of 63 the car, in the backyard of a house on NW 6 th Street, and handed him over to officers who had arrived at the scene. LaGrasta then hailed a passing motorist who drove him to the 3300 block of 4 th Court, where his lieutenant was after the second suspect who was running through backyards on 4 th Court. At this point, Detective Ramos, who was d riving nearby, said in a radio transmission that two suspicious peopl e were in the backyard at 3461 4 th Court. LaGrasta went there. Fuller was living at that address with his girlfriend, Sabrina Hampton

. T h e l o t at 3461 NW 4 th Court c on t a in s a s m a l l h ou s e w i t h a l a w n i n f

r o n t a n d o n t h e s id e s , a n d a b a c k y ard e n c l o s e d b y a c h a i n - l in k fe n ce w i t h a g a t e

a nd , o n on e s i d e, a n e i gh bo r ’ s w o o d e n fe n ce. Th e fence g a t e w a s o p e n. Detective
LaG rasta r a n around the house a n d l oo k ed i n t o th e b a c k y ard. He s aw F u l l er a n d Hampton i n t h e b a c k y ard s i tt i ng u p a g a in s t t h e n e ig h b o r ’ s w o o d e n fe n c e. F ul l er

e y e b a l l ed L a G ra s t a, who w as w ear i n g t a c ti c al g e a r with a police insignia and standing 15 to 20 feet away, and i m m e di a t e l y removed a g u n f r o m his waistband

a n d d r o p p e d i t i n t o a t r a s h c a n he was sitting on. At that point, La G rasta, concerned for his safety, entered the backyard, ordered Fuller to the ground, removed a loaded firearm, a .45 caliber Taurus, from the trash can, and placed Fuller in handcuffs. He searched Fuller and found cocaine powder and a straw with cocaine r esidue. Detective Session, who had entered the backyard from the other side of the house, told La G rasta that Fuller was not the man he was chasing.

Case: 14-10340 Date Filed: 07/21/2014 Page: 3 of 64 F ull er was detained at 1 :5 9 p m , j us t e l e v e n m inu t es a f t er LaG rasta and Session began their t h e pu r s u i t o f t he s u s p e c t s, and La G rasta read him his Miranda rights. He waived his rights and responded to La G rasta’s questions. He admitted

o w n i n g t h e f i r ear m; he said he’d purchased it on the street in F t . Lauderdale f o r $ 2 5 0.
II. We review the D istrict Court’s denial of Fuller’s motion to suppress as a mixed question of law and fact. United States v

. Franklin , 694 F.3d 1, 7 (11th Cir. 2012). We accept the court’s factual findings in resolving an exigent circumstance issue unless the findings are clearly errone ous . Id. “ We determine de novo whether the court erred in applying the law to those facts. ” Id. (quoting United States v. Bradley , 644 F.3d 1213, 1261 (11th Cir. 2011)). The Fourth Amendment protects persons and their “houses, papers, and effects” from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. This protection extends to the curtilage of a person’s home, which is “ part of the home itself for Fourth Amen dment purposes. ” See Florida v. Jardines , __ U.S. __, 133
S. Ct. 1409, 1414 , 185 L. Ed. 2d 495 (2013) (quoting Oliver v. United States , 466 U.S. 170, 180 , 104 S. Ct. 1735, 1742, 80 L. Ed. 2d 214 (1984) ) ; United States v.
Dunn , 480 U.S. 294, 300, 107 S. Ct. 1134, 1139, 94 L. Ed. 2d 326 (1987). The Supreme Court has defined the curtilage as the area around the home that harbors those intimate activities associated with domestic life and the privacies of the

Case: 14-10340 Date Filed: 07/21/2014 Page: 4 of 65 home. Dunn , 480 U.S. at 300, 107 S. Ct. at 1139 . Thus, “[w]henever government agents enter into the curtilage they necessarily intrude upon the individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy.” United States v. Jackson , 588 F. 2d 1046, 1053 (5th Cir. 1979). Under the Fourth Amendment, “ searches and se izures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable. ” Franklin , 694 F.3d at 7 (quoting Payton v. New York , 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 1380, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980) )

. However, a warrantless search or seizure of a home may be justified “where both probable cause and exigent circumstances exist.” Id. (quoting United States v. Tobin , 923 F.2d 1506, 1510 (11th Cir. 1991) ). The government bears the burden of proving an exc eption to the warrant requirement. United States v. Holloway , 290 F.3d 1331, 1337 (11th Cir. 2002). The exigent circumstances doctrine applies only when there is a compelling need for official action, but no time for law enforcement to secure a warrant. Id. at 1334. The exigent circumstances doctrine extends to situations involving “danger of flight or escape, loss or destruction of evidence, risk of harm to the public or the police, mobility of a vehicle, and hot pursuit.” Id. Under the hot pursuit doctrine, police officers may enter premises without a warrant when they are in hot pursuit of a fleeing suspect. See United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42

– 43, 96 S. Ct. 2406, 2409

– 10, 49 L. Ed. 2d 300 (1976). A

Case: 14-10340 Date Filed: 07/21/2014 Page: 5 of 66 “hot pursuit means some sort of chase, but it need not be an extended hue and cry ‘in and about [the] public streets.’” Id. at 42

– 43, 96 S. Ct. at 2410. The Supreme Court has indicated that a claim of hot pursuit is “unconvincing” where there was
“no immediate and continuous pursuit of the petitioner from the scene of a crime.” Welsh v. Wisconsin , 466 U.S. 740, 753, 104 S. Ct. 2091, 2099, 80 L. Ed. 2d 732 (1984).
D uring the approximately 12 minutes between the suspects’ fleeing from the stolen car and Detective LaGrasta’s arrival at Fuller’s yard, LaGrasta and other detectives were engaged in a single pursuit that was continuous from the time the suspects fled the stolen car to the moment LaGrasta entered Fuller’s back yard. See Welsh , 466 U.S. at 753, 104 S. Ct. at 2099; Santana, 427 U.S. at 42

– 43, 96 S. Ct. at 2409

– 10. Fuller does not challenge LaGrasta’s search and detention after he entered the backyard. What he challenges is whether LaGrasta’s entry was justified by exigent circumstances because the “hot pursuit” had grown cold. We agree with the District Court that pursuit had not grown cold. LaGrasta was engaged in an uninterrupted pursuit , aided by an ongoing dispatch transmissio n; hence, his entry was justified.
AFFIRMED. Case: 14-10340 Date Filed: 07/21/2014 Page: 6 of 6