UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.  No. 02-4889

EDWARD LEE LEWIS,

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Charleston.

Joseph Robert Goodwin, District Judge.

(CR-02-42)

Submitted: August 29, 2003

Decided: September 16, 2003

Before NIEMEYER, MICHAEL, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

COUNSEL

Tracy Weese, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, for Appellant. Kasey

Warner, United States Attorney, L. Anna Crawford, Assistant United

States Attorney, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See

Local Rule 36(c). 
OPINION

PER CURIAM: 

Edward Lee Lewis was convicted of four counts of mailing threatening communications, 18 U.S.C. § 876 (2000), one count of mailing

a threatening communication to the President, 18 U.S.C. § 871

(2000), and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon,

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (2000). He was sentenced to 192 months in

prison. We affirm. 

I

In January 2002, four letters were mailed to various individuals in

the Charleston, West Virginia, area. The addressees included a state

circuit judge, the governor, and a federal district judge. A fifth letter

was mailed to President Bush. The envelopes contained a white, powdery substance, cigarette butts, and a threatening letter. The return

address area on the envelope contained the name "Gloria Fields." 

Officers who interviewed Ms. Fields learned that she had sent

Edward Lee Lewis some letters as she was ending a brief relationship

with him. It appeared that the person who had sent the letters containing the powder had cut words from one or more letters that Fields had

sent Lewis and photocopied them onto blank stationery of the type on

which Fields’ letters to Lewis were written. 

Postal inspectors obtained an arrest warrant for Lewis. They executed the warrant and arrested him. Following the arrest, a postal

inspector looked through the windows of Lewis’ pickup truck, which

was parked in the driveway of the residence where he was arrested.

The postal inspector saw cigarette butts, a copy of the threatening letter that had been mailed, blue pages (government listings) from a telephone book, and a typewriter. 

A search warrant for the truck was issued and executed. Officers

retrieved from the truck two typewriters, an original letter that Fields

had sent Lewis, with words cut out of it, matching stationery with the

words, "If I were you I’d change my attitude" pasted on it, copies of

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that letter, a twelve-gauge shotgun, ammunition, and other incriminating evidence. 

Prior to trial, Lewis moved to suppress the evidence seized from

the truck. The district court denied the motion. A jury convicted him

on all six counts, and he was sentenced as an armed career criminal

to 192 months in prison. 

II

Lewis first claims that the district court erred in denying his motion

to suppress. We review the district court’s factual findings on this

issue for clear error and its legal determinations de novo. See Ornelas

v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996); United States v. Rusher,

966 F.2d 868, 873 (4th Cir. 1992). If a suppression motion was

denied, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the

prevailing party. United States v. Seidman, 156 F.3d 542, 547 (4th

Cir. 1998). 

Here, we conclude that the postal inspector’s observation of

incriminating items through the windows of Lewis’ truck did not constitute a "search" protected by the Fourth Amendment. "[A] ‘search’

occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed." United States v. Breza, 308 F.3d 430,

433 (4th Cir. 2002). The central question is whether the defendant

"‘manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in the object of the

challenged search’ and whether ‘society [is] willing to recognize that

expectation as reasonable.’" United States v. Taylor, 90 F.3d 903, 908

(4th Cir. 1996) (quoting California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 211

(1986)). In Taylor, we observed:

[W]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public . . . is not

a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. . . . Thus, a law

enforcement officer’s observations from a public vantage

point where he has a right to be and from which the activities or objects he observes are clearly visible do not constitute a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

Taylor, 90 F.3d at 908 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). 

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Here, Lewis’ truck was parked feet from a public road, and anyone

who walked into the driveway could have observed the contents of

the truck. There had been no attempt to conceal the truck or its contents. The postal inspectors had a right to be on the property. We conclude that the observation of unobscured items through the window

of Lewis’ pickup truck did not constitute a search under the Fourth

Amendment. Thus, the district court properly denied the suppression

motion. 

III

Lewis contends that he was erroneously sentenced as an armed

career criminal. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) (2000). He concedes that he

pleaded guilty in 1999 to three counts of daytime burglary. The

offenses occurred on different days and involved different residences

and victims. Thus, we reject his claim that the three convictions

should have been treated as a single offense. See United States v.

Hobbs, 136 F.3d 384, 387-89 (4th Cir. 1998). Furthermore, the definition of daytime burglary in West Virginia, see W. Va. Code Ann.

§ 61-3-11(a)-(b) (Michie 2000), satisfies the generic definition of burglary because it has as elements the unlawful or unprivileged entry

into a building with the intent to commit a crime. As such, the burglaries qualify as violent felonies for armed career criminal status. See

Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 599-602 (1990). Because

Lewis had three previous convictions for violent felonies, we find that

he was properly sentenced under § 924(e). 

IV

We therefore affirm. We dispense with oral argument because the

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials

before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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