Opinion ID: 3203386
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: September 1, 2012 Search

Text: Witten also argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the fruits of his September 1 arrest. He claims that the court should have suppressed the evidence because the officers conducted an invalid inventory search of his car and because he declined to consent to the search of his duffel bag. We find neither argument persuasive and affirm the denial of the motion to suppress. 3 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), we adopted as binding precedent all Fifth Circuit decisions issued before the close of business on September 30, 1981. 12 Case: 14-14692 Date Filed: 05/13/2016 Page: 13 of 16 To satisfy the so-called inventory search exception to the warrant requirement, the government bears the burden to demonstrate that the officers possessed the authority to impound the vehicle and followed departmental policy in conducting the search. United States v. Williams, 936 F.2d 1243, 1248 (11th Cir. 1991). “[A] law enforcement officer may impound the vehicle, so long as the decision to impound is made on the basis of standard criteria and on the basis of something other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity.” Sammons v. Taylor, 967 F.2d 1533, 1543 (11th Cir. 1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). If the vehicle has been impounded lawfully, an officer may conduct an inventory search, including a search of closed containers, “provided the search is conducted pursuant to standardized criteria.” Id. Although inventory searches cannot serve as pretext, “the mere expectation of uncovering evidence will not vitiate an otherwise valid inventory search.” United States v. Bosby, 675 F.2d 1174, 1179 (11th Cir. 1982). We conclude that the September 1 search of Witten’s car and the contents therein was a valid inventory search. The magistrate judge found, and the district court accepted, that Rodriguez did not arrest Witten after he left his home as a pretext to search the car. This finding is not clear error, as the magistrate judge found Rodriguez’s testimony credible, and Witten accepts these findings of credibility per his plea agreement. 13 Case: 14-14692 Date Filed: 05/13/2016 Page: 14 of 16 Additionally, the magistrate judge committed no clear error in finding that Rodriguez followed Key West Police Department procedures for impounding a vehicle and conducting an inventory search. 4 Witten’s car was blocking an intersection; it would have been impractical for Rodriguez conduct the inventory search at the scene per the preferred Key West Police Department policy of searching at the scene. Instead, Rodriguez quickly searched the car to avoid an accusation of planting evidence and had the car driven to the station. Because Witten was under arrest and had no one to take possession of his car, law enforcement needed to transport Witten’s car to be impounded. And Key West Police Department inventory search procedures explicitly allowed Rodriguez to search closed containers within Witten’s car and obtain a key to unlock the duffel bag. We conclude that the district made no clear error in determining that law enforcement properly followed procedures. See United States v. Tampas, 493 F.3d 1291, 1298 (11th Cir. 2007) (concluding that the trier of fact “is free to choose among alternative reasonable interpretations of the evidence”). Moreover, the search is no less valid simply because Rodriguez may have expected to find incriminating evidence in Witten’s car. See Bosby, 675 F.2d at 1179. Law 4 For the first time on appeal, Witten claims that the inventory search was invalid because a police officer drove his car to the station rather than having it towed according to Key West Police Department policy. We need not consider this argument because Witten failed to raise it either in his motion to suppress or in his objections to the Second R&R. See Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004) (Noting that issues “not raised in the district court and raised for the first time in an appeal will not be considered by this court.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 14 Case: 14-14692 Date Filed: 05/13/2016 Page: 15 of 16 enforcement collected the evidence in the car, including the contents of the duffel bag, pursuant to a lawful inventory search. Even if the inventory search were invalid, we conclude that the search of the duffel bag was constitutional because it was a search “conducted pursuant to a valid consent.” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 222 (1973). For a consensual search to be constitutional, an individual’s consent must be voluntary. United States v. Acosta, 363 F.3d 1141, 1151 (11th Cir. 2004). We determine by the totality of the circumstances whether a person gave voluntary consent. Blake, 888 F.2d at 798. Relevant factors bearing on voluntariness include, but are not exclusive to, the presence of coercion, the defendant’s awareness of the right to refuse to consent, and the level of the defendant’s cooperation with the police. Id. Based on the totality of the circumstances, we see no clear error in the district court’s finding that Witten consented to the search of his duffel bag. Pursuant to Witten’s plea agreement’s Stipulated Factual Proffer, Witten admitted that he spoke to the police and responded “okay” when asked if they could search his car and duffel bag. Factual Proffer, Doc. 99 at 2. He also admitted that he provided the key to the duffel bag upon being asked where the key was. These admissions are consistent with Rodriguez’s testimony at the suppression hearing about these same events. 15 Case: 14-14692 Date Filed: 05/13/2016 Page: 16 of 16 That Witten was in police custody at the time he consented to the search does not render the consent involuntary. We have held a defendant’s consent voluntary even where such consent was given after officers had already arrested and handcuffed the defendant. See United States v. Garcia, 890 F.2d 355, 362 (11th Cir. 1989). In Garcia we concluded that, although the defendant was “under some pressure to comply” with law enforcement’s request to search his property, given the totality of the circumstances, his consent was voluntary because the police did not employ any coercive methods to obtain the defendant’s consent beyond the degree of coercion already inherent in any arrest. Id. Similarly, the police used no coercive tactics against Witten to force him to comply with a request to search. In fact, Witten himself initiated the conversation with police that led to the request to search. The district court did not clearly err in finding that Witten’s consent to search was voluntarily given, and thus the search of his car and duffel bag was valid. The motion to suppress properly was denied. AFFIRMED. 16