Opinion ID: 2745054
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether the Information Was Material

Text: Mr. Biles argues that information about the warrantless search of his belongings was material for Brady purposes because had he known about it, he could have filed a timely suppression motion that would have been granted, thus depriving the government of the most important evidence in its case—the DVDs and the identification cards linking Mr. Biles to the DVDs. He argues that because this scenario would have resulted in an acquittal or dismissal, he has demonstrated a reasonable probability—in fact, much more than a reasonable probability—that ―had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different.‖ Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682. Based on our review of the record and the relevant case law, we agree. ―‗[S]earches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment— subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.‘‖ Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 338 (2009) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967)). In defending the legality of the warrantless search in this case, the government does not rely on the trial court‘s ―standing‖ ruling—which it government has not briefed it and where the facts make clear that the doctrine would not squarely apply. 22 appears to agree was erroneous11—or the search-incident-to-arrest warrant exception, which it agrees does not apply. 12 Rather, the government relies solely on an abandonment argument. In its view, ―Officer Davis did not invade any reasonable expectation of privacy on appellant‘s part when she first moved the backpack to see the DVDs, and then looked inside that backpack‖ because Mr. Biles ―abandoned the DVD stash and his backpack by leaving them in a public area‖ and by telling Officer Davis that he ―was not selling DVDs.‖ Because he had no reasonable expectation of privacy, the government argues, there was no ―search‖ implicating the Fourth Amendment, the discovered items would not have been suppressed, and there was no reasonable probability of a different outcome. We do not agree that Mr. Biles‘s statement to Officer Davis that he ―was not 11 The government agreed at argument that a defendant‘s failure to assert ownership of property, while potentially relevant to whether he has abandoned the property and thus retains no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to it, does not defeat his ―standing‖ to assert a Fourth Amendment claim. See, e.g., Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 138-39 (1978) (choosing to ―dispens[e] with the rubric of standing‖ for Fourth Amendment purposes and instead to focus solely on the question whether the movant‘s personal Fourth Amendment rights were violated, thus allowing any standing issues to be ―subsumed‖ within ―substantive Fourth Amendment doctrine‖). 12 At oral argument the government disclaimed any reliance on the searchincident-to-arrest exception. This is consistent with the trial court‘s comment on April 11 that ―but for that phone call‖ from the informant the police ―wouldn‘t have gone to the box‖ and the trial court‘s suggestion that the government had inaccurately implied ―that [the police] just found it incident to the arrest, like it was right there by him.‖ Indeed, although it is not an issue in this appeal, the record indicates no legal justification for Mr. Biles‘s warrantless arrest. 23 selling DVDs‖ indicates that Mr. Biles relinquished an expectation of privacy in the contents of the backpack—which Mr. Biles never mentioned in the statement— or in the box of DVDs beneath the backpack. At the time of the statement, the police had not seen or been alerted to the existence or location of the backpack or box of DVDs, which were sitting eight to ten feet away. The trial court‘s findings also indicate that the items were not discarded or exposed to public view. In explaining its judgment that Mr. Biles was guilty of attempted deceptive labeling, the trial court found that the backpack was ―covering up the top of the DVDs, protecting it from sight‖ and that by keeping ―his knapsack on top of‖ the DVDs, Mr. Biles ―in essence, was claiming dominion and control and keeping it in place and securing it for himself and covering it so others wouldn‘t see what was under there.‖ He knew they were ―safe and in [his] line of sight so [they could not] be taken by anybody else.‖ Thus, while the events took place in a ―public‖ market, Mr. Biles‘s expectation, manifest in his actions and in no way contradicted by his response to police inquiries, was that the items would remain private. See Katz, 389 U.S. at 351 (―What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.‖) (citations omitted); id. at 352 (noting that the appellant 24 acted to exclude the ―uninvited ear‖ by shutting the phone booth door); Brown v. United States, 627 A.2d 499, 503-04 (D.C. 1993) (considering whether appellant ―took reasonable precautions to maintain privacy‖ and concluding that by leaving the door open, he had not). This case thus differs from cases in which a movant seeks to discard an item or places it in public view. See, e.g., Allison v. United States, 623 A.2d 590, 591 (D.C. 1993) (concluding that the appellant abandoned his gun by discarding it while fleeing a police officer). Other than Mr. Biles‘s statement and the items‘ location, the government suggests no basis—and we see none—for finding that he relinquished his expectation of privacy. This expectation, moreover, was not defeated merely because Mr. Biles stood in a public market; rather, it remained ―one that society is prepared to recognize as ‗reasonable,‘‖ Katz, 389 U.S. at 361 (Harlan, J., concurring), particularly where Mr. Biles kept his belongings protected from view and ―in [his] line of sight.‖ Because Mr. Biles had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his belongings and because the warrantless search of those items did not fall within an exception to the Fourth Amendment‘s warrant requirement, the DVDs hidden under his backpack and the identification cards recovered from the backpack should have been suppressed. See United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 15 (1977) (prohibiting ―warrantless searches of luggage or other property seized at the time of an arrest‖ unless conducted incident to arrest or in exigent circumstances). 25 Without the DVDs, the government could not prove that the DVDs were counterfeit, and without the identification cards, the government would have had trouble linking Mr. Biles to the DVD stash. We accordingly find a reasonable probability that the government‘s failure to timely disclose the information affected the outcome of the trial by preventing Mr. Biles from litigating a winning motion to suppress the government‘s most damning evidence against him. The government‘s suppression of this information therefore ―undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial,‖ and requires reversal of Mr. Biles‘s first conviction. Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434.