Opinion ID: 2672134
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Suppress

Text: “We „review the district court‟s denial of [a] motion to suppress for clear error as to the underlying facts, but exercise plenary review as to its legality in light of the court‟s properly found facts.‟” United States v. Kennedy, 638 F.3d 159, 163 (3d Cir. 2011) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Silveus, 542 F.3d 993, 999 (3d Cir. 2008)). We will address each of the challenged pieces of evidence in turn. First, Singleton challenges the denial of his motion to suppress admission of a gun that belonged to Jablokov, was stolen during the robbery, and was recovered from a closet outside of Singleton‟s apartment. Insofar as he questions the District Court‟s factual findings as to how the gun was obtained, those findings were not clearly erroneous. As the District Court noted, the police first saw the gun when, while executing a valid warrant for Singleton‟s arrest on an unrelated bank robbery charge, they opened a padlocked hall closet outside his apartment to determine whether Singleton was hiding inside. Although only the building‟s landlord had a key to the closet, a gap beneath the door nonetheless allowed an object the size of the gun to be slid underneath. The police subsequently obtained a warrant and seized, among other things, the gun, later identified as belonging to the victim and stolen during the robbery. Whatever confusion 6 may have existed as to when the gun was seized was resolved through pre-trial testimony, and Singleton‟s assertions that the gun was planted are baseless. Nor did the District Court err in its legal conclusions based on those factual findings. “The touchstone of Fourth Amendment analysis is whether a person has a constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy.” California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 211 (1986) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Because we have previously concluded that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the common area of an apartment building such as a hallway or staircase, it is unnecessary to repeat that analysis here: Singleton had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the closet. See United States v. Acosta, 965 F.2d 1248, 1252-53 (3d Cir. 1992). In short, despite Singleton‟s assertions, the District Court did not err in denying the motion to suppress the gun. Second, Singleton argues that his cell phone records and any fruits thereof should have been suppressed on the ground that the records were illegally obtained. Despite his assertions to the contrary, the investigating officers did in fact obtain a warrant for the records. On appeal, Singleton provides no argument that this warrant was invalid. He claims instead that procuring these records violated 18 U.S.C. § 2703, which governs the circumstances under which communications and remote computing companies can be required to disclose the contents of customer communications. As the Government correctly notes, suppression is not a remedy for such a violation even if one were found. See 18 U.S.C. § 2708 (“The remedies and sanctions described in this chapter are the only judicial remedies and sanctions for nonconstitutional violations of this chapter.”). In the 7 alternative, he suggests that the records were obtained in violation of Pennsylvania law. Even assuming (without deciding) Pennsylvania law was violated, “evidence obtained in accordance with federal law is admissible in federal court—even though it was obtained by state officers in violation of state law.” United States v. Rickus, 737 F.2d 360, 363-64 (3d Cir. 1984) (citing United States v. Shaffer, 520 F.2d 1369, 1372 (3d Cir. 1975)).3 Without any basis for questioning the validity of the warrant, there is no reason to conclude the District Court erred in not suppressing the cell phone records or evidence obtained as a result of the cell phone records. Third, Singleton claims that the District Court should have suppressed Jablokov‟s identification based on the second photo array and her in-court identification of him. “An identification procedure that is both (1) unnecessarily suggestive and (2) creates a substantial risk of misidentification violates due process.” United States v. Brownlee, 454 F.3d 131, 137 (3d Cir. 2006) (citing Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 107-08 (1977)). However, “[a] „suggestive and unnecessary identification procedure does not violate due process so long as the identification possesses sufficient aspects of reliability,‟ for reliability is the „linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony.‟” United States v. Emanuele, 51 F.3d 1123, 1128 (3d Cir. 1995) (quoting Manson, 432 U.S. at 106, 114). For the reasons stated by the District Court, the photo array identification was not unconstitutionally suggestive and, under the totality of the 3 Because the records were obtained pursuant to a warrant not challenged here, it is unnecessary to reach the question of whether Singleton had a legitimate expectation of privacy in cell phone records held in his Islamic name. 8 circumstances, both identifications were reliable. Refusing to suppress these identifications was therefore not in error. Fourth, Singleton asserts that the police unconstitutionally accessed his public welfare records from the Department of Public Welfare (DPW) to obtain his address without a court order. Because of this purported illegality, he argues that all evidence recovered in the subsequent search of his home must be suppressed. As the District Court correctly concluded, there is no recognized privilege for DPW records in our Court. Hence, the District Court did not err in not suppressing evidence obtained as a result of DPW‟s disclosure.