Opinion ID: 1452969
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Plain View Doctrine

Text: Unless an exception applies, a warrant is generally required to permit law enforcement officers to search a place or seize an item. United States v. McLevain, 310 F.3d 434, 438 (6th Cir.2002). The warrant in this case did not authorize the search for or seizure of documents or drug paraphernalia, and the officers therefore cannot rely on the warrant to authorize their seizure of the documents. The district court meticulously reviewed each of the proffered documents, finding that most of them were lawfully seized pursuant to the plain view exception to the warrant requirement, but rejecting some that were not. Garcia argues that the district court erred because none of the documents seized from his residence were encompassed by the plain view doctrine. We commend the district court's painstaking and conscientious attempt to resolve this issue, but we agree with Garcia that the documents seized from his residence did not come within the plain view doctrine, and the district court erred in admitting them. The law recognizes the plain view doctrine as an exception to the warrant requirement. See Horton, 496 U.S. at 134, 110 S.Ct. 2301. It is well established that under certain circumstances the police may seize evidence in plain view without a warrant. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 465, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971). Four factors must be satisfied in order for the plain view doctrine to apply: (1) the object must be in plain view; (2) the officer must be legally present in the place from which the object can be plainly seen; (3) the object's incriminating nature must be immediately apparent; and (4) the officer must have a right of access to the object. Horton, 496 U.S. at 136-37, 110 S.Ct. 2301; McLevain, 310 F.3d at 438-39. Garcia contends that the second and third factors were not satisfied when the officers seized the documents from his residence. We will address each of these factors in turn.
Officer Fowler of the San Antonio Police Department obtained a state warrant to search Garcia's residence. Pursuant to Officer Fowler's invitation, three members of the DEA task force accompanied the San Antonio officers in executing the search. Garcia argues that the federal agents improperly tagged along with the local officers in executing the state search warrant, and thus their presence at the search was unlawful. Garcia specifically contends that this case is controlled by our decision in United States v. Sanchez, 509 F.2d 886, 889-90 (6th Cir.1975). We read Sanchez differently and find it inapplicable to the facts before us. In Sanchez, a local police officer with a warrant to search for narcotics learned that there were explosives at the residence. The local officer contacted an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agent to assist in the search, but the ATF agent did not obtain a separate warrant to search for explosives. The court held that the ATF agent was not legally present at the scene of the search, reasoning that the narcotics warrant could not be used to validate the entrance of a federal officer having both probable cause and the opportunity to obtain a separate warrant to search for different items of property. Id. at 889. This holding suggests that a federal agent may not assist in the execution of a state search warrant where: (1) the federal officer had probable cause to obtain a separate warrant; (2) the federal officer had an opportunity but failed to obtain a separate warrant; and (3) the federal officer was searching for items different from those authorized by the state search warrant. Subsequent Sixth Circuit tag-along cases confirm our reading of Sanchez. Some of these cases emphasize the first two conditions  that a federal officer must have probable cause and an opportunity to obtain a separate search warrant. In United States v. Hare, 589 F.2d 1291, 1297 (6th Cir.1979), while further construing the Sanchez decision, we noted that [t]he existence of probable cause before the search transformed the legitimate participation of trained officers . . . into an inexcusable attempt to evade the warrant requirement. Id. (emphasis added). Later, in United States v. Bonds, 12 F.3d 540, 571 (6th Cir.1993), we cited Sanchez for the proposition that a federal agent may `tag along' on a state search without tainting evidence of federal crimes uncovered in the process if he has no probable cause to search which would allow him to obtain a separate federal warrant. Id. (emphasis added); see also McLevain, 310 F.3d at 440. Other cases confirm the third condition  that the federal officers must be searching for items different from those authorized by the state search warrant. For instance in United States v. Ford, 184 F.3d 566, 578-79 (6th Cir.1999), we acknowledged that  Sanchez does not prohibit federal officers from being present during execution of a state warrant, . . . but only prevents officers from using a warrant describing one kind of evidence as a pretext for searching for evidence outside the warrant. Id. (emphasis added). Similarly, the Sanchez decision itself emphasized the third condition by distinguishing the Eighth Circuit's decision in United States v. Carwell, 491 F.2d 1334 (8th Cir.1974), on the basis that  Carwell did not involve a simultaneous search for different articles by local and federal authorities. Sanchez, 509 F.2d at 890 (emphasis added). In light of our circuit's precedent, we conclude that evidence of a federal crime seized by a federal officer assisting in a search pursuant to a state warrant will be tainted only if all three Sanchez conditions are present. The DEA agents' assistance during the search of Garcia's residence was not unlawful because the third Sanchez condition was not present: the DEA agents were searching for drugs, the same evidence authorized in the state search warrant. Garcia contends that the third condition is satisfied because the federal agents not only sought narcotics but also hoped to discover documents to assist in the federal prosecution. This argument is insufficient to bring this case within the purview of Sanchez. Even if the DEA agents were interested in finding documents, they were ultimately searching for drugs in order to bring federal drug-trafficking charges against Garcia. This circumstance, in which DEA agents joined state officers to search for drugs and drug-related evidence pursuant to a state warrant to search for drugs, contrasts starkly with the Sanchez case, in which an ATF agent explicitly looking for explosives assisted state officers in executing a warrant to search for narcotics. Because the DEA agents sought drugs and drug-related documents pursuant to a state search warrant for cocaine, we find that the federal agents were legally present during the search of Garcia's residence.
The seizure of an item in plain view is legitimate only where it is immediately apparent to the police that they have evidence before them. Horton, 496 U.S. at 136, 110 S.Ct. 2301 (quoting Coolidge, 403 U.S. at 466, 91 S.Ct. 2022). Even though the officers in this case were authorized to search only for cocaine, they took over a hundred documents from Garcia's house, claiming that the plain view doctrine permitted their seizure. At trial Officer Fowler testified that it was necessary to look through Garcia's papers and envelopes to ensure that they did not contain small packets of cocaine, but he acknowledged that it was unnecessary to read the documents in executing the search for cocaine. Agent Belton, however, expressly testified that he read and reviewed every document that he thought might contribute to his federal investigation of Garcia. The precise issue we must address here is whether a document, even though in plain view, is within the plain view exception if it must be read in order for its incriminating nature to be determined. We hold that it is not. The immediately apparent requirement is a vital constraint on the plain view doctrine exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. The Fourth Amendment requires that warrants must particularly describ[e] . . . [the] things to be seized. U.S. CONST. AMEND. IV. Requiring particular descriptions in search warrants prevents police officers from engaging in general exploratory searches  an evil experienced and abhorred by our nation's founders. Coolidge, 403 U.S. at 467, 91 S.Ct. 2022. Because the plain view doctrine supplants the need for a particularized warrant, the immediately apparent requirement is necessary to prevent officers from using the plain view doctrine as a means to extend a particularized search authorized by Fourth Amendment principles into an unlawful exploratory search. See Horton, 496 U.S. at 136-37, 110 S.Ct. 2301; Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 334, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987) (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (The purpose of the immediately apparent requirement is to prevent general, exploratory rummaging in a person's belongings.) (internal quotations omitted). An overbroad reading of the immediately apparent requirement subverts and jeopardizes fundamental Fourth Amendment principles. In McLevain, 310 F.3d at 441, we said that in determining whether an object's incriminating nature is immediately apparent, we look to three factors, none of which is necessary but each of which is instructive: (1) a nexus between the seized object and the items particularized in the search warrant; (2) whether the `intrinsic nature' or appearance of the seized object gives probable cause to believe that it is associated with criminal activity; and (3) whether the executing officers can at the time of discovery of the object on the facts then available to them determine probable cause of the object's incriminating nature. Id. (quoting United States v. Beal, 810 F.2d 574, 576-77 (6th Cir.1987)). In addition to these three factors, we have specifically held that an object's incriminating nature is not immediately apparent if it appears suspicious to an officer but further investigation is required to establish probable cause as to its association with criminal activity[.] Shamaeizadeh v. Cunigan, 338 F.3d 535, 555 (6th Cir.2003) (quoting McLevain, 310 F.3d at 443). Moreover, the officer must recognize the incriminating nature of an object as a result of his immediate or instantaneous sensory perception. See United States v. McLernon, 746 F.2d 1098, 1125 (6th Cir.1984) (requiring that the officer's `immediate' sensory perception . . . must produce probable cause of crime); Beal, 810 F.2d at 577 (stating that to be immediate, probable cause must be the direct result of the officer's instantaneous sensory perception of the object) (internal quotation omitted). We conclude that the criminal nature of most of the documents seized by Officer Fowler and Agent Belton was not immediately apparent. Neither the intrinsic nature nor the appearance of most of the documents gave the officers probable cause to believe that they were associated with criminal activity. Further, the officers did not, as a result of their instantaneous sensory perception, recognize the incriminating nature of most of those documents. Receipts, financial records, and invoices, in and of themselves, are lawful and innocuous items, and the testimony of Officer Fowler and Agent Belton made it clear that in order to establish an association between these documents and any criminal activity, they had to undertake further investigation. Agent Belton expressly admitted that he read and reviewed every document that he thought might assist in Garcia's prosecution. These documents therefore did not come within the scope of the plain view exception to the warrant requirement. We also conclude that the district court should have suppressed the map of San Antonio seized from Garcia's house. This map displayed a notorious drug area of the city circled in red, but to determine the significance of the circled area, the officers would have been required to inspect the map and read the various street names. The officers thus required far more than an instant to connect the map to Garcia's involvement in criminal activity. See Shamaeizadeh, 338 F.3d at 555 (finding that the plain view doctrine is not satisfied where the officers would have required far more than an instant to conclude that any of the documents implicated criminal activity). Like the financial documents, the map was innocuous without close inspection, and its criminal nature was therefore not immediately apparent. We hold that the financial records, invoices, receipts, and map seized from Garcia's residence did not come within the plain view exception, and the district court erred in admitting them into evidence. We find the immediately apparent question to be much closer when examining the notebook paper seized from the footlocker in Garcia's garage. The notebook paper displayed scribbled mathematical calculations and was located in the bottom of a footlocker that smelled strongly of marijuana and contained marijuana residue. The officers did not exceed the scope of the warrant by opening the footlocker because it was a place in which cocaine easily could have been stored. A searching officer  by merely glancing at, without reading, these papers  could have instantaneously discerned their incriminating nature because they contained only a few obvious, scribbled calculations arranged in ledger format and were found in a footlocker reeking of marijuana. In the present case, however, the district court found that Officer Fowler examined these papers prior to learning of their criminal connection. Because the officer in this case admitted that he closely examined  and presumably read  these papers in order to determine their incriminating nature, we find that the district court erred in admitting this evidence. Overall, this case is analogous to  and thus our decision is supported by  the Supreme Court's decision in Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987). The officer in Hicks was searching for a suspect in an apartment when he discovered obviously expensive stereo equipment which seemed out of place in the poorly furnished apartment. Prior to moving the stereo equipment to expose its serial numbers, the officer had only a reasonable suspicion that the equipment was stolen, and therefore evidence of a crime. Id. at 326, 107 S.Ct. 1149. The Court found that reasonable suspicion was insufficient to invoke the plain view doctrine, see id., and also concluded that the officer's moving of the equipment constituted a further search unsupported by a warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement. Id. at 324-35. Accordingly, the Court ruled that the search for the serial numbers and the seizure of the stereo equipment was unreasonable and in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 326, 107 S.Ct. 1149. Similarly, the officers in the instant case, upon initial inspection of most of the documents, lacked probable cause to connect them to Garcia's criminal activity. It was not until the officers picked up and closely reviewed the documents that they learned of their value in Garcia's prosecution. This close inspection of the documents constituted a further search unsupported by probable cause and thus violated the Fourth Amendment. [4] Garcia also objects to the admission of non-document evidence  including marijuana residue, zigzag papers, scales, and green plastic shrink wrap  seized from the footlocker in his garage. We readily conclude that the incriminating nature of these items  all intrinsically related to drug-trafficking activity, and all found in the bottom of the footlocker that discernibly had been used in connection with marijuana  was immediately evident to the searching officers. The district court thus did not err in admitting these items. Even though we have concluded that the district court erred in admitting the financial records, invoices, receipts, map, and notebook paper seized from Garcia's residence, we find that this error was harmless. See Chapman, 386 U.S. at 22, 87 S.Ct. 824; FED. R. CRIM. P. 52(a). A federal constitutional error is harmless only where the reviewing court finds that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24, 87 S.Ct. 824. Garcia contends that he was prejudiced by the admission of two invoices displaying the name of co-conspirator Irwin because these invoices were the only evidence connecting him to Irwin. Garcia's argument wholly mischaracterizes the evidence at trial; in fact the properly admitted exhibits and trial transcript provide a wealth of evidence connecting Garcia and Irwin for purposes of this conspiracy. First, and most importantly, it is undisputed that both Garcia and Irwin were in the Suburban at the time it was stopped by the police; that Ovalle and Canales were also in the Suburban at that point; that Irwin, Ovalle, and Canales were all by that time staying at the Super 8 Motel at Birch Run, where the tractor-trailer filled with marijuana was parked; and that Garcia and Irwin were both arrested shortly after the police stopped the Suburban. These facts establish an incontrovertible connection between these two men for purposes of the conspiracy and completely undermine Garcia's assertion of prejudice. Second, Irwin himself testified that Garcia sought his participation in the conspiracy by propositioning him to transport and unload trailers of marijuana. Irwin also testified that on numerous occasions Garcia told him to transport money and narcotics, recounting at least one occasion where Garcia instructed him to transport over 200 pounds of marijuana and a briefcase containing nearly $500,000. Third, another co-conspirator, Rickey Nombrano, testified that Garcia and Irwin were jointly associated with a trucking company known as Cheetah Transportation. Nombrano also testified that Garcia first introduced him to Irwin, and he recounted an incident where he witnessed Garcia and Irwin counting money together. In light of this abundant evidence and more connecting Irwin and Garcia, we find that the district court's error in admitting Irwin's two invoices was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Garcia also believes that he was prejudiced by the admission of the financial documents and receipts seized from his house because those documents showed that he lived beyond the bounds of his reported income and suggested that he had a supplemental income from drug trafficking. While proof of Garcia's large expenditures raises an inference that he was involved in drug trafficking, it is undoubtedly a small and inconsequential piece of the evidence against him. The remaining evidence showed, among other things, that (1) Garcia was intimately involved in the Chapa drug cartel which transported large quantities of narcotics from Mexico to the United States; (2) Garcia traveled to Michigan in December 1992 with two bundles of $5,000 packaged in green shrink wrap; (3) Garcia had a longstanding drug-trafficking relationship with Irwin  the man who admittedly drove the tractor-trailer with over 1,000 pounds of marijuana to Michigan; and (4) Garcia was stopped and later arrested while traveling in the Suburban with Irwin, who had recently arrived with the tractor-trailer full of marijuana. In light of the abundant evidence on these issues, we conclude that the erroneous admission of the financial records seized from Garcia's residence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v. Baro, 15 F.3d 563, 568 (6th Cir.1994) (finding that the district court's admission of tainted evidence was harmless error because there was extensive testimony at trial supporting [the defendant's] guilt on the counts of conviction).