Opinion ID: 1994085
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Government Witnesses

Text: U.S. Marshal Wayne Warren, assigned to the Capitol Area Regional Fugitive Task Force (Task Force), testified that he took part in executing an arrest warrant for Young at Young's home. The warrant was based upon Young's failure to appear for a court hearing in a separate CPWL case. When the warrant was executed, Marshal Warren also had information that Young was involved in a homicide, but Marshal Warren used the warrant from the CPWL case, obtained by Detective Stanley Farmer of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). Detective Farmer asked Marshal Warren to let him know if they found and arrested Young because he was interested in the possibility of getting a search warrant based on the homicide for which Young was being investigated. Marshal Warren and the other members of the Task Force who were executing the warrant arrived at Young's house, an end-unit town home, between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. When the officers approached the front door, they saw that the windows to the left of the front door were open. Through those windows, they saw a man lying down on his stomach on the living room floor with his hands underneath a pillow. An officer knocked on the front door, and the man began to move around. The officers announced that they were the police, commanding the man not to move and to let them see his hands. One of Young's siblings opened the door from the inside, and Marshal Warren and two others approached the man, appellant Marcus Young, and [g]ot him up off the floor, cuffed, and off to the side. The rest of the entry team went past [them] and began to do ... a protective sweep through the rest of the residence to make sure nobody else was there. The man was cooperative and told them his name was Marcus Young. This information, combined with Marshal Warren's recognition of Young based on photographs and physical descriptions, allowed Marshal Warren to confirm his identity. Meanwhile, one of the officers who conducted the protective sweep called Marshal Warren downstairs into a basement bedroom where the officer had lifted the mattress from the box spring. There was a plastic bag with what appeared to be bullets inside it on top of the box spring. Marshal Warren told the officers to leave them there and that he was going to call Detective Farmer. He then went back upstairs. However, Marshal Warren testified, because [w]e got the defendant in custody so fast I wasn't feeling easy about something because [Young] was lying on the floor on a pillow. He asked whether someone had searched that immediate area where they had taken [Young] into custody, because [they] usually put people on couches and so forth.... [N]obody said they had. So [Marshall Warren] said, well, we need to ... move the pillows and the linens out of the way so [we] make sure there is nothing there [that would endanger] our safety before we sit him on the couch. At this point, [o]ne of the deputies had pushed away the pillow and in the process of pushing away the pillow where [Young's] head was, there was a ... dark-colored .45 [automatic handgun]. Marshal Warren also testified that members of the Task Force typically look between box springs and mattresses because that space is one of the areas in which they commonly locate fugitives or other people and yet it was hard to discern whether someone was there without lifting both the mattresses and box springs. An example, he explained, was one case where we had somebody that was hiding underneath a mattress, in between the mattress and the box spring, and we had a small child sitting on that bed that we were interviewing, and the fugitive was underneath the mattress. When challenged on cross-examination as to why it was necessary to lift the mattress, Marshal Warren rejected Young's counsel's assertion that they could have easily found out if anybody was hiding under the mattress by pushing down on the mattress, explaining that you have got to understand that this is all happening simultaneously. When we're dealing with who we think was the defendant, they are doing their sweep of the house to make sure nobody else is inside, hiding, not knowing if we actually have him in custody or not. Marshal Warren was unable to recall, however, whether the gun was discovered while Young was still in the house or was already in a police car.
Special Agent Thomas Barmonde for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified that he participated in executing the search warrant for Young's arrest. He testified that, although he did not make any notes or records of the incident he did remember [the arrest] because it was a, kind of a safety issue afterwards, realizing how close the firearm was to [Young] ... how easy access he had to it. So it did stick in [Agent Barmonde's] mind. It was his recollection that there was a possibility that the individual we were going to pick up was involved in a shooting. So we were being extra cautious because [a]ny time we go out [to execute a warrant] we [are] usually made aware of even if there is a chance that someone might carry firearms or [have] been involved in a shooting. Agent Barmonde testified that protective sweeps are used because [a]ny time you are in a location you want to be sure that ... everyone there is safe. So you will make sure that there [are] no other individuals around, anyone hiding, or any other threat to anybody's immediate safety. Agent Barmonde stated that while conducting protective sweeps, I have seen people in closets, I have found people in kitchen cabinets, I have found people underneath mattresses, I have seen people in drop ceilings, in attics, in storage lockers, in suitcases. When asked to clarify what he meant by underneath mattresses, he stated, I have seen people literally underneath beds; I have seen people underneath mattresses laying between box springs and mattresses before. When asked on cross-examination whether when someone is hiding between mattress and box spring, there is going to be some indication in the way the mattress is leaning or some hump on the mattress, or some gap between box spring and mattress, Agent Barmonde replied that [m]ost times there would, but I have seen times where you ... could stand there and look at it and have no idea. When asked if in such cases one could just go over and just press on the mattress and feel somebody underneath that mattress, he stated that he had personally been in a situation where there was an individual between a mattress and a box spring and it was such an old box spring, and it had so much [of] ... the insides not there and springs missing, that I don't think you would have been able to feel someone if you would have put your hand on the mattress. Or if you would have just stood back and looked. I don't think you would have known that the individual was there. Accordingly, he stated, [i]f I'm there and I go into a room, I'm going to lift up a mattress. Absolutely ... I wouldn't turn my back to that room and walk out before checking underneath a mattress and box spring. Agent Barmonde could not recall whether Young had been taken out to a police car before the pillow was moved and the gun was found, but he didn't believe so because from what [he could] remember, he was still in that general area ... because it was [a] pretty short, short time after it was deemed that there was no one else in the house, that [the gun] was discovered.
Detective Stanley Farmer testified that he told Marshal Warren to contact him if the Task Force apprehended Young because Farmer planned to arrest Young for a murder he was investigating. Upon learning that Young had been apprehended, Farmer went to the home where Young had been arrested and relayed a physical description of the home back to the detectives in the office so they [could] type up [a] search warrant for Young's home in connection with the homicide case. The search warrant was to be used to recover the handgun that was used in the homicide, a 9 mm handgun. Farmer requested the search warrant prior to learning of either the gun or the ammunition found in the home by the Task Force. When Farmer arrived, he saw Young's mother, two brothers, and girlfriend and other agents in the home, one of whom asked whether anyone had looked under the pillow on the living room floor. When the answer was negative, one of the agents picked the pillow up and observed a.45 caliber handgun underneath the pillow. Farmer estimated that it took about 15 minutes for him to get to the house after being notified that Young had been apprehended, but he did not know how much time had elapsed between Young's apprehension and his notification of that fact. Similarly, Farmer could not remember how much time had elapsed between his arrival and the inquiries regarding the pillow, nor could he recall whether Young was still in the living room at the time the pillow was lifted. The search warrant Farmer had requested was granted, and the entire house was searched. Farmer did not pick up the gun found under the pillow. Rather, both the gun and the [a]ssorted ammunition discovered in the home's basement were photographed and recovered by the Crime Scene Search unit. The ammunition found was a combination of 9 mm and .45 caliber bullets, but no 9 mm handgun was recovered that day.