Opinion ID: 7097
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: manuel rico

Text: 19 Manuel claims that the district court erred in (1) denying a motion to suppress statements he allegedly made to agents, and (2) allowing the government to introduce physical evidence obtained during the search of his home, the Clear Cove residence, which was conducted after the agents had entered the residence, conducted a protective sweep, and obtained Manuel's purportedly coerced consent to search the premises further. 3 20
21 Manuel was arrested in his home on various narcotics-related charges. Over his objection, two arresting agents testified at trial about statements Manuel purportedly made after his arrest. Manual had moved to suppress evidence of those statements, claiming that (1) they were the fruit of a warrantless entry and arrest inside his residence, and (2) any statements that he may have made were coerced, regardless of whether the entry and his arrest were lawful. We review a district court's denial of a motion to suppress by viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the prevailing party (here, the government), accepting the district court's factual findings unless clearly erroneous, and considering all questions of law de novo. 4 22
23 Manuel argues that evidence of statements he purportedly made to FBI agents after they had entered the Clear Cove residence to conduct a protective sweep should have been suppressed as fruit from the poisonous tree, because, according to Manuel, the statements were obtained as a direct result of that allegedly unconstitutional entry. He does not argue that the FBI agents lacked probable cause to enter his Clear Cove residence; rather, he complains that his Fourth Amendment guarantee to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures was violated because the agents did not have a warrant to enter his home. 5 The government relies on the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement to justify its entry into the Clear Cove residence. 24
25 Although presumptively un reasonable, a warrantless entry will survive constitutional scrutiny if, inter alia, exigent circumstances exist to justify the intrusion. 6 The burden is on the government to prove the existence of the exigency. 7 26 Exigent circumstances include those in which officers reasonably fear for their safety, where firearms are present, or where there is a risk of a criminal suspect's escaping or fear of destruction of evidence. 8 In evaluating whether exigent circumstances existed, we have found relevant the following factors: 27 (1) the degree of urgency involved and amount of time necessary to obtain a warrant; 28 (2) [the] reasonable belief that contraband is about to be removed; 29 (3) the possibility of danger to the police officers guarding the site of contraband while a search warrant is sought; 30 (4) information indicating the possessors of the contraband are aware that the police are on their trail; and 31 (5) the ready destructibility of the contraband and the knowledge that efforts to dispose of narcotics and to escape are characteristic behavior of persons engaged in the narcotics traffic. 9 32 There can be little doubt that exigent circumstances existed once the agents abandoned their covert surveillance of the Clear Cove residence and arrested Cuero in the van that was parked in front of that residence. As the district court aptly noted, if you are standing around in the front yard arresting people in the driveway, you need to make sure that there is not assistance to him by people in other parts of the premises. 10 That observation is particularly cogent here, for the agents had a reasonable belief, based on reliable information, that the suspects inside the house might be armed and dangerous. 33 But our scrutiny does not begin with the predicament the agents faced at the instant that they chose to abandon their covert surveillance, approach the Clear Cove residence, and seize Cuero. 11 Rather, we must begin with a consideration of remote events, more akin to examining a video tape by instant replay than to examining a snapshot. We thus review the entirety of the agents' investigative tactics, particularly those leading up to the exigency alleged to have necessitated the protective sweep. 12 In the instant case, it was the agents' actions leading to, and including, their decision to discontinue covert surveillance and make the open and obvious arrest of Cuero in front of the Clear Cove residence that made the immediate warrantless entry of that house a foregone conclusion. 13 At that point there was no stopping.ii. Manufactured Exigency 34 Just as exigent circumstances are an exception to the warrant requirement, a police-manufactured exigency is an exception to an exception. Manuel contends that the agents, by deciding to abandon covert surveillance when they did, created or manufactured an exigency that otherwise would not have existed, and that therefore the government may not now rely on that emergency to justify the warrantless entry into the Clear Cove residence. Exigent circumstances ... do not pass Fourth Amendment muster if the officers deliberately create them. 14 We distinguish between cases where exigent circumstances arise naturally during a delay in obtaining a warrant and those where officers have deliberately created the exigent circumstances. 15 35 Exigencies can be manufactured guilelessly or ulteriorly. Although [t]here is no question that the deliberate creation of urgent circumstances is unacceptable[,] ... bad faith is not required to run afoul [of the Fourth Amendment]. 16 As the Eighth Circuit has reminded us, the danger to constitutional rights more often comes from 'zealous officers' rather than faithless ones. 17 In determining whether the exigent circumstances were manufactured by the agents, we therefore must consider not only the motivation of the police in creating the exigency but also the reasonableness and propriety of the investigative tactics that generated the exigency. 18 As there is no evidence here that the FBI agents acted in bad faith or that they specifically intended to create an exigency in avoidance of the warrant requirement, we need only review the reasonableness of the agents' investigative tactics--in particular, those actions that led up to the decision to discontinue covert surveillance, approach the Clear Cove residence, and seize Cuero. 36 Our first concern in analyzing a claim of a manufactured exigency is whether agents could have obtained a search warrant prior to the development of the exigent circumstances upon which they relied. 19 It is, of course, axiomatic that agents are not required to obtain a search warrant as soon as it is practicable to do so. 20 Here the agents clearly lacked sufficient time between the point at which the circumstances that the agents claim motivated them to enter that residence developed and the point at which probable cause to enter the Clear Cove residence developed. Agent Bingham was dispatched to watch the Clear Cove residence almost immediately after agents had discovered significant additional information linking narcotics found at the Ivy Oaks residence to persons residing at Clear Cove. Shortly after he arrived at Clear Cove, Bingham observed activities both inside and outside the house that, according his testimony, led him to believe that a felony suspect (possibly all suspects) was preparing to leave in a vehicle containing contraband. We are satisfied that the short span of time between the agents' discovery of evidence linking the two residences and Bingham's observations was not sufficient to seek and obtain a warrant. 37 Finding that there was insufficient time in which to obtain a warrant prior to the occurrence of the events that gave rise to the exigency, we next consider whether the agents themselves nevertheless created the urgent situation by the use of unreasonable law enforcement tactics. Clearly, the agents acted appropriately in dispatching Agent Bingham to watch the Clear Cove residence once the search of the Ivy Oaks stash house revealed tangible evidence linking the two residences. Agent Bingham testified unequivocally that he thought that Cuero, a suspected felon, was preparing to leave in a van loaded with narcotics: [I]t looked like these folks were getting ready to leave, and this vehicle [the van] was a load vehicle containing cocaine like the other vehicles we were already familiar with. That belief was clearly justified, just as were his actions, when, at that point, he radioed for backup. Responding to that appropriate call, three other agents arrived within minutes and, with Agent Bingham, decided to approach the house and to arrest or detain Cuero and the others before they were able to drive away in vehicles suspected of containing contraband. It was certainly reasonable for the agents to arrest or detain unidentified felony suspects before they escaped or removed contraband. 38 Thus if we conclude that Agent Bingham's beliefs were reasonable, based on his experience, knowledge, and observations at the time, then circumstances existed that justified or even required immediate action. On the other hand, if we conclude that Agent Bingham was unreasonable in believing, based on those same circumstances, that the suspects were preparing to depart with contraband, then there would have been essentially no reasonable justification or need for the agents to approach the Clear Cove residence and confront the suspects, which was the tactical decision that made the subsequent protective sweep a foregone conclusion. And our precedent makes clear that the government cannot rely on exigent circumstances to excuse a warrantless entry to conduct a protective sweep if the circumstances and thus the sweep were made necessary by the law enforcement officers' decision to abandon a covert surveillance and confront the suspects without any justification whatsoever. 21 That is a classic example of a police-manufactured exigency. 39 But the very question of the reasonableness of Agent Bingham's beliefs is what makes this case a close one. Unfortunately, in the suppression hearing neither the district court nor the parties focused on the information and observations upon which Bingham relied in concluding that the suspects were preparing to leave. In fact, the district court adduced no evidence at all during the suppression hearing, electing instead to consider proffers from each attorney as to what their witnesses would testify. Consequently, the facts pertinent to our review of the reasonableness of Bingham's conclusion are not as well developed as they should be to facilitate appellate review--making this already close case even more difficult to call. 40 In reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to suppress evidence, however, we may consider not only the evidence from the suppression hearing but also evidence presented during the trial. 22 Our ability to do so helps us to some extent in this instance. At trial, Agent Bingham recounted several concrete details to substantiate the reasonableness of his belief that Cuero and the others were preparing to leave. He testified that he watched Cuero come out of the house, walk to the driver's side of the van, reach down around the floorboard area, and then go around to the back of the vehicle and climb inside. He also stated that he saw some activity just in the door frame of the house, leading him to believe that others too were preparing to leave, but on that point he did not elaborate further. Still, when we consider those observations in light of the information that Bingham knew at that time as a result of the information from Philadelphia, the earlier surveillance, and the search of the Ivy Oaks residence, viewing all the facts in the light most favorable to the government as the prevailing party in the suppression hearing, we do not find unreasonable Agent Bingham's belief that Cuero, and possibly other suspects too, might have been preparing to leave. That leads us inexorably to the conclusion that the exigency was not created by illogical or unreasonable investigative tactics. 41 Our conclusion here, rejecting Manuel's argument that the FBI manufactured the exigency by arresting Cuero in front of the Clear Cove residence, is consistent with the result we reached in another recent case involving very similar facts. In United States v. Carillo-Morales, 23 we rejected an argument that officers created exigent circumstances by stopping a vehicle in front of a body shop, even though the police almost certainly knew that stopping the [car] at the body shop would reveal their [the police's] presence to the [suspects] remaining inside, necessitating a protective search. 24 In that case, two men suspected of involvement in a drug-trafficking conspiracy came out of a body shop and got into a nearby car. Based on information already obtained during the investigation, the police testified--as did Agent Bingham here--that they reasonably believed that the suspects were preparing to leave and that the vehicle in which they were departing contained contraband. We held that exigent circumstances justified the officer's decision to arrest the two suspects without a warrant in front of the body shop, even though the officers would then be left with no choice but to enter and secure that building to ensure their own safety. Had the officers not acted, we noted, they would have risked losing both the suspects and the contraband in the departing car. We rejected the argument that the police were required to follow the suspects in the car until they drove to a location out of sight of the body shop, so that when the arrests were made the suspicions of the suspects who remained inside that building would not be aroused, requiring the police to enter the body shop without a warrant to conduct a protective sweep. 25 Thus we found unavailing the argument that the officers manufactured their own exigency. 26 42 We find the teachings of Carillo-Morales instructive in resolving the instant case. We have already concluded that Agent Bingham was reasonable in concluding that Cuero, a suspected felon, was preparing to leave in the van and that the van was likely to contain contraband. Perhaps Agent Bingham could have pursued a different course; he might have waited until Cuero drove away from the house and then have him apprehended by the other agents well out of sight and earshot of the other suspects. But we will not second-guess law enforcement tactics as long as those tactics are neither unreasonable nor employed with specific intent to create an emergency simply to circumvent the warrant requirement. 43 That Agent Bingham could reasonably believe that a felony suspect was preparing to depart in a car possibly containing contraband makes this case distinguishable from cases such as Munoz-Guerra 27 and United States v. Richard. 28 In each of those cases, law enforcement officers were found to have created the exigency that then required a warrantless entry, as there was no justification for the officers to abandon covert surveillance and confront the suspects. 44 In Munoz-Guerra, Drug Enforcement Administration agents who were responding to an anonymous tip placed a residence under surveillance. One of the agents noticed some narcotics in plain view through a window, but instead of maintaining their surveillance and seeking a warrant, the agents knocked at a glass patio door. When a suspect appeared, the officers ordered him to open the door, but he responded that it was locked and he would have to get the key from another room. Fearing that the suspect might retrieve a weapon or destroy evidence, the agents kicked in the door and secured the premises. The government argued that exigent circumstances justified their warrantless entry, but we disagreed. We found that the police were not justified in knocking on the door and thereby forcing a confrontation, as their surveillance was undetected and the premises were effectively secured. We concluded that the officers had created the predicament by choosing to confront the suspects without any provoking acts by the suspects or other justification whatsoever. 29 45 Richard is likewise distinguishable from the instant case. There, federal customs agents received information that a person suspected of trafficking narcotics was staying in a particular hotel room. Without attempting to place the premises under surveillance while seeking a warrant, the agents proceeded to that room, knocked on the door, and identified themselves as law enforcement officers. The occupants responded, wait a minute. The agents testified that at that moment they heard people whispering and moving about, and doors or drawers being slammed. When finally the agents saw the doorknob turn, they kicked in the door, entered the room, and arrested the occupants. Although the district court agreed with the government that exigent circumstances existed, the court found that those circumstances had been created by the agents when they elected to knock on the door and identify themselves as police at a time when the suspects had not acted in a way to provoke such behavior by the police. We found no clear error in that ruling, noting that there was no reason for the agents to abandon covert surveillance of the room. 46 In one significant respect the instant case differs markedly from Munoz-Guerra and Richard: Here it was the unprovoked conduct of the suspects that led the agents reasonably to believe that the suspects intended to depart momentarily in a vehicle likely containing contraband. That activity, unprovoked by law enforcement officers, is what prompted the agents to abandon their covert surveillance and confront the suspects, clearly a reasonable tactic under the circumstances. 30 There were no comparable unprovoked acts of the suspects in either Munoz-Guerra or Richard to justify the actions by law enforcement officials; in both of those cases, elective acts of law enforcement agents prompted the activities of the suspects that in turn produced the exigencies. 47 It is certainly true that the FBI agents here might have foreseen that one or more suspects at the Clear Cove residence would leave in a vehicle believed to contain contraband. But the fact that the exigency may have been foreseeable does not, by itself, control the legality of a subsequent warrantless search triggered by that exigency. 31 The important point ... is that the exigency while perhaps not unexpected, had not been created by the government. 32 And, as discussed above, the exigency here was created by unprovoked actions of the suspects (not of the agents) when they behaved in a manner that could reasonably have led Agent Bingham to conclude that their departure from the premises was imminent. 48
49 Manuel nevertheless contends that even if exigent circumstances did justify the agent's warrantless entry into the Clear Cove residence, the district court still erred in permitting Agents Vasquez and Bingham to testify about statements Manual purportedly made to them after he was arrested. 33 This is so, he insists, because whatever he might have said was coerced and thus involuntary. Manuel correctly notes that the government has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that a defendant voluntarily waived his constitutional rights against self incrimination and that the statements he made were voluntary. 34 The standard for determining whether a confession or statement was voluntarily made is whether, taking into consideration the totality of the circumstances, the accused spoke as a result of his free and rational choice, with an awareness of his abandonment of the right to remain silent and of the consequences of that decision. 35 50 After Manuel was handcuffed, he was read his Miranda rights in Spanish; he signed an advice-of-rights card in which he acknowledged waiving those rights; and he then accompanied the agents to an upstairs bedroom where the two agents questioned him. The record is devoid of evidence that the agents physically threatened Manuel or made any promises to obtain his cooperation. True, Manuel claims that the agents accused him of being a Columbian drug dealer and stated that he and Debra would be sent to prison for the rest of their lives because of their crimes; but such allegations, even if proved true, would be insufficient, standing alone, to establish that his subsequent cooperation was involuntary. 51
52 After the agents had entered and secured the Clear Cove residence by conducting a protective sweep, they asked Manuel whether they could search the premises. Manuel gave the FBI agents his permission, so they searched the Clear Cove residence and the surrounding area and recovered additional evidence that linked that residence to the Ivy Oaks stash house. Although at neither the suppression hearing nor at trial did Manuel object to the introduction of evidence obtained during that search, on appeal he argues that the evidence should have been excluded because his consent to the FBI's search was involuntarily given. As Manuel did not raise this objection below, our review is limited to a search for plain error. 36 53 A search may be conducted without either probable cause or a warrant if it is conducted pursuant to consent. 37 For consent to be valid, however, the government must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that consent was given freely and voluntarily, 38 a determination which must be based on the totality of the circumstances. 39 We consider six factors in evaluating the voluntariness of consent: 54 (1) the voluntariness of the defendant's custodial status; (2) the presence of coercive police procedures; (3) the extent and level of the defendant's cooperation; (4) the defendant's awareness of his right to refuse to consent; (5) the defendant's education and intelligence; and (6) the defendant's belief that no incriminating evidence will be found. 40 55 Although all six factors are relevant, no single one is dispositive. 41 56 After the agents had conducted the protective sweep and had read the handcuffed Manuel his Miranda rights in Spanish, he signed a form consenting to a search of his residence. Like his claims regarding his statements, Manuel now insists that his consent to search his home was coerced: The agents had illegally entered his house with guns drawn; had handcuffed him and his wife and removed her from the house; had told him that they had evidence linking him to the narcotics found at the Ivy Oaks residence; and then, without advising him of his right to refuse, had asked him if he would consent to a search of his home. 57 Not only have we already concluded that the agents entered Manuel's house legally, we discern no record evidence to support Manuel's allegations that the agents obtained his consent by feigning lawful authority to search the premises, by threatening him, or by promising him anything. The version of the record evidence implicitly credited by the district court also makes clear that Manuel was quite cooperative with the agents and that they recovered very little incriminating evidence from the search of his Clear Cove residence--a fact from which one could deduce that Manuel consented to the search because he believed--correctly--that the agents would find little if any damaging evidence. Although Manuel may have been startled by the fact and manner of his apprehension, not to mention by the repercussions therefrom, we cannot say that the district court committed plain error in finding that Manuel's consent to the search was voluntary. We perceive no grave miscarriage of justice therefrom, given all other evidence and circumstances of the case.