Court Opinion

ID: 9493643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:13:56.791299+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:56.676510
License: Public Domain

GRABER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
First, I have doubts about the breadth of the majority’s holding concerning the treatment of this open garage door under the Fourth Amendment. For example, the majority relies on Taylor v. United States, 286 U.S. 1, 52 S.Ct. 466, 76 L.Ed. 951 (1932), and on Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). Maj. op. at 1157-59. Those cases are distinguishable in an essential respect: In those cases, the police, not the occupants of the premises, caused the doors to be opened. In Taylor the officers obtained entry to a locked, attached garage by forcing the lock. 286 U.S. at 5, 52 S.Ct. 466. In Payton the officers obtained entry to a house by knocking and causing the door to be opened. 445 U.S. at 578, 100 S.Ct. 1371; see also New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14, 15, 110 S.Ct. 1640, 109 L.Ed.2d 13 (1990) (police knocked on the door, causing it to be opened, and followed the defendant inside his home).
By contrast, here, Oaxaca had willingly left the garage door wide open. The garage is small, while its door is huge; and the garage faces the street at close range, so opening it exposed most of the interior to ready public view. These facts make this case closer to United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976), which permitted an arrest to take place inside a home when the arrestee first was seen standing in the open doorway of the home. And, if the arrest of Oaxaca was lawful, then the majority’s reason for refusing to give effect to his sister’s consent to search, maj. op. at 1158, evaporates.
Second, and even leaving aside those doubts, any error in denying the motion to suppress evidence found in Oaxaca’s room was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) (establishing standard for harmless error). The items seized were not a “smoking gun” and, indeed, were trivial when compared with the other evidence of his guilt. For example, Newman testified that Oaxaca was his source for methamphetamine; that Oaxaca freely discussed his drug dealings in Newman’s presence (for instance, amounts and quality of drugs); that he saw Oaxaca in possession of methamphetamine; that Newman, Fregoso, and Oaxaca met to discuss the prices of various drugs and made a deal for the sale of cocaine and methamphetamine; that Oaxaca delivered those drugs; and that Newman was the middleman for several sales from Oaxaca to Fregoso of methamphetamine. The majority makes much of the testimonial assaults on Newman’s credibility, maj. op. at 1158-59, but his testimony *1160was corroborated in many important respects by undercover agents. For example, they taped a call in which Oaxaca agreed to sell one pound of methamphetamine to Newman, a portion of which in fact was delivered, and they corroborated the dates of some of the sales about which Newman testified. In view of that extensive, corroborated evidence — including Oaxaca’s own taped agreement to sell a pound of methamphetamine, some of which then was delivered- — the admission of the evidence seized from Oaxaca’s room cannot have played a significant role in the jury’s decision to convict him.
For the foregoing reasons, I do not believe that the government is required to retry Oaxaca without using the evidence found in his room. I would affirm the conviction and, accordingly, dissent from the majority’s contrary holding.