Court Opinion

ID: 9471866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:43:00.450908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:36.989404
License: Public Domain

BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I agree with Judge Goodwin’s concurrence on the assumption that the reasoning applies only to contentions that constitutional rights have been violated. In cases not implicating basic constitutional rights I believe that institutional values are better served by applying a clearly erroneous standard of review when a trial judge has ap*1210plied a correct legal standard to established facts.
NORRIS, Circuit Judge, with whom FLETCHER, Circuit Judge, joins, dissenting from the judgment:
Although I concur fully in Parts I, II, III, and V of the court’s opinion, I disagree with Part IV. I believe that the evidentiary record before us fails to support the conclusion that exigent circumstances justified the manner in which Agent Olson entered McConney’s home and that, accordingly, the judgment of the district court should be reversed.
I
Before proceeding to a de novo review of the trial judge’s determination of exigency, we must first review, under the clearly erroneous standard, the findings of fact on which such a conclusion was — or could have been — based. Because the trial judge made no findings of fact on the issue of exigency, we must as an initial matter derive those findings by drawing from the record the reasonable inferences that are most favorable to the legal conclusion that exigency existed. United States v. Miner, 484 F.2d 1075, 1077 (9th Cir.1973). It is in this process of drawing permissible inferences from the evidence and inferring findings that I part company with the majority. The majority finds support for the trial judge’s conclusion that there was a “reasonable” basis for Olson’s fear that McConney was dangerous in four implied findings:
(1) when he was an undercover agent, Olson had had a close undercover relationship with McConney;
(2) Olson knew that McConney was a convicted felon and that McConney had in fact been convicted of a violent crime;
(3) Olson further knew that McConney was a drug dealer and had been charged with racketeering; and
(4) McConney had once made a statement to Olson about protection by members of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club that “support[ed] a reasonable inference that there was danger in arresting any club member.”
Supra at 1205-1206. While I agree that these facts would as a legal matter constitute exigency, I believe they find no support in the evidentiary record before us. In other words, if the trial judge had explicitly made the findings of fact the majority imputes to him, I would hold them to be clearly erroneous.
Contrary to what the majority apparently assumes, the probative evidence on the issue of exigency is limited to an affidavit that Olson executed shortly after he arrested McConney, and that Olson was asked to read into the record at the suppression hearing. Reporter’s Transcript at 1547. The affidavit stated in relevant part:
Prior to the execution of the warrants, I was aware that McConney was a convicted felon and was allegedly a member of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club ... I recognized [him] because of prior undercover law enforcement experience ... I know that members and associates of the Hell’s Angels have, in the past, been in possession of various firearms and explosive devices and also that certain members of the club are suspected of complicity in the attempted murder of a San Jose police officer as well as four unsolved murders in Oregon.
Therefore, out of a concern for my own safety and that of the other officers, as soon as I saw McConney, I opened the screen door ....
Reporter’s Transcript at 1548, 1549, 1550.
This affidavit is the sum total of the evidence that we are permitted to consider in deciding whether there was a reasonable basis for Olson’s fear that McConney was armed and dangerous. Although Olson also gave live testimony at the suppression hearing, none of his testimony was linked to his state of mind at the time of his entry. Although Olson testified on direct examination • that in 1975 he had encountered McConney in undercover drug negotiations during which McConney had promised him protection “by [McConney’s] people” who *1211were Hell’s Angels, Reporter’s Transcript at 1551-53, he did not testify then or at any later point that he had the 1975 conversation in mind when he entered McConney’s home in 1979. In fact, on cross examination, he testified explicitly that the reasons for his failure to comply with section 3109 should be limited to those listed in his affidavit, and he specifically excluded the 1975 conversation as something he had in mind at the time he entered McConney’s home:
Q. You state in your affidavit that, “I know that members and associates of the Hell’s Angels have in the past been in possession of various firearms,” et cetera. Do you recall that?
A. Yes.
Q. Those were the reasons that you entered as you did?
A. Yes.
Q. Your affidavit that you read here in court, you don’t talk about what happened between you and McConney in 1975. That’s correct, is it not? Your affidavit doesn’t talk about that?
A. That’s correct.
Q. So what is in your affidavit was what was in your mind at the time that you went through the door in the manner you described?
A. Yes.
Reporter’s Transcript at 1555.
The prosecutor, obviously concerned that defense counsel had effectively restricted the record basis for the claim of exigency to the contents of the affidavit, opened redirect with the following question:
Q. One of the other reasons you went through the door to immobilize Mr. McConney, I take it, was the conversation that you had had with him in 1975?
Reporter’s Transcript at 1556. Olson never answered that question. Defense counsel’s objection that it was leading was sustained, and the prosecutor, rather than rephrasing the question, abandoned the effort to have Olson testify that he had the 1975 conversation in mind when he arrested McConney in 1979. Contrary to what the majority assumes, therefore, there is no probative evidence to support a finding that Olson remembered the “protection” statement in making his assessment of McConney’s dangerousness. For all the record shows, Olson did not recall McConney’s 1975 “protection” statement until his memory was refreshed in preparation for his testimony at the suppression hearing.
Olson’s affidavit thus represents the only evidence in the record on the issue of exigency. Close scrutiny of what it says, and, more importantly, of what it does not say, makes clear that there is no evidentiary support for the facts that the majority accepts as established.
II
In his affidavit, Olson proffered four grounds for his actions: (1) he knew that McConney was a convicted felon; (2) McConney was “allegedly” a member of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club; (3) he recognized McConney because of prior undercover law enforcement experience; and (4) he was aware that members and associates of the Hell’s Angels owned weapons and were suspected of complicity in murders in San Jose and Oregon. A discrete analysis of each of these grounds is instructive.
(1) Olson Knew That McConney Was a Convicted Felon. The majority states that “McConney had a conviction for violent crime, and Olson testified that he knew that McConney was a convicted felon.” Supra at 1206. What the majority glosses over is that Olson fails to specify in his affidavit the nature of the felony; thus there is no evidence that Olson knew or even believed that McConney had been convicted of a crime of violence. The fact that we know independently from the record that McCon-ney had been convicted of armed robbery, resisting arrest, and battery does not provide support for an inference that Olson knew that McConney had been convicted of a violent crime. If Olson had known that fact about McConney, he could easily have so stated in his affidavit or could have supplemented his affidavit with testimony to that effect at the suppression hearing: *1212in fact, the only evidence on the point is Olson’s statement in his affidavit that he “was aware that McConney was a convicted felon.” We have no way of knowing whether this failure to be more specific in any part of the record is the result of the prosecutor’s failure to ask the right questions in the right form or of Olson’s inability to testify truthfully that he was in fact aware that McConney had been convicted of crimes of violence. In any case, the deficiency exists, and we are powerless to cure it.
(2) The Hell’s Angels Connection. The affidavit fails to say that Olson had any personal knowledge that McConney was a member of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club or was even associated with known members. It recites only that Olson knew that McConney “allegedly” was a member.1 Absent any indication of the source of that allegation — a rumor, a tip from an informer of known or unknown reliability, a police report, or an indictment — we cannot on the record before us fairly evaluate this “fact” in determining whether there was an objective basis for Olson’s asserted belief that McConney was dangerous. The government suggests that the allegation in the underlying RICO indictment that McCon-ney was a Hell’s Angel supported a belief by Olson that he was associated with the group. See Supplemental Brief for Appel-lee at 14. But once again, the prosecutor failed to ask Olson at the suppression hearing whether he was familiar with the indictment when he entered McConney’s home. And once again, the result is a deficiency in the record we cannot cure. As a consequence, the indictment is useless to us in deciding whether Olson could reasonably have feared for his safety when he went through the screen door without waiting to be refused admittance.
(3) Olson Recognized McConney From Prior Undercover Law Enforcement Experience. Although the affidavit recites that Olson recognized McConney from past undercover law enforcement experience, it gives no details about the encounter. The majority’s statement that Olson “had a close relationship” with McConney while serving as an undercover agent, see supra at 1206, is sheer conjecture. The bald fact that Olson recognized McConney from past undercover experience, without more, adds nothing to the record on the issue of exigency.
(4) Olson Knew That Some Members of the Hell’s Angels Carried Arms and Were Suspected of Complicity In Murder. Finally, the affidavit fails to suggest that McConney was associated in any way — other than “alleged” common membership in the Hell’s Angels organization — with any of the unidentified members and associates of the Hell’s Angels whom Olson stated he knew had carried arms or were suspected of complicity in murders in San Jose and Oregon. In fact, the affidavit carefully refers to such unnamed persons only as “members and associates of the Hell’s Angels” generally, not as associates of McConney personally. Even were we to assume that McCon-ney was still a member when he was arrested,2 nothing in the record suggests that it was reasonable for Olson to believe that the violent propensities of some unidentified Hell’s Angels were shared by McConney. As the government conceded in the original oral argument in this case, it does not claim that the Hell’s Angels Club is itself an illegal enterprise; it claims rather that it is *1213an otherwise lawful enterprise being used by some members for illegal activities. The government gives us no useful information about the Hell’s Angels organization or its membership that would help us decide whether fears about the reactions of some of its members could reasonably be generalized to provide an objective basis for fears about McConney. The record fails to tell us, for instance, about the size of the membership of what the government alleges in the indictment to be a “worldwide organization”; nor is there any evidence indicating the number of members, or chapters, in the Bay Area of Northern California where McConney was located, or in Oregon; finally, there is no indication that Olson might have known or had reason to believe that it was common practice for Hell’s Angels members to carry firearms or otherwise to resort to violence, particularly during arrests. For all we know from the record, the possession of firearms is limited to a small fraction of a large membership in a generally law abiding organization. In no way does the record even suggest, much less demonstrate, that violent behavior so thoroughly pervades the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club that an officer could reasonably believe from the fact of membership alone that his safety would be threatened if he tried to arrest any particular member in his home.
In the absence of any evidence linking McConney to the violent criminal activities of some members of the Hell’s Angels,3 I believe it impermissible for the majority to treat McConney’s alleged membership in the Club as a valid basis for Olson’s fear that he would be armed and dangerous. This is the teaching of our recent decision in United States v. Rubio, 727 F.2d 786 (9th Cir.1983). There, we held that a warrant for the search of a home of an alleged Hell’s Angel was not supported by probable cause because the facts set forth in the affidavit submitted to obtain the warrant were “insufficient to provide the requisite nexus between the association of the defendants with the [Hell’s Angels] and some form of criminal activity.” Id. at 794. In so holding, we noted that
[i]f the subject enterprise were wholly illegitimate, then there would certainly be cause to believe that evidence of a suspect’s association with that enterprise would aid in a RICO conviction. However, where there is no allegation that the enterprise is wholly illegitimate, as is true in this case, evidence of mere association would not necessarily aid in obtaining a conviction.
Id. at 793. Nor should evidence of mere association aid in making a determination that a particular member of the group is likely to resist arrest with violence. Contrary to the teaching of Rubio, the majority here permits an inference that McConney would have reacted violently to Olson to be drawn from evidence of “mere association” with Hell’s Angels.
To recapitulate, the record support for a determination of exigent circumstances excusing non-compliance with the commands of section 3109 consists of the affidavit by Agent Olson and nothing more. That affidavit fails to provide any substantial probative evidence that Olson’s professed fear of McConney was based on knowledge that McConney had been convicted of a violent crime, that he carried arms, that he was a drug dealer, or indeed, on any other fact that might have given Olson reason to believe McConney was dangerous. The record shows that Olson knew only two facts about McConney that arguably lend support to a determination of exigency: (1) that McCon-ney had been convicted of an unspecified felony, and (2) that Olson recognized him because of an unspecified undercover encounter. What the majority does is what an appellate court has no business doing: curing a defect in the prosecutor’s case by gratuitously filling in gaps in the evidentia-ry record.
*1214III
When I consider the inferences that can permissibly be drawn under the most charitable view of the evidence, I fail to see how the legal standard of exigency, or even the legal standard of “mild exigency,” United States v. Bustamante-Gamez, 488 F.2d 4,11 (9th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 970, 94 S.Ct. 1993, 40 L.Ed.2d 559 (1974), can be satisfied without draining the concept of all legal substance and reading the refusal of admittance requirement out of the statute altogether. That Olson believed McConney to be a convicted felon and that he had a prior undercover contact with him does not, without more, provide the required objective basis for Olson’s fear that he and his fellow officers would be endangered by observing the statutory mandate to wait briefly for a response to their knock and notice of identity and purpose before going through McConney’s screen door. The record basis for exigency in this case falls far short of carrying the government’s burden of proving exigency; it pales in comparison with the circumstances held in other cases to present objective bases for claims of exigency based upon “palpable peril.” See, e.g., United States v. McShane, 462 F.2d 5 (9th Cir.1972) (officers had information that suspects possessed a shotgun and had been previously convicted of armed assault against police officers); Gilbert v. United States, 366 F.2d 923 (9th Cir.) (officers knew suspect was charged with killing policeman with a firearm), cert. denied, 388 U.S. 922, 87 S.Ct. 2123, 18 L.Ed.2d 1370 (1966). Indeed, as stated in United States v. Kane, 637 F.2d 974 (3d Cir.1981), “courts have generally found reasonable ground for an exception [to the knock-notice requirement only] when the inhabitants ... possessed weapons and there was some indication of a propensity to use those weapons,” id. at 979 (officer’s knowledge that occupants were engaged in large-scale drug operation and had five guns in house sufficient to justify unannounced entry). Compare United States v. Fluker, 543 F.2d 709 (9th Cir.1976) (officer’s knowledge that occupant illegally possessed narcotics and lawfully owned a gun insufficient to justify belief that he might use it). The record on exigency here is so much weaker than that relied upon by the courts in the foregoing cases that it fails even the “mild exigency” test, a test which does not relieve the government of the burden of proving that “there is a likelihood that the occupants will attempt to escape, resist, destroy evidence, or harm someone within,” Bustamante-Ga-mez, 488 F.2d at 12.
On the evidentiary record before us and on the permissible inferences that I believe can fairly be drawn from it, I conclude that a belief by Olson that McConney was dangerous could only have been based upon unsubstantiated assumptions about the violent tendencies of members of the Hell’s Angels generally. Any attempt to generalize about the dangerous nature of individual Club members raises serious first amendment questions precisely because the record tells us that that Club is a worldwide organization generally engaged in lawful activities, and because the record does not indicate that violent behavior is a pervasive characteristic of its members. The Supreme Court has invalidated statutes which penalize individuals solely for membership in unpopular organizations and which “establish guilt by association alone, without any need to establish that an individual’s association poses the threat feared by the Government in proscribing it,” United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 265, 88 S.Ct. 419, 424, 19 L.Ed.2d 508 (1967) (invalidating statute which prevented Communists from working in defense factories without demanding any showing that particular individuals supported illegal aims of organization); see also Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U.S. 11, 17, 86 S.Ct. 1238, 1241, 16 L.Ed.2d 321 (1966) (statute impermissibly created “conclusive presumption that the member shares the unlawful aims of the organization” in denying members of certain groups the right to hold state or government jobs).
Under the rigorous standard by which we review the trial judge’s legal conclusion, I would therefore reverse. I believe we cannot affirm this conviction if we restrict ourselves to the record. That record, when *1215unembellished by extraneous allusions to the dangerous characteristics of the group with which McConney was allegedly associated, simply fails to carry the government’s burden of proving exigent circumstances sufficient to excuse Agent Olson’s failure to observe the strictures of section 3109 before entering McConney’s home.

. McConney offers unrefuted record support for his contention that he had terminated his Hell’s Angels membership in 1975, four years before Olson said in his 1979 affidavit that McConney was “alleged” to be a member of that organization. An affidavit by McConney’s attorney cites testimony by a grand jury witness that McConney “used to be a member” of the group and a government bail memorandum identifying McConney as an “ex-member of the Oakland chapter,” Excerpt of Record at 574, as proof of his claim that even the government was aware in 1979 that McConney was no longer affiliated with the Hell’s Angels. The government never denied this contention, focusing in its response instead on whether allegations that McConney was still a member in 1979 had been made in good faith in the affidavit used to justify issuance of the search warrant for McConney’s home. Excerpt of Record at 583-84.

. See supra at note 1.

. The naked fact that Olson knew that at some time McConney had been convicted of an unspecified felony surely does not provide any such link to the criminal activities of other members of the Hell’s Angels.