Court Opinion

ID: 9487138
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:09:08.386247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:06.886166
License: Public Domain

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the warrantless search in this case violated the Fourth Amendment because the claimed exigency was created by law enforcement officials who had ample time to obtain a warrant. As part of an investigative strategy the postal inspectors placed a beeper in a package they delivered to McGregor and then relied upon his possible discovery of that beeper as an exigency to enter his home. The conclusion of the majority that the inspectors did not create the exigency defies common sense.
After the United States Customs inspectors in Miami discovered the cocaine secreted in a notebook, a controlled delivery was made to the addressee, Jorge Chavez, in Naper-ville, Illinois. He was arrested immediately when he accepted delivery of the package. Chavez agreed to cooperate with authorities and stated that McGregor had offered him one thousand dollars to accept delivery of the package containing cocaine and to forward it to McGregor in Miami. In electronically monitored calls that Chavez made to McGre-gor, McGregor made several incriminating statements that corroborated the story that Chavez told the authorities. McGregor indicated that Chavez would soon be receiving another package. McGregor also remarked that he planned to pay Chavez in “product.” When Chavez objected McGregor agreed to pay him in cash, but indicated that he could not do so until he received the package, stating that he had “people waiting all over the place” and “nothing, absolutely nothing.”
The inspectors determined that they would make a controlled delivery of the cocaine to McGregor with the cooperation of both state and federal authorities. They transported the notebook to Miami where they repackaged it and addressed it to McGregor at his home. Inside the package the inspectors had placed an electronic beeper, for which they had obtained a federal warrant, that would alert them when the package was opened. Inspector Perone, who applied for the warrant to monitor the beeper, testified that he did not ask the federal magistrate who issued that warrant for an additional warrant to search McGregor’s apartment once the cocaine was delivered because he believed that due to the relatively small amount of cocaine involved, the United States Attorney would decline prosecution in favor of a state prosecution.1 As the majority opinion notes, a cooperating state agent began the process of securing a state search warrant but when the federal officers learned that a state warrant could not be executed until fifteen minutes after the beeper sounded the federal agents decided to proceed without a warrant. Once the state agent learned, prior to the delivery of the package, that the federal agents involved were not proceeding in compliance with state law, he refused to participate in the operation.
Disguised as a postal delivery worker, Inspector Perone delivered the package to McGregor at his apartment. McGregor *1071identified himself and signed for the package. The inspectors then conducted surveillance of the apartment and monitored the beeper. Five-and-a-half hours after delivery, the beeper alerted the agents that the package had been opened. The inspectors then made a warrantless entry into McGregor’s home. Once inside, the inspectors located the occupants of the apartment and the package containing cocaine. Although the exterior of the package had been opened, the leather notebook covers in which the cocaine was hidden remained intact. After obtaining McGre-gor’s consent to search his apartment, the inspectors discovered other quantities of cocaine and McGregor confessed.
Under settled Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, a warrantless search or seizure inside a home is presumptively unreasonable. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1380, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). Where probable cause and exigent circumstances exist, however, warrantless action may be allowed. Id. at 590, 100 S.Ct. at 1382. It is undisputed that the inspectors had probable cause to arrest appellant and to search his apartment for the notebook containing cocaine. The only issue is whether an exigency justified the warrantless entry.
A situation may become exigent when there is danger of the loss, destruction, removal or concealment of evidence. United States v. Blasco, 702 F.2d 1315, 1325 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 914, 104 S.Ct. 275, 78 L.Ed.2d 256 (1983). This exigency is “particularly compelling in narcotics eases” because narcotics may be easily destroyed. United States v. Young, 909 F.2d 442, 446 (11th Cir.1990). The exigency exception, however, only applies when “the inevitable delay incident to obtaining a warrant must give way to an urgent need for immediate action.” United States v. Burgos, 720 F.2d 1520, 1526 (11th Cir.1983); see also United States v. Lynch, 934 F.2d 1226, 1232 (11th Cir.1991) (following Burgos); United States v. Edmondson, 791 F.2d 1512, 1515 (11th Cir.1986) (exigent circumstances exist only when it is impossible or impractical to obtain a warrant); cf. Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U.S. 30, 34-35, 90 S.Ct. 1969, 1971-73, 26 L.Ed.2d 409 (1970) (warrantless search of home improper where no showing of exception to warrant clause or impracticality of obtaining search warrant when police obtained arrest warrant). This is not to say that a warrant must immediately be secured as soon as there are legally sufficient grounds to obtain one; there is no per se constitutional rule forbidding law enforcement officials who have probable cause from acting on exigencies that subsequently arise. Law enforcement officials possessing probable cause may not, however, circumvent the warrant requirement by intentionally causing an exigency in an otherwise stable situation.2 “This Circuit has held ... that a warrantless search is illegal when police possess probable cause but instead of obtaining a warrant create exigent circumstances.” United States v. Tobin, 923 F.2d 1506, 1511 (11th Cir.) (en banc) (citing United States v. Scheffer, 463 F.2d 567, 575 (5th Cir.1972)), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 299, 116 L.Ed.2d 243 (1991).
Under the facts of this case, there was simply no reason for the inspectors to act without a warrant. As the government controlled the time of delivery of the package, it cannot be disputed that the inspectors had ample time to secure a warrant. Even after the package was delivered, over five hours passed before the beeper indicated that the package had been opened. Certainly, this was sufficient time for a warrant to have been obtained. A search warrant or an arrest warrant would have given the agents legal grounds for entering McGregor’s *1072home.3 Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. at 589-90, 100 S.Ct. at 1381-82.
In spite of these facts, the majority concludes that the warrantless entry was justified by an exigency. The purported exigency in this case is the possibility that McGregor might have seen the beeper when he opened the package and might have destroyed the cocaine in the notebook.4 An exigency, however, must be a circumstance that was not intentionally created by law enforcement officials who chose to bypass the warrant requirement. Tobin, 923 F.2d at 1511. Here, Inspector Perone testified that they had decided not to proceed on a state warrant but instead to deliver the package, wait until the beeper alerted and then make a warrantless entry into McGregor’s home. Knowing that McGregor was expecting the package, the inspectors addressed it to him and delivered it to his home, placing within it the beeper designed to alert them when the package was opened. McGregor proceeded to do what most people can reasonably be expected to do upon receiving a package addressed to them: he opened it. Any exigency that arose in this case was created by the inspectors who placed the beeper in the package and delivered it to McGregor. The majority’s conclusion that the inspectors did not create the exigency by placing the beeper in the package, but that McGregor created the exigency by opening it, twists beyond recognition the meaning of our rule that law enforcement officials may not create an exigency.5
In a factually similar case the Eighth Circuit concluded that the “postal inspector created the exigent circumstances.” United States v. Johnson, 12 F.3d 760, 764 (8th Cir.1993). The Johnson court reasoned:
As a matter of investigative strategy, [the postal inspectors] substituted another substance for the cocaine base and placed the beeper in the package. By doing so, the inspectors created, or at least greatly increased, the risk that the evidence would be destroyed. Had they not altered the package’s contents, there would have been little or no danger of evidence being destroyed before they obtained the search warrant.
Id. at 764-65. The Johnson court recognized that the exigency was not created by the addressee opening the package, but by the inspectors who placed the beeper in the package and delivered it.
*1073Like Johnson, this is not a case in which the authorities were unsure about the destination of the cocaine. The inspectors had every reason to expect that McGregor would open a package addressed to him and delivered to his home. Inspector Perone testified that at the time of the delivery of the package the authorities believed that McGregor was the ultimate recipient of the package. The majority states that the inspectors “were unsure about when, where, or by whom this box would be opened,” and suggests that the inspectors had some reason to suspect that McGregor would deliver the package, unopened, to someone else. However, there is nothing in the record to support such a conclusion. Although Inspector Perone testified that because McGregor did not immediately open the package after it was delivered it might have been intended for someone else, McGregor’s recorded conversations with Chavez provided the inspectors with every reason to believe that McGregor was the distributor of the cocaine. It is undisputed that the inspectors, even if unsure about the ultimate recipient of the package, had ample legal basis for obtaining a warrant which simply requires probable cause and not absolute certainty.6 Further, even if they had reason to suspect that the package was intended for someone else, certainly the inspectors intended to arrest McGregor and search his apartment for further evidence, as recorded telephone calls indicated that this drug transaction was not the only one in which McGregor was involved.
The authorities in this case did not like the terms of execution of the state search warrant that they initially sought. The majority states that the inspectors reasonably concluded that a state warrant would be impractical because it would require that the authorities wait 15 minutes after a beeper indicated that a package had been opened before executing the warrant. The government provides no explanation, however, for the failure to obtain a federal warrant, which would not have contained the waiting period required under Florida law.
The majority suggests that it would have been inefficient for the inspectors to obtain a warrant in case it went unexecuted. We should not ignore constitutional mandates, however, merely because we find them to be inefficient. Moreover, if efficiency is a proper consideration, in my view an inefficiency even greater than that of unexecuted warrants results when searches conducted in violation of the Fourth Amendment result in suppressed evidence. In this case, however, obtaining a warrant would not have been inefficient. The inspectors obtained a warrant for the beeper from a federal magistrate and an additional warrant application could not have consumed much time. As pointed out above, even if the cocaine was intended for another person, the inspectors still had probable cause to arrest McGregor and execute a search warrant for farther evidence. Thus, no warrant would have gone unexecut-ed.
I would reverse the district court’s ruling denying McGregor’s motion to suppress evidence.

. Perone initially testified that a state search warrant had been obtained, but that testimony was corrected at a later date.

. There was nothing inherently unstable in this circumstance after the cocaine was delivered to appellant. " 'Suspects who are inside their homes and unaware of their impending arrests generally have no reason immediately to flee, nor would they ordinarily have any reason immediately to destroy the fruits of their crime.’" Lynch, 934 F.2d at 1232 (quoting United States v. George, 883 F.2d 1407, 1413 (9th Cir.1989) (citations omitted)); see also United States v. Tobin, 923 F.2d 1506, 1511 (11th Cir.) (en banc) (circumstances are not usually exigent where suspects are unaware of police surveillance), cert. *1072denied, - U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 299, 116 L.Ed.2d 243 (1991).

. Of course, if the inspectors had an arrest warrant, they would have only been entitled to arrest McGregor and seize any contraband in plain view. Once legally inside, however, they could have requested McGregor’s consent to search his apartment.

. There is nothing in the record that supports the panel’s conclusion that the police were reasonable in their concern that the beeper would be discovered once the package was opened. There was no evidence or testimony concerning the size or shape of the beeper, or the manner in which it was placed in the package. Without this information, we cannot know if the concern that the beeper would be discovered was reasonable. Despite this lack of evidence, the panel concludes that the inspector’s concern was reasonable.

. Some circuits have held that police may create exigent circumstances, provided they do not engage in otherwise unlawful conduct. See United States v. MacDonald, 916 F.2d 766, 772 (2d Cir.1990) (en banc) (provided police “act in an entirely lawful manner, they do not impermissibly create exigent circumstances”), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1119, 111 S.Ct. 1071, 112 L.Ed.2d 1177 (1991); United States v. Acosta, 965 F.2d 1248, 1254 (3rd Cir.1992) (adopting reasoning of MacDonald). As the majority opinion recognizes, our court has sided with those circuits that have determined that police may not intentionally bypass the warrant requirement by creating exigent circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Richard, 994 F.2d 244, 248 (5th Cir.1993) (citing United States v. Webster, 750 F.2d 307, 327 (5th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1106, 105 S.Ct. 2340, 85 L.Ed.2d 855 (1985)); United States v. Beltran, 917 F.2d 641, 643 (1st Cir.1990); United States v. Duchi, 906 F.2d 1278, 1284 (8th Cir.1990); United States v. Buchanan, 904 F.2d 349, 355 (6th Cir.1990); United States v. Timberlake, 896 F.2d 592, 597 (D.C.Cir.1990); United States v. George, 883 F.2d 1407, 1413-14 (9th Cir.1989); United States v. Napue, 834 F.2d 1311, 1327 n. 17 (7th Cir.1987) (citing United States v. Rosselli, 506 F.2d 627, 630 (7th Cir.1974)); cf. United States v. Grissett 925 F.2d 776, 778 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 945, 111 S.Ct. 2245, 114 L.Ed.2d 486 (1991). Although the majority opinion states that it abides by the law of this circuit, through its interpretation of the facts it places our circuit, for all practical purposes, alongside those courts that have held that police may create exigent circumstances.

. The beeper alerted the inspectors when the outside package was opened, not when the notebook was opened to reveal the cocaine. Thus, even if McGregor intended to deliver the cocaine to someone else, the inspectors had no reason to think that he wouldn't first open the package to make sure that Chavez had sent the notebook containing the cocaine.