Court Opinion

ID: 9481742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:30:06.955931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:32.646454
License: Public Domain

*735FEINBERG, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I do not agree with that portion of the majority opinion that approves of the district court’s finding “that exigent circumstances justified the initial entry into apartment number two.” Based on this finding, the district court held that the seizure of the $15,000 in marked buy money was justified because the money was “in plain view” on a table within the apartment when the agents lawfully entered, and the court consequently denied Atherton’s motion to suppress this important evidence. I believe that this was error, and I therefore cannot join in the affirmance of the judgment of conviction. As explained below, however, the evidence may nevertheless have been admissible on another theory. Because determination of that issue requires further findings by the trial court, I would remand.
With regard to the finding of exigent circumstances, the majority is correct that in recent years we have frequently found that exigent circumstances justified war-rantless entries when “law enforcement officers reasonably believed that immediate access to the premises was necessary to prevent the loss of evidence.” However, the cases relied upon by the majority make clear that in such circumstances the law enforcement officers must reasonably believe “that additional evidence was present in the apartment and that there might be someone there who could destroy it.” See, e.g., United States v. Vasquez, 638 F.2d 507, 532 (2d Cir.1980) (emphasis added), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 970, 101 S.Ct. 1490, 67 L.Ed.2d 620 (1981). The second of those two conditions was not satisfied here.
Confidential informant Lowe told the agents that he had given defendant Ather-ton the $15,000 marked money in exchange for cocaine in a vacant apartment, and the agents in fact heard the details of the transaction through the concealed transmitter Lowe was wearing. Atherton was arrested after he left the vacant apartment. When the agents announced their presence at the door of apartment two, they received no response. The record is devoid of any indication that the agents heard noises indicating someone’s presence or had other reasons to believe that someone was in the apartment.
The majority states that the agents “considered it imperative to locate the ‘buy’ money before it could be removed.” Granting that, it is still hard to see what the exigent circumstances were that prevented the agents from getting a search warrant. If the money was in the vacant apartment, as the “traces of powder on the door” indicated it probably was, the money was not going to walk away. The majority apparently relies on the agents’ knowledge that “two persons who had previously been charged with cocaine trafficking were somewhere within the Seafarer mall.” But the agents had no reason to believe that either was in the vacant apartment. In fact, they had just questioned one of them (Howe) in another part of the mall. On the basis of the information they had, the agents could have easily posted a guard and obtained a warrant. In short, there was no persuasive justification for a war-rantless entry, and the district court’s finding of exigent circumstances was clearly erroneous.
However, as already indicated, the $15,-000 marked money may nevertheless have been admissible evidence on an alternate ground. The government argues that the evidence would have been found in any event during the execution of the search warrant for the apartment shortly after-wards. Under Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 101 L.Ed.2d 472 (1988), the government may be able to show that the warrant was obtained “on the basis of information wholly unconnected with the initial entry.” Id. at 535, 108 S.Ct. at 2532. This is a matter on which the district court would have to make appropriate findings, supported by the evidence before it. I would remand for that purpose.