Court Opinion

ID: 9385306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-06 16:00:29.198756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:59.935260
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                             For the Eighth Circuit
                         ___________________________

                                 No. 22-1210
                         ___________________________

                              United States of America

                                        Plaintiff - Appellee

                                          v.

        Anthony Martinez Harris, also known as Maurice Terrell Williams

                                     Defendant - Appellant
                                   ____________

                      Appeal from United States District Court
                for the Western District of Missouri - Jefferson City
                                  ____________

                           Submitted: February 13, 2023
                               Filed: April 6, 2023
                                 ____________

Before LOKEN, COLLOTON, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.
                          ____________

BENTON, Circuit Judge.

       A jury convicted Anthony Martinez Harris of possession with intent to
distribute 500 or more grams of methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §
841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A). The district court sentenced him to 262 months in prison.
Harris appeals the conviction, challenging the denial of a pretrial motion to suppress.
Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, this court affirms.
       In September 2019, staff at a hotel in Camdenton, Missouri called police about
an occupant who refused to leave the property. Camdenton Police Officer Nicholas
Thomas arrived. The staff said they smelled marijuana coming from Harris’s room.
Through an open door into the room, Officer Thomas saw money on the bed and
white powder on the coffee table. He detained Harris and tried to give him Miranda
warnings. Harris said he did not understand them. Officer Thomas explained them.
Harris replied that he understood. Before Officer Thomas said anything else, Harris
offered Officer Thomas $50,000 to let him go and said he was involved with “the
cartel” and “MS-13.” Officer Thomas searched the room.

       Camden County Deputy Sheriff Brian Bonner arrived. Deputy Bonner asked
Harris what was in the room. He replied that there was meth, cocaine, heroin, and
PCP. He consented to a search of the room. Officers found cash, guns, drugs, and
drug paraphernalia. They also found an object wrapped in a piece of camouflage
fabric. Harris volunteered that it was C-4 explosive.

       Officer Thomas took Harris to the county jail. Meanwhile, Narcotics Group
Task Force Officer Bryan Pratt arrived at the hotel. He found a Kia key in Harris’s
pocket that matched a stolen car in the hotel parking lot. He searched the Kia,
finding more drug contraband. He went to the jail to meet with Harris. He began
by advising him of his Miranda rights. Harris “would not answer yes or no that he
understood his rights,” so Officer Pratt did not ask any questions. Instead, he told
Harris that the keys found in Harris’s pocket belonged to a stolen car. Harris replied
that the Kia was his car. Later that day, the jail sent Harris for a fit-for-confinement
evaluation. He was found fit for incarceration.

       Harris moved to suppress (1) his statements to Officer Thomas and Deputy
Bonner at the hotel; and (2) his statement to Officer Pratt that the Kia belonged to
him. At the suppression hearing, all three officers testified that Harris was not
intoxicated. The district court found their testimony credible. The magistrate judge
recommended denying the motion, finding that some of Harris’s statements were not
in response to an interrogation and others were made after a valid Miranda waiver.
                                          -2-
See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Harris objected. He requested
reopening the hearing to introduce evidence he was intoxicated. The district court 1
denied his request and adopted the report and recommendation. At trial, the
government introduced the incriminating statements.

                                          I.

       Harris argues the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress because
his Miranda waiver was not “voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently made. “On
review of a motion to suppress, this court reviews factual findings for clear error and
legal conclusions de novo.” United States v. Lewis, 864 F.3d 937, 941 (8th Cir.
2017).

                                          A.

      The district court found that some of Harris’s statements were “not subject to
Miranda scrutiny because they were made spontaneously and not in response to”
questioning. This included Harris’s comments to Officer Thomas at the hotel that
he was involved with the cartel and MS-13 and would give him $50,000 to let him
go. The district court did not err in finding that these statements were spontaneous,
volunteered, and not in response to interrogation. See United States v. Chipps, 410
F.3d 438, 445 (8th Cir. 2005) (holding statement was spontaneous when made
“during a conversation not initiated by the officer”). They were, therefore,
admissible, regardless of the Miranda waiver. See United States v. Turner, 157
F.3d 552, 556 (8th Cir. 1998) (“We have repeatedly held that a voluntary statement
made by a suspect, not in response to interrogation, is not barred and is admissible
with or without the giving of Miranda warnings.” (cleaned up)).

      1
        The Honorable Brian C. Wimes, United States District Judge for the Western
District of Missouri, adopting the report and recommendation of the Honorable
Willie J. Epps, Jr., United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of
Missouri.
                                       -3-
                                          B.

        For the rest of the statements made at the hotel, Harris argues he was too
intoxicated to waive his Miranda rights. He asserts that the district court’s finding
that his waiver was “voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently made” was based on
“clearly erroneous factual findings.” He bases this argument in part on trial
testimony of police officers and others that he showed signs that he was on drugs.
The government argues that because Harris did not renew his motion to suppress at
trial, he failed to preserve the issue, and review is for plain error. See United States
v. Quintanilla, 25 F.3d 694, 698 (8th Cir. 1994) (reviewing for plain error a
defendant’s argument, based on trial evidence, that a search-warrant affidavit
contained misrepresentations, when the defendant had argued in district court only
that the application failed to establish probable cause). This court need not decide
the issue because the claim fails under either standard.

       Harris argues that his incriminating statements demonstrate a substantial level
of intoxication because no sober person facing criminal liability would make them
to law enforcement. But intoxication alone does not preclude a valid waiver. See
United States v. Figueroa-Serrano, 971 F.3d 806, 815 (8th Cir. 2020) (finding a
valid Miranda waiver when the suspect, after using marijuana, did not appear
affected by intoxication and told officers he understood his rights). Instead, the test
is whether, considering the totality of the circumstances, the mental impairment
“caused the defendant’s will to be overborne.” United States v. Jones, 842 F.3d
1077, 1083 (8th Cir. 2016).

      Harris’s intoxication did not cause his will to be overborne. The district court
found Harris was “alert, aware of his criminal liability, and appropriately responding
to questions” while talking with the officers. It credited the officers’ testimony that
he “appeared coherent and did not tell them that he was intoxicated or under the
influence of drugs.” His behavior was “consistent with someone who understood
the nature of his crimes,” and he “did not appear to be intoxicated.” The court also
noted that Harris’s extensive criminal history—including five arrests and
                                          -4-
convictions—supported this conclusion. See United States v. Gaddy, 532 F.3d 783,
788-89 (8th Cir. 2008) (holding that past experience with law enforcement may
support a finding of voluntariness). The court did not err in finding “no evidence
that Mr. Harris’ alleged intoxication caused his will to be overborne.” See Jones,
842 F.3d at 1083 (defendant waived Miranda rights despite prescription drug use
and slow, sometimes unresponsive answers); Gaddy, 532 F.3d at 788-89 (defendant
waived Miranda rights despite alcohol and drug use combined with a lack of sleep);
Turner, 157 F.3d at 555-56 (defendant waived Miranda rights despite PCP use and
mental illness).

                                         C.

       Harris contends his statement to Officer Pratt about the Kia should have been
suppressed because it was made after he invoked his Miranda rights. As the district
court recognized, however, invoking the right to remain silent requires a “clear,
consistent expression of a desire to remain silent.” United States v. Adams, 820
F.3d 317, 323 (8th Cir. 2016). The district court found that “the record does not
reflect that Mr. Harris unequivocally invoked his right to remain silent during his
brief conversation with Officer Pratt. To the contrary, Officer Pratt testified that
after reading Mr. Harris his rights, Mr. Harris indicated he wanted to talk to him but
then kept going ‘back and forth’ on that issue.” The district court did not err in
determining that Harris did not unequivocally invoke his right to remain silent. See
id. (holding that there was an implicit Miranda waiver where defendant made
“uncoerced statements” to law enforcement).

      The district court did not err in admitting the incriminating statements.

                                         II.

      Harris believes the district court “erred in declining to reopen the suppression
hearing for the admission of additional testimony and evidence.” This court reviews
for abuse of discretion. United States v. Hayden, 759 F.3d 842, 845 (8th Cir. 2014).
                                         -5-
        In moving to reopen the hearing, Harris sought to introduce evidence he was
intoxicated, including a hotel manager’s signed police statement that “he had some
type of drug in his system” and his fit-for-confinement evaluation performed at the
county jail. Harris fails to show the probative value of this evidence. See United
States v. Gill, 513 F.3d 836, 846 (8th Cir. 2008) (holding that “the district court did
not abuse its discretion when it declined to reopen the record for evidence of limited
probative value”). The question was not whether Harris had used drugs. Rather, it
was whether he was so intoxicated that he could not knowingly waive his Miranda
rights. The hotel manager’s statement did not address that question. Nor would the
fit-for-confinement evaluation change the court’s conclusion because it deemed him
fit for incarceration. He also fails to explain why he did not introduce this evidence
at the initial suppression hearing. See United States v. Davis, 174 F.3d 941, 948 (8th
Cir. 1999) (holding that if a party thought the “testimony was vital to the court’s
inquiry, it could have requested” that the hearing be delayed until the testimony
could be presented).

      The district court did not abuse its discretion in not reopening the suppression
hearing.

                                    *******

      The judgment is affirmed.
                      ______________________________

                                         -6-