Court Opinion

ID: 9411504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-26 21:00:49.103151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:07.123599
License: Public Domain

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                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 22-4280

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff – Appellee,

                     v.

        MERLE BROOK STEPHENS,

                            Defendant – Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at
        Harrisonburg. Elizabeth Kay Dillon, District Judge. (5:18-cr-00038-EKD-JCH-1)

        Submitted: May 18, 2023                                           Decided: July 25, 2023

        Before AGEE and HARRIS, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Mark Bodner, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellant. Christopher R. Kavanaugh,
        United States Attorney, Roanoke, Virginia, S. Cagle Juhan, Assistant United States
        Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlottesville, Virginia,
        for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Merle Brook Stephens appeals his conviction by a jury of possession with intent to

        distribute methamphetamine and two related firearm charges. The jury found him guilty

        on all counts after a three-day trial. The district court then sentenced Stephens to a

        combined 192 months’ imprisonment followed by a term of supervised release. Finding

        no error, we affirm.

               On December 7, 2018, federal and state law enforcement officers carried out a

        coordinated arrest operation at a Virginia motel in connection with a large drug conspiracy.

        Stephens, a suspected member of the conspiracy, was detained and handcuffed in the motel

        parking lot when he left his room. As authority for the arrest, officers relied on an

        outstanding state warrant against Stephens for nonpayment of child support. While

        Stephens sat detained in the parking lot, a state officer searched two backpacks Stephens

        had been carrying.        This search revealed a handgun and large amounts of

        methamphetamine, which served as the bases for his charges of conviction.

               On appeal, Stephens argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to

        suppress the evidence seized from his backpacks. “When considering a district court’s

        denial of a motion to suppress, we review the court’s factual findings for clear error and all

        legal conclusions de novo.” United States v. Stover, 808 F.3d 991, 994 (4th Cir. 2015).

        The district court first found that Stephens was lawfully arrested pursuant to a valid state

        warrant. 1 The court then concluded that – regardless of whether the backpacks were

        1
         The court rejected Stephens’s argument that the officers’ failure to serve him with a copy
        of his state warrant rendered the arrest and subsequent search unconstitutional. Cf. United
                                                      2
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        properly searched incident to Stephens’s arrest under Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009)

        – suppression was not required because the evidence would have inevitably been

        discovered during a routine post-arrest inventory search.

               “The inevitable-discovery doctrine” provides that “information obtained by

        unlawful means is nonetheless admissible if the prosecution can establish by a

        preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately or inevitably would have

        been discovered by lawful means.” United States v. Allen, 159 F.3d 832, 838 (4th Cir.

        1998) (cleaned up). “The government meets its burden and this court can affirm on

        inevitable-discovery grounds if the district court can assess the inevitability and

        reasonableness of a hypothetical inventory search from testimony provided by a law-

        enforcement official[.]” United States v. Bullette, 854 F.3d 261, 267 (4th Cir. 2017). Here,

        two officers involved in Stephens’s arrest testified to departmental policies requiring an

        inventory search of any items seized during an arrest, and each confirmed that Stephens’s

        backpacks would have been searched pursuant to these policies. The district court credited

        this unrebutted testimony, and we see no clear error in that determination.

               Stephens also argues that the district court erred by failing to adequately address

        alleged premature jury deliberations. During trial, a courtroom security officer informed

        the court that “one or two of the jurors” had mentioned that they would like to see

        Stephens’s face without a mask. J.A. 211. Defense counsel raised concerns that the jurors

        may have been discussing the case prematurely. The court then asked if any jurors had

        States v. Montieth, 662 F.3d 660, 670 (4th Cir. 2011) (“The constitutional requirement is
        for the police to secure a valid warrant . . . and here they unquestionably did.”).
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        requested that Stephens remove his mask, and only one juror responded that she had. At

        the next break, the court reiterated its pretrial instructions “not [to] discuss this case with

        anyone, including your fellow jurors,” and to “keep an open mind until all the evidence has

        been received.” J.A. 253. “The district court has broad discretion in choosing how to

        handle a claim of juror bias or misconduct,” United States v. Basham, 561 F.3d 302, 321

        n.9 (4th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted), and we see no abuse of that

        discretion in the court’s actions here.

               We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are

        adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the

        decisional process.

                                                                                         AFFIRMED

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