Court Opinion

ID: 9642534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:01:43.854123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:52:49.548565
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-13623     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 08/22/2023   Page: 1 of 11

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                     In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                          For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                  No. 21-13623
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                         Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        BRIAN JOINS,
        JOSHUA WEBB,

                                                   Defendants-Appellants.

                           ____________________

                  Appeals from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 5:20-cr-00033-MW-MJF-1
                            ____________________
USCA11 Case: 21-13623         Document: 81-1           Date Filed: 08/22/2023   Page: 2 of 11

        2                         Opinion of the Court                    21-13623

        Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge, and
        PROCTOR,* District Judge.
        PER CURIAM:
               After a four-day trial, a jury convicted defendants Joshua
        Webb and Brian Joins of conspiracy to distribute and to possess
        with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine,
        as well as the substantive offense of possession with intent to dis-
        tribute the drugs, based on approximately two kilograms of meth-
        amphetamine discovered when law enforcement officers searched
        a mobile home and a car parked outside it. In addition, the jury
        convicted Webb of being a felon in possession of a firearm and pos-
        session with intent to distribute methamphetamine based on evi-
        dence recovered in a later search of a different residence. On ap-
        peal, Webb and Joins challenge their convictions on several
        grounds. Webb argues that the district court erred in denying his
        motion to suppress evidence found in the search of the car. He also
        maintains that there was insufficient evidence to support his felon-
        in-possession-of-a-firearm conviction. For his part, Joins challenges
        one of the district court’s evidentiary rulings at trial and contends
        that there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions. Af-
        ter careful consideration of the parties’ briefs and the record, and
        with the benefit of oral argument, we find the defendants’ argu-
        ments unavailing. We thus affirm.

        ∗ Honorable R. David Proctor, United States District Judge for the Northern

        District of Alabama, sitting by designation.
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        21-13623                  Opinion of the Court                                3

               Only one issue—Webb’s challenge to the district court’s de-
        nial of the motion to suppress—merits further discussion. As we
        explain below, the district court did not err in denying the motion.
        Even if the officers performed a warrantless search of the car, no
        Fourth Amendment violation occurred because the search was jus-
        tified by the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment’s
        warrant requirement.
                                      I. BACKGROUND
               Federal and Florida-state law enforcement received a tip
        from a confidential informant that Joins was distributing metham-
        phetamine from a mobile home on Sherman Avenue in Panama
        City, Florida. 1 Based on this tip, law enforcement officers obtained
        a warrant to search the mobile home. The search warrant author-
        ized the officers to “enter the [mobile home] premises and the cur-
        tilage thereof and any vehicles parked thereon . . . and then and
        there to search diligently for the property described in this war-
        rant.” Doc. 22-1 at 1. 2
               Officers went to the Sherman Avenue residence to execute
        the search warrant. When they arrived at the mobile home, they
        saw two men, later identified as Joins and Webb, standing outside
        trying to jump-start a motorcycle using cables connected to a silver

        1 Because we write for the parties, we include only what is necessary to explain
        our decision. We limit our recitation of the facts to those pertinent to Webb’s
        challenge to the denial of his motion to suppress.
        2 “Doc.” numbers refer to the district court’s docket entries.
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        4                         Opinion of the Court                     21-13623

        Nissan sedan. The officers detained the two men as they began the
        search. Inside the mobile home, the officers encountered two peo-
        ple: Randall Grant, who was just inside the front door, and Amanda
        Grant, who was in one of the bedrooms. The officers observed
        drugs and drug paraphernalia in rooms throughout the mobile
        home.
               During the search, the officers found a bag on the residence’s
        front step. Inside the bag, they found a shoebox holding a large Zip-
        loc bag filled with a substance that looked like methamphetamine.
               The officers also searched the silver Nissan. Inside the Nis-
        san, they found a camouflage bag containing a large Ziploc bag
        with a substance inside that appeared to be methamphetamine.
        Field testing confirmed that the bag contained methamphetamine,
        and lab testing later revealed that each Ziploc bag contained ap-
        proximately one kilogram of methamphetamine.
              In the criminal case, Webb moved to suppress the evidence
        found inside the Nissan.3 He argued that the search of the car ex-
        ceeded the warrant’s scope because the car was not parked within
        the mobile home’s curtilage.
              At a hearing on the motion to suppress, the government in-
        troduced testimony from two of the officers who executed the
        search: A.C. Llorens, an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,

        3 Joins did not move to suppress the evidence discovered in the car.
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        21-13623               Opinion of the Court                          5

        Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and Bay County Sheriff’s Office
        Sergeant Steven Cook.
                The officers testified about their execution of the search war-
        rant. They arrived at the mobile home around 10:00 p.m. and saw
        two men outside trying to jump-start a motorcycle using cables
        running from a silver Nissan sedan to the motorcycle. The officers
        first set out to “clear” and “secure” the mobile home. Doc. 187 at
        20. Once inside, they found “user amounts” of methamphetamine.
        Id. at 22. The officers encountered Randall and Amanda Grant in-
        side. Randall told Cook that Joins and Webb came to the mobile
        home in the silver Nissan parked outside and that Joins brought
        with him a bag that was sitting on the mobile home’s front step.
                The officers testified that after they had cleared the mobile
        home, they retrieved the bag from the front step and found a Nike
        shoebox inside the bag. Inside the shoebox they found a Ziploc bag
        filled with a “large” amount of a substance that looked like meth-
        amphetamine. Id. at 20.
               At the hearing, Webb disputed the officers’ narrative of the
        search. He maintained that the officers searched the Nissan before
        they searched the mobile home or spoke with Randall, and there-
        fore the officers did not have probable cause to search the car. To
        support his position, Webb pointed to written materials that Cook
        had prepared during the investigation—including affidavits sup-
        porting arrest warrants for Joins, Webb, and Amanda. In the affida-
        vits, Cook described the sequence of events such that the officers
        found the methamphetamine in the Nissan before they found the
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                21-13623

        shoebox with drugs on the front step. But the government rebutted
        Webb’s timeline by pointing out that Cook had prepared other ma-
        terials that were consistent with the government’s narrative—in-
        cluding the official investigative report in which he represented
        that before the officers searched the Nissan they secured the mobile
        home, interviewed Randall, and found the methamphetamine on
        the front step.
               The district court issued an order denying the suppression
        motion. The court agreed with Webb that the Nissan was not
        within the mobile home’s curtilage; thus, the search of it exceeded
        the scope of the warrant.
               The district court concluded that the evidence was never-
        theless admissible, however, because the search was justified by the
        automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant re-
        quirement. To support its conclusion, the court found that the Nis-
        san was an operational, readily-mobile vehicle, which satisfied the
        automobile exception’s first prong. Turning to the exception’s sec-
        ond prong—whether the officers had probable cause before they
        searched the Nissan, the district court acknowledged that Webb
        had raised an important factual issue because “[t]here [was] no
        question that the officers’ various reports contain[ed] inconsistent
        descriptions of the order of events.” Doc. 115 at 13. But, after con-
        sidering the evidence, including Llorens’s and Cook’s hearing tes-
        timony that the officers found the drugs and paraphernalia inside
        the mobile home and the shoebox of drugs on the front step “prior”
        to searching the Nissan, Doc. 187 at 22, the court “accept[ed]” the
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        21-13623               Opinion of the Court                         7

        government’s proffered timeline as the “only . . . version” of events
        that “ma[de] sense.” Doc. 115 at 13.
                Based on the officers’ sequence of events, the district court
        found that it was “much more likely that the police secured the
        mobile home before searching the Nissan, and thus likely found the
        shoebox first.” Id. Therefore, the court concluded, the officers had
        probable cause to believe there was contraband or evidence of drug
        trafficking in the Nissan. Having determined that both prongs were
        satisfied, the court concluded that the automobile exception justi-
        fied the search and denied the motion.
               After the district court denied the motion to suppress, the
        case proceeded to trial. At trial, the government introduced evi-
        dence recovered from the Nissan, and the jury convicted Webb
        (and Joins) of the charged drug offenses, including conspiracy to
        distribute or possess, and possession with intent to distribute, 500
        grams or more of methamphetamine.
              This appeal followed.
                            II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
               “This court reviews a district court’s order denying a motion
        to suppress evidence under a mixed standard, reviewing the court’s
        findings of fact for clear error and the application of law to those
        facts de novo, construing the facts in the light most favorable to the
        prevailing party below.” United States v. Pierre, 825 F.3d 1183, 1191
        (11th Cir. 2016).
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                  21-13623

                “A factual finding is clearly erroneous when although there
        is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence
        is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been
        committed.” United States v. Robertson, 493 F.3d 1322, 1330 (11th
        Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have explained
        that under this standard, “[a]t a minimum, there must be substan-
        tial evidence” to support a finding. United States v. Ellisor, 522 F.3d
        1255, 1273 n.25 (11th Cir. 2008); see Robertson, 493 F.3d at 1330 (ex-
        plaining that a factual finding is clearly erroneous when it is not
        “supported by substantial evidence”).
                                   III. DISCUSSION
                On appeal, Webb argues the district court erred in denying
        his motion to suppress the evidence found in the Nissan parked
        outside of the Sherman Avenue mobile home. We disagree. The
        district court did not err in denying the motion to suppress because,
        even if the search of the Nissan was warrantless, the automobile
        exception justified the search.
                The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the peo-
        ple to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
        unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
        [w]arrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” U.S. Const.
        amend. IV. The prohibition on “unreasonable” searches and sei-
        zures “generally requires the obtaining of a judicial warrant.” Riley
        v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 382 (2014). “But not always: The warrant
        requirement is subject to certain exceptions.” Lange v. California,
        141 S. Ct. 2011, 2017 (2021) (internal quotation marks omitted).
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        21-13623                   Opinion of the Court                                 9

                One such exception is the automobile exception. A warrant-
        less search of an automobile is constitutional when (1) the vehicle
        is “readily mobile,” and (2) there is “probable cause to believe that
        it contains contraband or evidence of a crime.” United States v.
        Lanzon, 639 F.3d 1293, 1299–1300 (11th Cir. 2011). The first prong
        is satisfied if the vehicle is operational. United States v. Lindsey,
        482 F.3d 1285, 1293 (11th Cir. 2007). And as to the second prong,
        an officer has probable cause to search a vehicle when “the facts,
        considering the totality of the circumstances and viewed from the
        perspective of a reasonable officer, establish ‘a probability or sub-
        stantial chance of criminal activity.’” Washington v. Howard,
        25 F.4th 891, 898 (11th Cir. 2022) (quoting District of Columbia v.
        Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 586 (2018)); see California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S.
        565, 569–70 (1991) (explaining that if officers have probable cause
        to believe a car contains evidence of criminal activity, they may
        search every part of the car that may conceal this evidence).
                Here, both prongs of the automobile exception were satis-
        fied. 4 On the first prong, the district court’s finding of fact that the
        Nissan was operational was not clearly erroneous. Indeed, Webb
        does not, nor could he, dispute that the car was operational and

        4 On appeal, the government argues that the district court’s interpretation of
        the warrant to authorize searches of vehicles within the curtilage but not
        searches of vehicles on the premises was incorrect, and so the court erred
        when it concluded that the search was outside the warrant’s scope. But we
        need not address the district court’s interpretation of the warrant or its result-
        ing legal conclusion to resolve Webb’s appeal. Instead, we assume without
        deciding that the search of the Nissan was a warrantless search.
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                  21-13623

        readily mobile when it was searched. After all, Joins and Webb
        drove the car to the Sherman Avenue mobile home on the night of
        the search.
                As to the second prong, the officers had probable cause to
        believe that the Nissan contained contraband or evidence of drug
        trafficking. There was a factual dispute about whether the officers
        searched the Nissan before speaking with Randall and finding the
        drugs in the shoebox based on the information he provided. The
        district court resolved this factual dispute by finding that the offic-
        ers first “secured the mobile home,” where they “found the shoe-
        box” on the doorstep, “before searching the Nissan.” Doc. 115 at
        13. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the govern-
        ment, the district court’s probable-cause finding was not clearly er-
        roneous; it was supported by substantial evidence, including the
        hearing testimony from Llorens and Cook explaining that they
        found the shoebox before searching the Nissan. The evidence be-
        fore the district court demonstrated that before searching the Nis-
        san, the officers (1) saw Joins and Webb standing outside the vehi-
        cle near the mobile home, (2) discovered in a shoebox on the mo-
        bile home’s front step a large amount of white powder that was
        field tested and confirmed to be methamphetamine, and (3) heard
        from Randall that Joins and Webb had come to the mobile home
        in the Nissan and arrived with the bag containing the shoebox of
        drugs. And given that the search warrant was specifically directed
        at finding evidence of drug-trafficking activity in the mobile home,
        the record established a substantial chance that the Nissan con-
        tained contraband or evidence of drug trafficking.
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        21-13623                   Opinion of the Court                               11

               Accordingly, we conclude that the search was justified by
        the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. We there-
        fore affirm the district court’s denial of Webb’s motion to suppress
        the methamphetamine evidence discovered in the vehicle. 5
                                      IV. CONCLUSION
                Finding no error, we AFFIRM the defendants’ convictions.
                AFFIRMED.

        5 The district court provided an alternative reason for denying the motion to
        suppress: that the officers’ mistake in thinking the car was within the curtilage
        was objectively reasonable under the circumstances, and thus the evidence
        was admissible under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule estab-
        lished in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984). Given our conclusion that
        the automobile exception justified the search, we do not address the district
        court’s alternative ruling.