Court Opinion

ID: 9634718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:21:42.102854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:08.980423
License: Public Domain

SYKES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with my colleagues that when John Stotler’s truck was searched on April 20, 2007, Illinois law enforcement had reason to believe he was a meth-maker-dealer. But that alone doesn’t validate the *942search under the Fourth Amendment. As this case comes to us, there are at least three impediments to affirming the denial of Stotler’s suppression motion — one legal, one factual, and one procedural.1
First, the legal landscape on vehicle searches has changed since the time of Stotler’s trial. The Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. Gant, — U.S.-, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009), has removed the primary justification for the search of Stotler’s truck.2 Gant rejected a broad reading of New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), under which a search of a vehicle incident to the arrest of a recent occupant was generally permissible. As applied to vehicles, the search-incident-to-arrest exception is now significantly narrowed. As my colleagues note, Gant held that the “[p]olice may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest.” Gant, 129 S.Ct. at 1723.
Here, the district court held — and everyone agrees — that Stotler was arrested on the August 15, 2006 state warrant for overbuying pseudoephedrine during the months of April and May of 2006, not for attempting to purchase 1,500 pseudoephedrine pills from Michael Childress on April 20, 2007. The district court upheld the search of Stotler’s truck primarily because it was permissible incident to his arrest on the 2006 warrant. That basis for the search is no longer valid. Stotler was removed from the scene and therefore was not within reaching distance of the passenger compartment when his truck was searched. And there is no reason to believe that his truck would contain evidence of the crime of arrest, which occurred a year earlier in April-May 2006. In short, Gant has eliminated one justification for this search; the police were not authorized to search the truck incident to Stotler’s arrest.
The alternative justification for the search — that there was probable cause to believe that Stotler’s truck contained evidence of a crime — simply is not supported by the record, or at least by the portion of the record on which the government has relied. It is true that the police had some background information about Stotler that identified him as a meth-maker-dealer. They were aware of his 1999 California conviction for manufacturing methamphetamine. They also knew that materials used to manufacture meth had been found at his residence in January 2006 and that he had purchased excessive amounts of pseudoephedrine (a meth “precurser” in narcotics-investigation nomenclature) in April-May 2006. This information, however, is severely attenuated in time; Stotler’s meth-making activities in the first half of 2006 can only be a small component of the probable-cause equation for a search of his truck a year later. More pertinent is what law enforcement knew about Stotler’s activities in or around April 20, 2007, when the search took place, and what they saw during the controlled transaction between Stotler and Childress on that date. And on this more important point, the evidence falls short.
The record reflects that in April 2007 Childress was working with law enforcement to reduce his exposure on his own *943meth-related charges. He arranged to sell Stotler 1,500 pseudoephedrine pills for the purchase price of $600. The transaction was set to occur at Childress’s home in Quincy, Illinois, at 5 p.m. on April 20, 2007, and law-enforcement officers supplied Childress with the 1,500 pseudoephedrine pills for purposes of the controlled sale. The pills were labeled Sudafed Sinus Nighttime Plus Pain Relief — large pills packaged in 10-pill blister packs and contained within a white, kitchen-sized, plastic garbage bag (admitted as Exhibit 18AA at trial). Childress put this bulky package in his truck, which was parked in the driveway of his home. Stotler arrived at the appointed time, pulled into the driveway, and got out of his truck.
Here’s where there’s a gap in the evidence. Although law enforcement had the scene under surveillance, none of the officers who testified — either at the suppression hearing or at trial — saw any transaction occur. Nothing changed hands. As it turns out, only two of the surveillance officers — Sergeant Patrick Frazier and Special Agent Seth Knox — were in a position to see anything at all, and they testified that they saw only a brief conversation between Stotler and Childress at the back of Stotler’s truck. Nothing more.
In fact, Deputy Sheriff Matt McElfresh, who was apparently in charge of this operation, had at the outset instructed the police personnel at the scene to arrest Stotler on the August 2006 warrant as soon as he started to leave Childress’s driveway. This was the instruction regardless of what transpired between Stotler and Childress. So it was not important whether the officers could see what actually happened between the two; Stotler was going to be arrested whether or not the transaction was completed. What this means as a factual matter is that there is no evidence to establish that the officers had reason to believe the planned transaction actually occurred. This in turn means there is no factual basis for finding probable cause to believe Stotler’s truck would contain evidence of a crime. All we know is that Stotler got back in his truck, empty-handed, after a brief conversation with Childress, and when he started to leave, officers immediately blocked his exit and moved in to arrest him. He was searched and found in possession of $600 — six $100 bills — which was the purchase price for the 1,500 pseudoephedrine pills. All this suggests that the officers had reason to believe the planned transaction did not in fact occur, rather than the opposite.3
My colleagues have concluded that “the district judge was correct when she found that probable cause existed to search the truck because it was reasonable to believe that it contained evidence of, at the very least, an attempt to possess materials (pseudoephedrine) needed for making meth.” Maj. op. at 940. I disagree. First of all, the district judge did not find there was probable cause to believe the truck contained evidence of an attempt to possess meth-making materials. She entered a generic finding that there was probable cause to believe the truck would contain evidence of a crime without specifying what crime she had in mind. I suppose we can infer that it was either an attempt or a completed crime of pseudoephedrine possession, but the record doesn’t establish probable cause to believe that the truck would contain evidence of either.
*944First, it is hard to see how there could be probable cause to believe Stotler’s truck would contain evidence of a crime if (as my colleagues conclude) that crime was an attempt to possess pseudoephedrine. To state the obvious, if the crime was an attempt to possess pseudoephedrine, it means the drugs never changed hands; as such, there is no reason to believe that the drugs would be found in Stotler’s truck. And the record is insufficient to support probable cause to believe the truck would contain evidence of a completed act of pseudoephedrine possession because there is no evidence suggesting the officers had reason to believe the transfer of pseudoephedrine actually occurred. The bag of pills was large and highly visible; if it had actually changed hands and been placed in Stotler’s truck, the surveillance officers surely would have seen this. But they did not see this — nor did they see any activity that could reasonably be construed as a hand-to-hand drug transaction — because it did not occur.
It bears repeating that the officers were going to arrest Stotler on the 2006 warrant regardless of whether the transaction was completed, and at the time, they were authorized under Belton to search his truck incident to that arrest. And that’s what they did. But now, because of the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Gant, that basis for the search is no longer valid. An independent justification for the search is therefore required, and the record simply doesn’t supply it.
I appreciate that neither the police nor the prosecutors anticipated Gant; their conduct in the field and in the district court was obviously informed by the prevailing broad reading of Belton. But I cannot cobble together an alternative justification for this search based on what the government has given us. My colleagues suggest that if all else fails, we may affirm based on the inevitable-discovery doctrine. It is likely, they say, that Stotler’s truck would have been impounded after his arrest and an inventory search would have “naturally followed.” Maj. op. at 940. Perhaps so. But the government has never argued that admitting the evidence from this search was permissible based on inevitable discovery. It is the government’s burden to prove the elements of this doctrine, Nix. v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984); United States v. Marrocco, 578 F.3d 627, 638 (7th Cir.2009), and it made no record on this point in the district court. Nor, as I have noted, has the government even bothered to argue inevitable discovery on appeal.4 It is axiomatic that arguments not raised on appeal are waived. O’Neal v. City of Chicago, 588 F.3d 406, 409 (7th Cir.2009); United States v. Johnson, 335 F.3d 589, 592 (7th Cir.2003). This rule applies to the government too.5

. I agree with my colleagues that Stotler's evidentiary argument based on Rule 404(b) is meritless.

. Gant applies here because it was decided while this case was on direct review. Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 322, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987).

. As my colleagues point out, after Stotler was arrested and the search of his truck had begun, Childress explained to the officers that the transaction had not in fact been completed because Stotler was not sure the pills were usable and wanted to go to a Wal-Mart to check their ingredients before making the purchase.

. Neither has the government raised the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule as a basis to affirm. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984).

. There is some evidence in the suppression-hearing record that might have bolstered the case for probable cause had the government developed it. Agent Knox offered brief testimony about information he had from a confidential informant named David Mann about Stotler's meth-dealing activities in the month of April 2007, just a few weeks before the search of Stotler’s truck. The district court did not mention this testimony, and the government did not raise it on appeal as either additional or alternative support for affirming *945the court’s denial of Stotler's suppression motion.