Court Opinion

ID: 9471602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:36:41.070221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:29.452308
License: Public Domain

FLOYD R. GIBSON,
Senior Circuit Judge, concurring in the result.
While I concur in the result upholding Fitzgerald’s conviction based upon the admission of the guns seized from her residence, I would reach that result by applying the widely adopted inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule. Although the record shows the guns were actually seized pursuant to the partially invalid federal search warrant, they were nevertheless admissible against Fitzgerald because they could have been discovered while the officers were executing the valid state search warrant authorizing the search of Fitzgerald’s residence for suspected controlled substances.
In the original panel opinion, I applied the inevitable discovery exception to uphold the convictions of Apker, Davenport, and Gearhart, finding that the guns admitted against them could have been discovered pursuant to independently obtained valid state search warrants authorizing the search of their residences for “suspected controlled substances.” In Fitzgerald’s case, however, I refrained from applying the inevitable discovery exception to permit the admission of the guns discovered at her residence, finding no evidence of an independent state search warrant for her residence. See United States v. Apker, 705 F.2d at 306-07.
Upon reviewing the record again, I realized that there was a valid state search warrant authorizing the search for drugs at Fitzgerald’s residence (Government exhibit # 7). The state search warrant was based upon Omaha Narcotics Officer Tomschecks’ observation of suspected controlled substances shortly after he and three other officers arrived at Fitzgerald’s residence to execute the federal arrest and search warrants. In his affidavit in support of the state search warrant, Officer Tomscheck stated that while he was serving the “Federal Search Warrant”, he observed “one metal vial containing suspected cocaine residue and one cocaine metal tooter” on the top of a bedstand in Fitzgerald’s bedroom. At the suppression hearing, Tomscheck testified that he first observed the vial and tooter on the bedstand while he was conducting a “sweep search” (i.e., a search for persons who might present a security risk) incident to the execution of the federal arrest warrant. (See suppression hearing transcript 65-68).
The validity of the state search warrant, and hence the propriety of admitting the guns under the inevitable discovery exception, depends upon whether Tomscheck saw the suspected cocaine residue while conducting the legitimate sweep search incident to the arrest or while executing the partially invalid federal indicia search warrant.* If Officer Tomscheck had seen the suspected cocaine residue during the sweep search, then the state search warrant would have been valid and the guns would have been admissible under the inevitable discovery exception. See Apker, 705 F.2d at 306-07. However, if he had seen these items while executing the invalid federal indicia search warrant, the state search warrant would have been invalid as “the *639fruit of the poisonous tree” — the poisonous tree being the invalid federal search warrant.
The district judge’s findings on the validity of the state search warrant are instructive. The trial judge initially concluded that the state search warrants for all of the defendant’s residences were not the “fruit of the poisonous tree” because the federal indicia search warrants were valid. (Designated Record at 40). He then alternatively found that even if the federal search warrants were invalid, the state search warrants, including the one issued for Fitzgerald’s residence, were still valid because they were based upon the observation of “suspected controlled substances” during the course of sweep searches incident to the execution of the arrest warrants. (Des.Rec. at 40 n. 2). Officer Tomschecks’ suppression hearing testimony supports this finding as it applies to Fitzgerald’s case. (SH 65-68). Moreover, it is certainly reasonable to infer that Tomscheck could have observed the suspected cocaine residue on the top of the bedstand while he was conducting a legitimate sweep search of Fitzgerald’s bedroom.
Thus, because the state search warrant for Fitzgerald’s residence was valid, being based upon Tomschecks’ plain view observation during the legitimate sweep search, the three guns found in Fitzgerald’s apartment would be admissible under the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule. My conclusion here is of course based upon the assumption that the officers would have discovered all three guns while they were searching for controlled substances under the valid state search warrant. I would therefore affirm Fitzgerald’s conviction without applying the plain view-severance approach to the partially invalid indi-cia warrants.

 Under the majority’s plain view-severance approach, this inquiry would be of academic interest only. First, the plain view-severance approach justifies the eventual seizure of the guns regardless of the validity of the state search warrant. Second, even considering the validity of state search warrant, the officer’s plain view observations would provide a valid basis for the issuance of the state search warrant for drugs regardless of whether those observations were made during the execution of the valid federal arrest warrant or during the execution of the partially invalid federal search warrant. Since Officer Tomscheck clearly observed the suspected cocaine residue “in a place where one would reasonably have expected [him] to look in the process of searching for the objects described in the sufficiently particular portions of the [indicia] warrant”, (at 637) the state search warrant would not be the fruit of any poisonous tree.