Court Opinion

ID: 9490228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:36:46.44454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:57.966221
License: Public Domain

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Where an accused’s supposed consent to a police search of his person or property is at issue, the law is clear that the reviewing court must examine the totality of the circumstances to ensure that the consent was voluntarily given. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 227, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2047-48, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973). A court should consider (1) the personal characteristics of the accused, (2) the conditions under which the consent was obtained, and (3) whether the accused knew that he could lawfully withhold his consent. United States v. Lattimore, 87 F.3d 647, 650 (4th Cir.1996) (en banc).
In this ease, the court below has made specific findings regarding only the first of the three Lattimore factors, i.e., that Elie was a mature, intelligent, educated adult, who was not entirely unfamiliar with our criminal justice system. Confronted with the district court’s silence as to the second and third factors, the majority has deemed it appropriate to make its own findings. See ante at 1144-46. In the course of its assumption of the district court’s role, the majority has chosen to emphasize Elie’s relative sophistication, while simultaneously downplaying the manner in which the police ob*1147tained Elie’s consent to search his motel rooms.
The conduct of the police in this case was not up to standard. After Elie was handcuffed, Sgt. William Desmond asked him whether he would rather have the contents of his rooms “secured” by the motel management or by the police. The question is reminiscent of the hoary chestnut “When did you stop beating your wife?”; it relies on a wholly speculative assumption to guarantee the answer desired by the questioner. There was, of course, no reason for Desmond to presume that Elie would wish to have his possessions “secured” by anyone, or that Elie could not himself arrange for the security of his effects.
Under ordinary circumstances, Desmond’s concern for an arrestee’s possessions might have been laudable. But these were no ordinary circumstances. During the course of the investigation, Desmond learned (l)that Elie had made serious threats against officials of the Haitian embassy and (2)that he had ready access to firearms. It is certainly understandable that Desmond would be concerned that the targets of Elie’s threats were at considerable risk of bodily harm. Unfortunately, Desmond had no probable cause to believe that Elie had committed any firearms violations; he could arrest Elie only for assault and battery, a relatively minor charge that would ensure Elie’s detention for but a short while.
Viewed in the above light, one must acknowledge the probability that Desmond’s questioning was predesigned to trick Elie into granting the arresting officers permission to search his motel rooms for evidence of crimes more serious than that described in the arrest warrant.1 If Desmond were found to have engaged in a deliberate subterfuge, then that fact — either alone or in conjunction with the somewhat intimidating tactics used by the' police during the arrest — would support the conclusion that Elie, notwithstanding the evidence of his sophistication, did not voluntarily consent to the search.2
An accurate analysis under Lattimore depends, in this case, on an evaluation of the credibility of the government’s witnesses. The district court, unlike the majority, has observed the witnesses’ demeanor and has, no doubt, made a preliminary assessment of their credibility.
I would afford the district court the opportunity to perform its assigned role as the finder of fact. On remand, the court might well find that Elie, despite his apparent worldliness, did not voluntarily consent to the search of his motel rooms. The government could appeal such a finding, but we would be bound to let it stand unless it were clearly erroneous. Lattimore at 650-51. The majority has foreclosed this possibility by circumventing the long-settled practice of limited appellate review. Though I am certain that the majority intends nothing more than to achieve the just result in this ease, I cannot approve of its approach; our job is difficult enough without assuming the mantle of factfinder.
I respectfully dissent.

. Although I do not subscribe to the majority's conclusion that evidence may never be suppressed as the "fruit" of a Miranda violation, ante at 1140-43, I agree that the district court’s focus on Elie’s failure to receive Miranda warnings was misplaced in this case. In my view, Desmond would likely have tried to obtain Elie’s consent to search even had Elie, in response to Desmond’s unwarned questioning, denied having firearms in his motel rooms. It seems far more probable that the seized evidence were fruits of an invalid consent search than of the Miranda violation.

. The government has argued that the testimony and other evidence obtained from the firearms dealer, who was identified from receipts found in Elie’s rooms, would have been inevitably discovered as the result of Elie's mentioning the transactions during the course of his formal interrogation. The government has neglected to acknowledge the likelihood that, had the arresting officers not searched Elie’s motel rooms, he would have had no reason to refer to the firearms during his questioning.