State of Indiana v. Gregory Lagrone

985 N.E.2d 66, 2013 WL 1209570, 2013 Ind. App. LEXIS 137
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedMarch 26, 2013
Docket49A05-1203-CR-135
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 985 N.E.2d 66 (State of Indiana v. Gregory Lagrone) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State of Indiana v. Gregory Lagrone, 985 N.E.2d 66, 2013 WL 1209570, 2013 Ind. App. LEXIS 137 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

NAJAM, Judge.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE 1

The State charged Gregory Lagrone with one count of dealing in marijuana and one count of possession of marijuana, as Class D felonies. Lagrone filed a motion to suppress evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant that was obtained and executed after police had entered Lagrone’s residence and secured the premises. Following a hearing, the trial court granted the motion to suppress, effectively preventing prosecution of Lagrone. In the State’s appeal, we consider the following issues sua sponte:

1.Whether the insertion of a global positioning device (“GPS”) inside an already opened package of marijuana obtained from United Parcel Service (“UPS”) or the tracking of the package’s location via that device constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.
2. Whether the insertion of a “parcel wire” in the marijuana package or the monitoring of that device by police once Lagrone had carried the package into his home constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.

We also consider the following issue:

3. Whether the State’s warrantless entry into Lagrone’s home was justified under the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.

We affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On December 31, 2010, personnel from UPS alerted the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (“IMPD”) that they had found marijuana in a package that they were repackaging because the box had been damaged during shipping. IMPD officers from the Criminal Interdiction Unit, a branch of the narcotics division, retrieved the opened package containing marijuana from UPS and found that it was addressed to a “Michael Davis” at the address of the Wingate Hotel near West 71st Street and 1-465 in Indianapolis. The package contained three semitransparent, heat-sealed plastic bags of marijuana.

The officers took the package and its contents back to the police station; repackaged the marijuana with a GPS device and an electronic parcel wire; and affixed the original shipping label to the outside of the package. When affixed in a closed parcel, a parcel wire transmits “different *70 tones to alert law enforcement officers that the device is working, is moving, and when the parcel is opened.” Appellant’s App. at 17. The parcel wire is tripped when light is let inside the package. The alarm sounds only on the receiver, not on the parcel wire itself.

Officer Scott Wildauer went to the Win-gate Hotel and spoke with the desk clerk, who said that no one by the name of Michael Davis was registered there. However, the clerk said that someone had phoned to say that he was expecting a delivery and asked to be called when a package arrived. After back-up officers were dispatched to the hotel, Officer Wil-dauer, acting as a hotel employee, called the number provided by the caller and said that a package had arrived. Lagrone arrived in a Jaguar at 12:15 p.m., a few minutes after that call. He picked up the package in the hotel lobby, returned to his car with it, and drove away. At that point, officers knew neither Lagrone’s identity nor his destination, so surveillance officers followed Lagrone’s Jaguar by car, watching him and tracking the package via the GPS tracking device.

Lagrone proceeded at a high rate of speed to his home, a split-level house at 4381 Dunsany Court in Indianapolis. The trip took approximately ten minutes, and he took the package with him inside when he arrived. Within a few minutes of his arrival, the parcel wire indicated that the package had been opened. Officers sur-veilling the house knocked and announced themselves as police, but no one answered the door.

Officers became concerned that Lagrone might attempt to dispose of the marijuana because the presence of the parcel wire would make police involvement “plainfully [sic] obvious” once the package was open. May 25 Transcript at 62. Therefore, when no one answered the door, they forced the door open, entered the home, and secured it for people and weapons. Upon securing the home, officers found Lagrone in the upstairs hallway and ordered him to the ground. They found an open pocketknife underneath him, and the package was on the bed in a nearby bedroom. Also in the home were Lagrone’s three children, who were twelve, fourteen, and fifteen years old. After securing the home, officers applied for and obtained a warrant to search Lagrone’s home. A judge signed the warrant at 3:36 p.m. that afternoon, and the officers received the warrant and began executing it around 4:00 p.m.

The State charged Lagrone with dealing in marijuana and possession of marijuana, as Class D felonies. Lagrone filed a motion to suppress evidence. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing on that motion on May 25 and November 2, 2011. On February 22, 2012, the court entered its order granting the motion to suppress. Because the suppression of evidence effectively prevents prosecution of this case, the State now appeals. See Ind.Code § 35-38-4-2(5).

DISCUSSION AND DECISION

Standard of Review

Upon reviewing a motion to suppress, we do not reweigh the evidence or judge the credibility of witnesses but instead consider all uncontroverted evidence together with the conflicting evidence that supports the trial court’s decision. McDermott v. State, 877 N.E.2d 467, 471 (Ind.Ct.App.2007) (citation omitted), trans. denied. A trial court has broad discretion in ruling on the admissibility of evidence, and we will disturb its ruling only where it is shown that the trial court abused that discretion. Id. (citation omitted). An abuse of discretion occurs if the decision is against the logic and effect of the facts and *71 circumstances before the court. Id. (citation omitted).

We review a trial court’s ruling on the constitutionality of a search or seizure de novo. State v. Peters, 921 N.E.2d 861, 866 (Ind.Ct.App.2010) (citing Campos v. State, 885 N.E.2d 590, 596 (Ind.2008)). However, deference is given to a trial court’s determination of the facts, which will not be overturned unless clearly erroneous. Id. A reviewing court looks to the totality of the circumstances and considers all un-controverted evidence together with conflicting evidence that supports the- trial court’s decision. Id.

When the State appeals the trial court’s grant of a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence, the State is appealing from a negative judgment and therefore has the burden to demonstrate that the measures it used to seize the evidence were constitutional. Nolan v. City of Indianapolis, 933 N.E.2d 894, 898 (Ind.Ct.App.2010) (citation omitted), trans. denied..

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Bluebook (online)
985 N.E.2d 66, 2013 WL 1209570, 2013 Ind. App. LEXIS 137, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-indiana-v-gregory-lagrone-indctapp-2013.