State of Iowa v. Jesus Angel Ramirez

895 N.W.2d 884, 2017 WL 2291388, 2017 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 57
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedMay 25, 2017
Docket15–1807
StatusPublished
Cited by88 cases

This text of 895 N.W.2d 884 (State of Iowa v. Jesus Angel Ramirez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State of Iowa v. Jesus Angel Ramirez, 895 N.W.2d 884, 2017 WL 2291388, 2017 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 57 (iowa 2017).

Opinions

MANSFIELD, Justice.

Federal agents intercepted a package containing a hidden cache of methamphetamine as it entered this country from Mexico. A federal agent then decided to make a controlled delivery of the package to its intended recipient in Waterloo, Iowa. He obtained from a federal magistrate judge a federal “anticipatory” search warrant authorizing a search to be conducted once the package reached its intended recipient.

With assistance from local law enforcement, federal agents proceeded with the controlled delivery. The--.recipient of the package was detained and federal agents searched his apartment. Ultimately, the federal government decided to turn the case over to Iowa for prosecution, and the recipient of the package was convicted in the Black Hawk County District Court of possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and drug stamp violations. See Iowa Code. § 124.401(1)(6)(7); id. § 453B.12 (2014).

The defendant now appeals, arguing among other things that Iowa’s search warrant statutes do not authorize anticipatory warrants. We agree, but hold that where the federal government conducts a search pursuant to a valid federal search wairant for purposes of a federal investigation, the mere fact that such a warrant would not have been statutorily authorized in Iowa does not compel the results of the search to be suppressed in the Iowa courts. For this reason, and because we also find the defendant’s other claims of error to be without merit, we affirm the defendant’s conviction and sentence.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

On May 15, 2014, a package shipped from Mexico and destined for Waterloo arrived in this country at the FedEx hub in Memphis, Tennessee. It was addressed to Jessy Robles, 1013 Mulberry Street, Waterloo, and contained a phone number for contact purposes with a 319 area code.

United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers opened and inspected the parcel on arrival in Memphis. They found that it contained three heavy mirrors. Inside the mirror frames they discovered approximately one to two pounds of an unknown white substance. Upon field testing, the substance turned out to be methamphetamine.

A CBP officer in Memphis contacted Tyler Mower, a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent based in Cedar Rapids. HSI is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security and investigates “anything that comes in or out of the country illegally.” Mower agreed to perform a controlled delivery of the package to its intended recipient. Accordingly, the package was forwarded by FedEx to Mower’s office in Cedar Rapids.

Once Agent Mower received the package, he and other HSI agents reopened and reinspected it. The declared value of the mirrors was $90, whereas Mower determined from FedEx that the shipping charge alone would have been between [887]*887$170 and $225. The HSI agents confirmed the presence of the methamphetamine.

Mower performed a records check through Waterloo police. He determined that an individual named Jesus Angel Ramirez, currently on parole, had the same cell phone number listed as the contact number on the package and lived at 1013 Mulberry Street, #2. Additionally, the records check revealed that Ramirez used several different aliases including Jose Robles and Jesse Ramirez.

Agent Mower decided that Ramirez was the intended recipient of the package and made plans to proceed with the controlled delivery. On May 16, Mower applied for an anticipatory search warrant with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. The application was reviewed by a federal magistrate judge in Cedar Rapids and approved at approximately 10:21 a.m. The warrant was based on the following condition precedent:

CONDITION PRECEDENT FOR ANTICIPATORY SEARCH WARRANT!;]
... The search warrant will be executed only upon satisfaction of a condition precedent described as follows: The parcel will be delivered to 1013 Mulberry Street, Apartment 2, Waterloo, Iowa, with delivery being completed only when accepted by a person. The package will not be left on the porch or outside this residence. Once delivery of the parcel has been accepted by a person, I believe probable cause exists to believe the items listed on Attachment B will be located in 1013 Mulberry Street, Apartment 2, and the condition precedent for executing the search warrant will have been met.

After obtaining the search warrant, Mower and three other HSI agents drove from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo with the package, which they had repacked. A postal inspector also' placed a transmitter inside the package that would alert agents once the package had been opened. In Waterloo, the HSI agents met with members of the Tri-County Drug Enforcement Task Force, a group of state law enforcement officials, to assist with the controlled delivery. These members included Jason Feaker, the lieutenant in the Waterloo police department whom Mower had spoken with when performing the records check the previous day.

It was determined that Nicholas Berry, a' Waterloo police officer and member of the task force, would pose as a FedEx delivery person and make the actual delivery. Meanwhile, the HSI agents and other members of the Tri-County Task Force would perform surveillance.

That afternoon, .Berry walked into the apartment building and knocked on the door of Apartment #2, the closest door to the building’s main entrance. A man opened the door, indicated he was expecting the package, and confirmed to Berry that he was Robles, later identified as the defendant, Jesus Ramirez. Ramirez accepted the package and signed for it as “Jesse Robles” on a waybill used by Officer Berry. Berry then left the apartment building.

The plan had been to wait for the transmitter in the package to be triggered. Within a few minutes, though, Ramirez was spotted exiting the apartment, walking around to the front of the apartment, looking around, and then returning inside. A woman was observed leaving the apartment around the same time. Several minutes later, Ramirez again came out of the apartment, taking a bag of trash to a dumpster. Shortly after that, . Ramirez departed from the apartment a third time and began walking toward downtown Waterloo,

[888]*888Two HSI agents followed Ramirez and detained him. Ramirez was later placed under arrest and Mirandized. When questioned, Ramirez denied knowing anything about the package even when confronted with the facts that he had signed for it and his name and phone number were listed on the package.

Once Ramirez had been detained, Mower decided to execute the warrant. Task Force members had been assigned to do the initial entry. They approached the apartment, announced their presence, and forced their way in. They found the apartment empty and the package sitting on a bed, unopened. After the Task Force members had secured the residence, HSI agents conducted the search pursuant to the warrant. HSI agents seized various documents connecting Jose Robles and Jesus Ramirez to the 1013 Mulberry, Apartment #2 residence. One of the documénts also showed Ramirez as having the same 319 area code number contained on the FedEx package.

Other than the package itself, HSI took the items seized pursuant to the warrant into its custody. HSI allowed the package and its contents to be turned over to the Task Force so testing could be performed by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
895 N.W.2d 884, 2017 WL 2291388, 2017 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 57, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-iowa-v-jesus-angel-ramirez-iowa-2017.