State v. Lee

124 So. 3d 1282, 13 La.App. 3 Cir. 500, 2013 WL 6001347, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 2332
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 13, 2013
DocketNo. 13-500
StatusPublished

This text of 124 So. 3d 1282 (State v. Lee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Lee, 124 So. 3d 1282, 13 La.App. 3 Cir. 500, 2013 WL 6001347, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 2332 (La. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

COOKS, Judge.

|2In this criminal appeal, Defendant asserts ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to file a motion to suppress the fruits of a warrantless search of the residence where he was detained. Defendant was eventually found guilty of the charges of creation or operation of a clandestine lab for the unlawful manufacture of a controlled dangerous substance and public intimidation.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On February 12, 2011, Captain Shawn Eckhart, with criminal investigations for the Evangeline Parish Sheriffs Department, received “several different phone calls from anonymous callers” that led him to investigate Defendant, Robert Lee. He became aware that Defendant purchased pseudoephedrine, “a known precursor for methamphetamine,” on February 11, 2012. Captain Eckhart and Detective Joey Pele-quin went to Turkey Creek, Louisiana. They also received a tip that Defendant might be in a Ford F-150 truck. The officers located the vehicle parked at a residence next door to the home of Defendant’s father. The truck belonged to Kimberly Campbell.

The officers left the residence, and when they returned, the truck was gone. They went to a residence on Crooked Creek Parkway owned by Randy Cole around midnight to 1:00 a.m. and found the vehicle parked there. They knocked on the door of the residence, and Defendant answered. Captain Eckhart identified Defendant at trial.

Captain Eckhart’s investigation revealed other occupants of the house had also purchased pseudoephedrine within twenty-four hours of this incident. It was believed the suspects would be making methamphetamine, but the officers did not know prior to arrival at Cole’s residence if the suspects would make it there, at Defendant’s residence, or elsewhere.

| .¡Defendant “seemed a little bit uncooperative with the questions” the officers asked. “He attempted to shut the door on [them] several times and Detective Pele-quin noticed that he was wearing a batting glove and he also had what appeared to be a sheath protruding from the side of his belt with — a knife.” Captain Eckhart noted the “shake and bake” process produces heat.

Captain Eckhart became aware of an odor “consistent with a meth lab, or that of the metallic smell.” After seeing the knife sheath and noticing the odor, they con[1285]*1285ducted a safety pat down of Defendant, who was uncooperative with simple questions and had slurred speech. Captain Eekhart went to the rear of the residence to secure the back door, which Detective Pelequin noticed was open. He saw “a small, green in color Sprite like bottle sitting on the back concrete area of the back door,” about two or three feet from the door. Its contents were bubbling, and Captain Eekhart suspected the “shake and bake” method of cooking methamphetamine was taking place.

Detective Pelequin yelled into the residence for the owner, and he came downstairs. Captain Eekhart searched the house and found Campbell, Victoria Shaw, and Cole, the residence’s owner. In the kitchen, he found blenders, hydrogen peroxide, Drano, salt, and coffee filters. The blender contained a white powder residue.

The officers searched the home because they knew four people were involved, and they only had Defendant in their presence. If the others inside were making methamphetamine and “were to put that bottle on the floor and go hide somewhere else it’s a very, very good possibility that one of those bottles may burst and cause flames.” The search was conducted for the safety of the investigators as well as the occupants of the trailer. The officers did not find any other methamphetamine production taking place.

| ¿Detective Pelequin confirmed Captain Eckhart’s testimony. They saw the white pickup truck owned by Campbell at a residence “right at midnight.” On February 12, 2011, the department “had received numerous anonymous tips from different people about the subjects conducting their self [sic] in this illegal manner” at “a trailer house in Turkey Creek belonging to [Defendant].” They left the residence and arrived at 5799 Crooked Creek Parkway, Defendant’s residence, where they had been advised people were cooking methamphetamine. The white pickup was present.

Detective Pelequin and Captain Eekhart knocked on the door of the residence; they did not have a search warrant and normally did not for a “knock and talk.” Defendant answered the door and would not let them inside until the owner, Cole, agreed. Defendant tried to close the door; the officers wanted him to leave it open for safety reasons. They observed a knife sheath hanging from Defendant’s belt; Defendant reached for it when Detective Pelequin asked him about it. Detective Pelequin state he grabbed Defendant and did a weapons pat down.

When they removed Defendant from the doorway to do the pat down, Detective Pelequin could see “straight through the house” and Observed an open sliding glass door. He smelled a “pungent chemical odor ... a burning odor[.]” Detective Pe-lequiri and Captain Eekhart “were unsure if "there was anybody else, maybe somebody fled the scene, or was back there, so [Captain Eekhart] then proceeded around the residence to make sure there were no dangers there.” Captain Eekhart “found a green bottle that was bubbling and in [Detective Pelequin’s] training, that was consistent "with that of a shake and bake meth lab[.]” They were “unsure of anyone else being in the residence, or any other labs cooking inside the residence, so under the exited [sic] circumstances [they] entered the ^residence to clear it for [their] safety and whoever is in the residence safety.” Defendant was detained.

Captain Eekhart testified he attended classes on drug recognition and clandestine laboratories pertaining to methamphetamine labs in 2005. He had investigated approximately ten methamphetamine lab cases in Evangeline Parish at the time of trial. He described the odor associated with a metham[1286]*1286phetamine lab “as a heating metal, metallic type of smell.”

Captain Eckhart explained the easiest type of clandestine methamphetamine lab involves the “shake and bake method”:

With the shake and bake method usually takes some sort of sports drink bottle and they use that, and they actually mix their ingredients in that bottle, and then they will shake the contents of that bottle to get an end result of methamphetamine or crystal meth after a filtering process.

This is the “cooking” of the methamphetamine. Likewise, Detective Pelequin attended a methamphetamine lab investigations course in which he learned:

... to identify the different precursors, and what their, dangers were and basically you know, how to act when you got on the scene and what to do with the different things, who to contact to bring in to clean up the mess, and just what to look for, as far as for being evidence in a meth lab.

Defendant was charged with creation or operation of a clandestine lab for the unlawful manufacture of a controlled dangerous substance, a violation of La.R.S. 40:983(A)(1); resisting an officer, a violation of La.R.S. 14:108; simple criminal damage to property over $500, a violation of La.R.S. 14:56; and public intimidation, a violation of La.R.S. 14:122. All violations allegedly occurred on February 12, 2011. An amended bill of information, filed August 8, 2012, charged Defendant with creation or operation of a clandestine lab and public intimidation.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
124 So. 3d 1282, 13 La.App. 3 Cir. 500, 2013 WL 6001347, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 2332, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-lee-lactapp-2013.