United States v. Alexis Perez

629 F. App'x 699
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedOctober 23, 2015
Docket14-3794
StatusUnpublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 629 F. App'x 699 (United States v. Alexis Perez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Alexis Perez, 629 F. App'x 699 (6th Cir. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

ARTHUR J. TARNOW, Senior District Judge.

Alexis Perez appeals his conviction and sentence for five heroin offenses. The district court sentenced Defendant to 240 months of imprisonment. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM Defendant’s convictions and sentence.

I. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On June 27, 2012, the Government indicted Defendant, along with eleven other co-defendants, 1 for (I) conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A); (II) & (III) possession with intent to distribute heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C); (TV) possession with intent to distribute heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B); and (V) aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B); (IX) use of a communication facility to facilitate a drug trafficking offense, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b).

*701 Defendant filed a pro se motion to suppress the evidence and statements collected during the search and seizure at the residence' on the ground that the warrant’s subject was never named or positively identified, but only referred to by an alias. The district court construed three additional grounds: (1) there was no probable cause to search the residence or Defendant’s person; (2) the police unconstitutionally detained Defendant while executing the search warrant; and (3) Defendant’s statements were taken in violation of Miranda. The district court denied the motion except as to one self-incriminating statement made to Detective Greg Wilson. A jury subsequently convicted Defendant and the district court sentenced him pursuant to an enhanced minimum.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In April 2009, the Mahoning Valley Task Force began investigating a suspected drug dealer known as “Scar.” When Has-san Floyd was arrested on drug trafficking and RICO charges, he offered to cooperate with police and provide information about “Scar.” With Floyd’s assistance, the Task Force executed two controlled buys, on May 8, 2009 and May 12, 2009. In both instances, Floyd purchased small quantities of heroin from “Scar.”

After failing to learn the dealer’s legal name, Officer Randall Williams applied for and received a search warrant for (1) “ ‘FNU’ ‘LNU’ 2 AKA ‘Scar’ male, Hispanic 5' 10" 185 lbs. with black hair,” and (2) the “premises known as 2211 Glenwood Avenue.”

Police executed both the personal and residential components of the search warrant on May 14, 2009. While preparing to execute the search warrant for the Glen-wood residence, law enforcement main-tamed surveillance on 2211 Glenwood Avenue. Before police executed the warrant, surveillance witnessed a man and a woman exit the residence. Id. The woman (later identified as Rachel Diaz, Perez’s girlfriend) entered the driver’s seat of a gray vehicle, and the male (later identified as Perez) sat in the passenger seat.

Police, including Officer Williams, started to follow the vehicle after it was “[a] couple of blocks” away from the residence. The car first went to Gina’s Drive-Thru, located north of the Glenwood residence, and the police continued to follow as it traveled southbound on Glenwood Avenue back toward the premises at issue. At this point, police were executing a search warrant at the residence and official vehicles were visibly around the house. At this point, surveillance observed Defendant’s car turn away from the residence and onto Lake Drive. Defendant was driving away from the residence when the police stopped the vehicle. The police justified the stop on the basis of the warrant for “Scar’s” person, not on any purported traffic violation.

During the traffic stop, officers took Perez out of the car, patted him down, and handcuffed him. During the search, the police confiscated money, keys, and cell phones found on Perez’s person. The police called the phone number used to set up the controlled buys with “Scar,” and one of the confiscated phones rang. After the search, police placed Perez, still handcuffed, in the back of a police cruiser. At trial, police testified that Perez was not free to leave, but that he was not under arrest at this point.

Both Perez and Rachel Diaz were driven back to the Glenwood residence. Police had already begun their search of the Glenwood residence when Officer Williams *702 arrived with Perez. Initially, police held Perez on the porch for ten to fifteen minutes. They then transferred Perez to the room where they were collecting and cata-loguing inventory. Officer Robin Lees explained that his department purposely “seat[s] the suspect in the investigation” in the area where the evidence acquired during the execution of the search warrant is assembled. Law enforcement did not read Perez his Miranda rights. At this point, Perez allegedly made his first incriminating statement: that the heroin the police found in the house belonged to him.

Officer Lees testified that Defendant became loud and belligerent in the inventory room, so he transferred Perez to the Ma-honing Valley Task Force Office. During the transport, Defendant made further incriminating admissions. He confessed that the heroin at the Glenwood residence belonged to him and that he sold heroin because a disability prevented him from working.

At the task force office, Lees placed Defendant in an interview room. Lees did not activate the room’s audio and video recording systems. Perez then made another incriminating statement. Specifically, he talked about his heroin connections to New York and his practice of only selling to adult customers. At some point, Detective Greg Wilson arrived and entered the interview room. Defendant asked Detective Wilson about Rachel Diaz and insisted she did not know about the heroin trafficking. At no point did officers read Defendant his Miranda warnings.

Several years after state law enforcement arrested Defendant, the federal law enforcement became involved in this case through the investigation of suspected drug dealer John Perdue. The FBI learned that Perdue bought heroin from Tyrone Gilbert. This investigation led to a search of a home on Brentwood Avenue that belonged to John Helms, Gilbert’s uncle. Law enforcement found three individuals in the home: Helms, Defendant, and Sylvester Cox. When police entered the home, Helms “sprang up,” “ran towards the dining room area,” and barricaded himself in the bathroom with multiple packages of heroin. Perez was in a bedroom in.the northwest of the house. He had no drugs on his person, and cooperated with officers during the search.

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Bluebook (online)
629 F. App'x 699, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-alexis-perez-ca6-2015.