United States v. Antonio Miller

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedApril 15, 2020
Docket18-4796
StatusUnpublished

This text of United States v. Antonio Miller (United States v. Antonio Miller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth 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. Antonio Miller, (4th Cir. 2020).

Opinion

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-4796

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ANTONIO MILLER,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina at Aiken. Mary G. Lewis, District Judge. (1:17-cr-00770-MGL-1)

Argued: January 31, 2020 Decided: April 15, 2020

Before KEENAN, HARRIS, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Judge Harris wrote the opinion, in which Judge Keenan and Judge Quattlebaum joined.

ARGUED: Emily Deck Harrill, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant. Thomas Ernest Booth, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Brian A. Benczkowski, Assistant Attorney General, Matthew S. Miner, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Appellate Section, Criminal Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C.; Sherri A. Lydon, United States Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, J.D. Rowell, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Denver, Colorado, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

2 PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge:

In 2008, Antonio Miller and a group of co-conspirators participated in the

early-morning robbery, torture, and murder of a rival drug trafficker. Later that day, police

officers visited Miller’s home in response to an unrelated complaint that Miller’s wife had

not returned a rental car on time. Warrantless searches of two cars parked beside Miller’s

home uncovered guns and a large bag of crack cocaine. Officers then obtained a warrant

to search Miller’s home, and discovered guns, drugs, ammunition, and blood-caked shoes

that linked Miller to his rival’s murder. Using that evidence, federal authorities brought

criminal charges against Miller. Miller pleaded guilty on all counts, but reserved the right

to appeal the district court’s decision declining to suppress the evidence obtained from the

car and home searches.

In this appeal, Miller argues – for the first time – that the evidence seized from the

cars on his property and from his home should have been suppressed because the officers

unlawfully intruded on the curtilage of his home before conducting the searches. He also

argues that even if the officers’ entry onto his property was constitutional, the evidence

obtained from his home should have been suppressed because the warrant application

failed to establish a nexus between his home and any criminal activity. We conclude that

Miller cannot prevail on either argument and thus affirm his convictions.

3 I.

A.

In early 2008, Miller became involved in a conspiracy to manufacture and distribute

crack cocaine in Columbia, South Carolina. 1 Later that summer, Miller persuaded his

co-conspirators that the group should rob Fred Tucker, a drug dealer known to Miller from

a prior stint in prison who also happened to be a cousin of one of Miller’s co-conspirators,

Melvin Cummings. And so, in the early morning hours of September 15, 2008, Miller and

three co-conspirators drove from Columbia to Tucker’s home in Aiken, South Carolina.

Upon arriving, they broke into the residence, forced Tucker to strip at gunpoint, and bound

him with duct tape. The conspirators then interrogated Tucker about the location of drugs

and cash in his home, burning him repeatedly with a flat-head screwdriver and firing

multiple shots into a wall in his home. As the conspirators finally left the home, Miller

shot Tucker in the chest.

For their drive to Tucker’s home, the conspirators used a green Ford Taurus

previously rented by Miller’s wife, Deidre King. On the morning of Tucker’s murder,

Jeffrey Day, a manager at the auto rental company, noticed that the rental car was overdue

for return. Using a global positioning system (“GPS”) device attached to the car, Day

determined that it had been driven to Aiken, miles away from his company’s location in

Columbia. Day called the Richland County Sheriff’s Department (“RCSD”) and reported

1 Because we are reviewing a denial of a motion to suppress, we recount the relevant facts in the light most favorable to the government. See United States v. Jones, 942 F.3d 634, 637 (4th Cir. 2019).

4 that King had breached her rental contract. He also provided information about Miller,

King, and the rental car, including King’s address – 5520 North Main Street – and stated

that Miller sometimes paid for and drove the rental car in King’s stead. Hours later, Day

was able to report to RCSD that the car had been driven back to Columbia and that the GPS

put it near King’s home.

At that point, RCSD officers began the response that set the stage for Miller’s

suppression motion. From a “staging area” near King’s address, they could see a green car

matching Day’s description parked against the rear portion of the residence. As they drove

to Miller’s house, they saw a car driven by Cummings turn into Miller’s driveway, then

stop directly behind the rental car, within the curtilage of Miller’s home. 2 The officers

followed Cummings’s car into the driveway and parked their patrol car.

The officers then immediately approached a small group of people standing near the

rental car and asked whether King and Miller were present. When nobody spoke up, the

officers asked for identification so they could determine whether the rental car’s driver was

present. They also noted that the rental car’s appearance, license plate, and vehicle

identification number matched the information provided by Day. Eventually, each member

of the group gave the officers a name and date of birth, save Cummings, who provided his

driver’s license. A database search revealed that Cummings had a suspended driver’s

2 While the district court did not make an express finding that the cars were parked within the curtilage, the government does not contest this fact. Accordingly, we deem it admitted for purposes of this appeal. Cf. United States v. Foreman, 369 F.3d 776, 778 n.1 (4th Cir. 2004).

5 license and that one other member of the group – later confirmed to be Miller – had

provided a false identity. This prompted the officers to place Cummings under arrest and

to question Miller further about his identity.

Then came two automobile searches, including the search of the rental car. While

the officers were processing Cummings’s arrest, they saw Miller walk over to Cummings’s

car and get inside of it. The officers quickly removed Miller from Cummings’s car and

briefly searched it, discovering two handguns that Cummings identified as belonging to

Miller. To secure any additional weapons that might be on the scene, the officers then

searched the rental car. Immediately upon opening the door, they saw a plastic bag

containing a large amount of crack cocaine.

The officers continued their investigation, speaking separately with the group

members and then contacting certain drug informants and the police in Aiken County,

where Tucker was murdered. When the officers discovered that Cummings was related to

Tucker and had been named as a person of interest in his death, they prepared an application

for a search warrant for King and Miller’s home.

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