United States v. Biggs

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: April 2, 2025
• Docket: 24-2091
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 2 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-2091 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 1:22-cr-00130-SPW-1 v. MEMORANDUM* ROBERT EARL BIGGS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Montana Susan P. Watters, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 28, 2025** Seattle, Washington

Before: McKEOWN, GOULD, and OWENS, Circuit Judges.

Robert Earl Biggs appeals from the district court’s denial of his motion to

suppress statements he made to police and evidence seized from his hotel room,

which he argues were obtained in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). We review the district court’s conclusions of law regarding a motion to suppress de

novo, and its factual determinations for clear error. United States v. McCarty, 648

F.3d 820, 824 (9th Cir. 2011). As the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not

recount them here. We affirm.

1. The police acted with probable cause and under exigent circumstances

when they entered Biggs’s hotel room and seized him without a warrant. See

United States v. Brooks, 367 F.3d 1128, 1133 (9th Cir. 2004) (summarizing legal

requirements for warrantless searches and seizures). First, the substantial and

consistent information that police obtained from a reliable informant, the hotel

clerk, and two of Biggs’s alleged runners—both of whom were found in possession

of drugs and drug distribution paraphernalia—made it fairly probable that Biggs

possessed controlled substances in his hotel room. Id. at 1134 (“[P]robable cause

does not require a certainty, only a fair probability or a substantial chance that

criminal activity took place.”).

Second, exigent circumstances—specifically, “[p]reventing the imminent

destruction of evidence”—made the warrantless entry objectively reasonable under

the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Iwai, 930 F.3d 1141, 1144 (9th Cir.

2019). The record clearly establishes that Biggs opened his hotel room door just

long enough to see police searching his vehicle and speaking with one of his

runners before retreating inside. Under these circumstances, officers reasonably

2 24-2091 feared that Biggs would destroy evidence of his criminal activity before they could

obtain a warrant to search the hotel room. See United States v. McLaughlin, 525

F.2d 517, 521 (9th Cir. 1975) (holding “substantial risk that evidence would be

removed or destroyed” justified entry once suspects “discover[ed] that they were

under surveillance”); Iwai, 930 F.3d at 1145 (holding exigent circumstances arose

in part because officers suspected the destruction of evidence upon seeing

defendant retreat into his home). Thus, police did not violate the Fourth

Amendment when they entered and seized Biggs from his hotel room.

2. Biggs waived his Miranda rights by speaking with officers after receiving

the appropriate warning. A “waiver of Miranda rights may be implied through

‘the defendant’s silence, coupled with an understanding of his rights and a course

of conduct indicating waiver.’” Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370, 384 (2010)

(citing North Carolina v. Butler, 441 U.S. 369, 373 (1979)). Here, Detective

Hallam Mirandized Biggs, confirmed Biggs’s understanding of his rights, and

summarized the investigation into Biggs’s drug distribution. Biggs then stated his

desire to cooperate with police. When Detective Hallam’s questioning began

about five minutes later, Biggs answered his questions. The district court did not

clearly err in holding that Biggs’s course of conduct indicated waiver and thus his

3 24-2091 statements to Detective Hallam need not be suppressed.1

3. Biggs did not unambiguously invoke his right to counsel. Law

enforcement must cease questioning a suspect who has clearly asserted his right to

counsel. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 473–74 (1966). But to trigger this

protection, a suspect’s invocation of his right to counsel “must [be] unambiguous[]

. . . .” Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 459 (1994). Here, the district court

concluded that an ordinary person would interpret Biggs’s statements—“[W]hat

about an attorney? Would an attorney be better?”—as seeking advice on whether

he should have an attorney present, not as unambiguously asking for one. We

agree that a “reasonable officer . . . would have understood only that [Biggs] might

be invoking [his] right to counsel,” and thus Detective Hallam was not required by

the Fifth Amendment to cease his interrogation. Id.

4. Lastly, the officers’ brief entries into Biggs’s hotel room to secure the

premises and retrieve Biggs’s companion’s belongings (at her request) were not

searches requiring a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. See United States v.

Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 408 n.5 (2012) (“Trespass alone does not qualify [as a

search], but there must be conjoined with that . . . an attempt to find something or

1 Biggs also argues the search warrant that police later obtained for his hotel room would lack probable cause if his statements to Detective Hallam were suppressed. Because we hold that these statements were legally obtained, however, Biggs’s challenge to the search warrant also fails.

4 24-2091 to obtain information.”); Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 334-35 (1990)

(recognizing that certain quick and limited protective sweeps of premises do not

require a warrant under the Fourth Amendment). And even if they were, Biggs

failed to point to any evidence obtained during those entries for this court to

suppress. Thus, his motion to suppress based on those entries was correctly

denied.

AFFIRMED.

5 24-2091