United States v. Darryl Smith

387 F. App'x 918
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 20, 2010
Docket09-16168
StatusUnpublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 387 F. App'x 918 (United States v. Darryl Smith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh 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. Darryl Smith, 387 F. App'x 918 (11th Cir. 2010).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Darryl Smith pled guilty to possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), pursuant to a plea agreement in which he reserved the right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. We find no merit in his challenge to the district court’s ruling and therefore affirm.

I.

Several weeks prior to May 9, 2009, Scott Heath, an officer of the Tallahassee, Florida Police Department cross-assigned to a DEA task force, installed a GPS data-logging device on Smith’s Cadillac Esca-lade. 1 Smith was suspected of trafficking marijuana, obtaining the drug from California for distribution in Tallahassee and South Georgia, and was under the task force’s surveillance. On May 8, a Friday, Heath decided to remove the GPS device from the Escalade, and at 3:45 a.m. the next morning, Officer Corbitt and another officer went to Smith’s residence. 2 They found the Escalade parked in the driveway leading to the residence. 3 As they walked toward the Escalade from the street, they detected a strong odor of raw, green marijuana; the odor became stronger as they neared the vehicle. A drug dog was brought to the scene, and immediately alerted, indicating a large quantity of marijuana. At this point, the DEA took over and prepared an application for a search warrant. 4

Meanwhile, at 11:50 a.m., a DEA agent observed Smith leaving his residence in the Escalade. A plan to have the vehicle stopped for a traffic violation was implemented. Christopher White, a Florida Department of Transportation officer attached to the DEA task force spotted the Escalade and followed it. After observing that the tinting of the Escalade’s windows was illegal — it was too dark — he activated his vehicle’s blue lights and signaled the Escalade to stop. Smith pulled over in front of a restaurant, parked and locked the Escalade, and fled the scene on foot. White apprehended him 150-200 yards away. He smelled of marijuana. White searched him for the keys to the Escalade but did not find them.

Once Smith was in custody, DEA agents secured his residence. Two women were inside. The agents swept the residence for the presence of others and in the process observed marijuana stems and seeds in the breakfast area, a large bag of marijuana on the floor of one room, and another bag of marijuana in an open closet in the same room.

Following his indictment, Smith moved the district court to suppress the marijuana evidence seized from his residence and the Escalade. He argued that the law enforcement officers conducted a warrant- *920 less search of the Escalade by retrieving the GPS device while the vehicle was parked in his driveway, and that they conducted a warrantless search of his residence prior to the issuance of the search warrant for the residence.

The district court, following an eviden-tiary hearing, denied Smith’s motion. It found that the GPS device was installed in a public place; that, on May 9, the officers, while standing in the street, detected an “overwhelming smell of marijuana,” which gave them probable cause to believe that there was marijuana Smith’s residence; that the Escalade was properly stopped because of the window-tint violation; and that the agents subsequent warrantless entry into Smith’s residence was irrelevant because the information contained in the affidavit accompanying the DEA’s application for the search warrants came from independent sources — not from what the agents found in the residence.

II.

In his brief on appeal, Smith argues that, in denying his motion to suppress, the district court erred in two respects. First, the warrantless installation of the GPS device on the Escalade violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Second, DEA agents lacked exigent circumstances to enter his residence without a warrant following his arrest.

“Because rulings on motions to suppress involve mixed questions of fact and law, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error, and its application of the law to the facts de novo. Further, when considering a ruling on a motion to suppress, all facts are construed in the light most favorable to the prevailing party below.” United States v. Bervaldi, 226 F.3d 1256, 1262 (11th Cir.2000) (citation omitted). We may affirm the denial of a motion to suppress on any ground supported by the record. United States v. Caraballo, 595 F.3d 1214, 1222 (11th Cir.2010).

The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures protects an individual in those places where [he] can demonstrate a reasonable expectation of privacy against government intrusion, and only individuals who actually enjoy the reasonable expectation of privacy have standing to challenge the validity of a government search. The party alleging an unconstitutional search must establish both a subjective and an objective expectation of privacy. The subjective component requires that a person exhibit an actual expectation of privacy, while the objective component requires that the privacy expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.

United States v. King, 509 F.3d 1338, 1341 (11th Cir.2007) (quotations omitted); see also United States v. Espinosa-Orlando, 704 F.2d 507, 512 (11th Cir.1983) (“A legitimate expectation of privacy [must] be proven by factors beyond mere possession, such as a right to exclude or a right to privacy.”).

Although not applicable to a local police investigation conducted without federal involvement, see United States v. Lehder-Rivas, 955 F.2d 1510, 1522 (11th Cir.1992), Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(b)(4) establishes the federal procedure for obtaining a warrant to install a tracking device. The 2006 Amendment Notes to the rule clarify that “if the officers intend to install or use the device in a constitutionally protected area, they must obtain judicial approval to do so.” Id. “If, on the other hand, the officers intend to install and use the device without implicating any Fourth Amendment rights, there is no need to obtain the warrant.” Id. In United States v. Michael, 645 F.2d 252 *921 (5th Cir.1981) (en banc),

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Bluebook (online)
387 F. App'x 918, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-darryl-smith-ca11-2010.