United States v. Flores

193 F. App'x 597
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 29, 2006
Docket05-4091
StatusUnpublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 193 F. App'x 597 (United States v. Flores) 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. Flores, 193 F. App'x 597 (6th Cir. 2006).

Opinion

LEON JORDAN, District Judge.

This appeal arises from the denial of Ian Flores’s motion to suppress a gun found in his residence and the statements he made concerning the ownership of the gun. For the reasons that follow, we AFFIRM the district court.

*599 I.

Ian Flores was indicted on June 80, 2004, on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Flores filed a motion to suppress seeking to suppress the gun found in his home by officers who were searching for a fugitive and also to suppress the statements he made concerning ownership of the gun. The district court held an evidentiary hearing and ultimately denied the motion to suppress in its entirety.

On May 20, 2005, Flores entered a conditional plea of guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement that specifically preserved the right to appeal denial of the motion to suppress. After sentencing, Flores brought this appeal for the denial of the motion.

II.

Sometime around 8:00 or 9:00 on the morning of April 22, 2004, members of the U.S. Marshals Task Force and police officers from the Lorain Police Department were looking for a murder suspect named Anthony Villa, who had been involved in a homicide at a Lorain tavern. The officers had received information that Flores was a close associate of Villa’s, so they went to Flores’s residence looking for Villa. 1 Once at the residence, the officers knocked and announced their presence, and Flores opened the door and invited them in.

Detective Cory Earl of the Lorain Police Department told Flores that they needed to interview him and look in the house to see if Villa and his sister, also a fugitive, were hiding there. Flores said that he was not surprised that the officers had come to his house looking for Villa. Detective Earl asked Flores for verbal consent to search the house to see if Villa was hiding there.

Flores testified at the suppression hearing that he consented to a fugitive search of his house. He also testified that none of the officers said anything that was intimidating, coercive, or threatening in order to obtain entrance to his home or to conduct the search. Flores admitted that he did not limit the areas where the search could be conducted and that he did not at any time during the search withdraw his consent, challenge the search, or ask the officers to leave.

However, there was a factual dispute at the suppression hearing concerning the location of the gun when it was found. Sergeant Christopher Pittak of the Lorain Police Department testified that he searched the master bedroom on the second floor of the house. According to him, the bed was not made, and he lifted a comforter to look under the bed. When he did so, he saw a gun that turned out to be a loaded .45 Caliber Lama semi-automatic pistol. Sergeant Pittak unloaded the gun and gave it to Detective Earl who then went into an upstairs room used as an office where Dana Weigand, Flores’s girlfriend, was being questioned by one of the marshals. Weigand and her four-year old daughter were living with Flores.

Detective Earl asked Weigand if there were any weapons in the house, and she said there were not. When he showed her the gun and asked if it was hers, she denied owning it. However, at the suppression hearing, Weigand admitted that she lied to Detective Earl because she did in fact know that the gun was in the house. She also testified that from her position in the office she could see into the bedroom and she saw the officer take the gun from under the mattress, not from under the *600 bed. Also at the suppression hearing, several pictures of the bed were introduced through Weigand, one of which shows the bed being six inches off the floor.

After talking with Weigand, Detective Earl put the gun in the back of his pants and went downstairs to the living room where Flores was sitting. According to Detective Earl, when he showed the gun to Flores and asked if it was his, Flores said it was and spontaneously said, “You found it underneath the bed.” Flores then talked about living in a bad neighborhood and needing the gun for protection. At the suppression hearing, Flores testified that when Detective Earl came downstairs and asked him if he had any firearms, he told him he did not. However, when Detective Earl pulled the gun from behind him and asked if it was his, Flores said, “Yeah, you found that under my mattress.” Flores said that the gun was kept under the mattress because his children came to the house to visit and Weigand’s daughter lived with them.

The statements made by Flores to Detective Earl were made while Flores was sitting on his couch in the living room, where prior to that time, Flores had been talking with Deputy U.S. Marshal Herbert. It is undisputed that Flores was not given a Miranda warning and that he was not handcuffed or detained. Flores admitted on cross examination that he was told he would not be arrested that day. At one point prior to Detective Earl’s questioning about the gun, Flores escorted Detective Earl to the garage. Detective Earl had asked Flores if he could search his truck and the garage, and Flores agreed. According to Detective Earl’s testimony, Flores walked outside, opened the car and the garage, and then went back inside and sat down again in the living room.

Prior to being presented with the gun, Flores was asked if he was a felon. He admitted that he was. Flores has in fact been convicted three times for drug trafficking offenses and has spent time in prison for each offense. At the suppression hearing, Detective Earl testified that he was familiar with Flores and his criminal background before the murder investigation started. Flores testified that he knew Detective Earl as a member of the Lorain Police force. The officers left Flores’s residence with the gun, but before departing they told Flores that he might receive some consideration regarding the firearms charge if he assisted in locating Villa. Flores was not arrested until July 7, 2004.

III.

The district court denied the motion to suppress in its entirety. The court noted that Flores did not dispute that he voluntarily consented to allowing the officers into his home to search for Villa. Therefore, the only dispute involved the location of the gun when it was found and whether the officers exceeded the scope of the consent by looking under the mattress or under the bed in the course of the search.

The district court determined that the scope of Flores’s consent extended to permitting the officers to look under the bed, but looking under the mattress would have exceeded the scope of the consent. The court found that according to the police the gun was in plain view under the bed, and since the officers knew that Flores was a convicted felon, the criminal nature of the gun was immediately apparent to the officers.

As to the dispute over where the gun was located, the district court found Sergeant Pittak to be more credible. The court reasoned that the purpose for being in Flores’s home was to search for Villa; Flores was not under suspicion of a crime nor did the officers have any reason to

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

MacKenzie 932343 v. Morrison
W.D. Michigan, 2024
United States v. Crumpton
88 F. Supp. 3d 796 (E.D. Michigan, 2015)
State of Tennessee v. Michael Anthony Jeffries
Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 2012
United States v. Daniel Tatman
397 F. App'x 152 (Sixth Circuit, 2010)
United States v. Jean Panak
Sixth Circuit, 2009
United States v. Panak
552 F.3d 462 (Sixth Circuit, 2009)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
193 F. App'x 597, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-flores-ca6-2006.