United States v. McPhearson

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedNovember 27, 2006
Docket05-5534
StatusPublished

This text of United States v. McPhearson (United States v. McPhearson) 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. McPhearson, (6th Cir. 2006).

Opinion

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206 File Name: 06a0435p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT _________________

X Plaintiff-Appellant, - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, - - - No. 05-5534 v. , > MARTEDIS MCPHEARSON, - Defendant-Appellee. - N Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee at Jackson. No. 04-10038—James D. Todd, Chief District Judge. Argued: July 26, 2006 Decided and Filed: November 27, 2006 Before: GIBBONS and ROGERS, Circuit Judges; HOLSCHUH, District Judge.* _________________ COUNSEL ARGUED: R. Leigh Grinalds, ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Jackson, Tennessee, for Appellant. Angela L. Pitts, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: R. Leigh Grinalds, ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Jackson, Tennessee, for Appellant. J. Patten Brown III, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellee. GIBBONS, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which HOLSCHUH, D. J., joined. ROGERS, J. (p. 9), delivered a separate dissenting opinion. _________________ OPINION _________________ JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. A grand jury returned an indictment charging Martedis McPhearson (“McPhearson”) with possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and possession of a firearm during and in relation to a drug- trafficking crime. McPhearson filed a motion to suppress evidence seized from his residence. The United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee granted McPhearson’s motion.

* The Honorable John D. Holschuh, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.

1 No. 05-5534 United States v. McPhearson Page 2

The government appeals the order granting the motion to suppress. For the following reasons, we affirm the district court’s order. I. Charles Mathis (“Mathis”) and Christopher Wiser (“Wiser”), investigators for the Jackson, Tennessee, police department, traveled on or about December 12, 2003, to a residence inhabited by McPhearson at 228 Shelby Street in Jackson. Mathis and Wiser went to arrest McPhearson on a warrant for simple assault after receiving information from Patrol Officer Maurice Willis that McPhearson was at home. Mathis knocked on the front door, while Wiser secured the rear exit of the house. McPhearson answered the door and identified himself to Mathis. Mathis then arrested McPhearson on the front porch of the Shelby Street residence. After walking McPhearson to the police car, Wiser searched him incident to the arrest. The pat-down located crack cocaine in McPhearson’s right front pocket. Mathis and Wiser asked McPhearson for permission to search his house, and McPhearson refused consent.1 Wiser and Mathis decided to obtain a search warrant. Mathis contacted their supervisor, Lieutenant Patrick Willis, and provided him with information for the search warrant. After Lieutenant Willis drafted the search warrant, he and Mathis went to Judge Christy Little’s house. Little is a juvenile court judge for Madison County, Tennessee. Judge Little examined the warrant drafted by Lieutenant Willis and the affidavit sworn by Mathis. The affidavit stated, in pertinent part: Investigator Mathis, who makes oath that he has probable cause for believing and does believe that Martedis M. McPhearson . . . is in possession of the following described property, to wit: Illegal controlled substances, particularly crack cocaine, records, ledgers, tapes, electronic media and other items which memorialize drug trafficking or proceeds therefrom contrary to the laws of the State of Tennessee . . . . [H]is reason for such belief and the probable cause for such belief are that the Affiant has: Investigator Mathis and Wiser, received information from Officer A. Willis that Martedis McPhearson was wanted for simple assault. Officer Willis located McPhearson’s vehicle at 228 Shelby Street. Inv. Mathis and Wiser went to 228 Shelby Street and knocked on the door. A black male answered the door and identified himself to be Martedis McPhearson. Investigators informed McPhearson that they were taking him in custody on the simple assault warrant. McPhearson was searched prior to being placed in the police car for transport to booking. Investigator Wiser discovered in McPhearson’s right front pocket a clear plastic bag containing a white chalky substance that is consistent with, and appeared to be crack cocaine,. [sic] The substance was field tested by Inv. Mathis. The field test showed positive for the presence of cocaine. The substance weighed 6.4 grams. E-911 records revealed that 228 Shelby is the residence of Martedis McPhearson.

1 The chronology of events transpiring after McPhearson denied Mathis and Wiser permission to search the Shelby Street residence is disputed. Witnesses for the government testified that the Jackson police secured the Shelby Street residence and obtained a search warrant, while witnesses for McPhearson testified that Jackson police officers began searching the Shelby Street residence before securing a search warrant. Despite the conflicting testimony, the district court made no credibility determinations, and the contradictory accounts of the events at the Shelby Street residence have no impact on our resolution of the case. Accordingly, we will relay only the police officers’ version of events for simplicity. No. 05-5534 United States v. McPhearson Page 3

Being satisfied that there was probable cause, Judge Little signed a search warrant for 228 Shelby Street. While Lieutenant Willis and Mathis were obtaining the search warrant, Wiser waited at 228 Shelby Street and called the police station for additional officers. Wiser knocked on the door of the house and advised two women who were inside that they could not leave because the police were obtaining a search warrant. He remained in the house with the women until Jackson police officer Tony Cepparulo (“Cepparulo”) arrived. Cepparulo and Wiser then swept through the house “to clear the residence and make sure there was nobody in there with any kind of weapons that could do any kind of harm to [them] or the other females that [sic] were in the house.”2 After Wiser and Lieutenant Willis returned with the search warrant, the Jackson police conducted a full scale search of 228 Shelby Street. They uncovered distribution quantities of crack cocaine and firearms. II. McPhearson moved the district court to suppress the evidence seized in the protective sweep and search of his residence. After a suppression hearing, the district court granted the motion, focusing on the affidavit sworn by Mathis and its deficiencies. From the bench, the court said: There are cases that have held that when the defendant is arrested at his residence with a large quantity of drugs, then that is an indication that there may have been drug paraphernalia in the house. There are cases that hold that a person who is arrested at his home and gives deceptive answers to the policemen at the time of the arrest about where he had gotten the drugs or where he had been -- deceptive answers along with an arrest with drugs in his pocket might be enough for probable cause. The problem in this case though is that there’s none of that in the affidavit. All the affidavit says, and I’ve read it carefully several times, basically, is that Mr. McPhearson was arrested on a simple assault warrant. He was taken into custody on that warrant. He was searched prior to being placed in the police car, and they discovered in his right front pocket a clear plastic bag containing crack cocaine, which weighed 6.4 grams. And this residence was the residence of McPhearson. And that’s all.

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United States v. McPhearson, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-mcphearson-ca6-2006.