United States v. Michael Owen Brannan

898 F.2d 107, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 9008, 1990 WL 23809
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMarch 12, 1990
Docket89-50016
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 898 F.2d 107 (United States v. Michael Owen Brannan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth 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. Michael Owen Brannan, 898 F.2d 107, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 9008, 1990 WL 23809 (9th Cir. 1990).

Opinion

*108 GOODWIN, Chief Judge:

Michael Owen Brannan appeals his conviction following a jury trial for use of a counterfeit access device, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(1). On appeal Brannan challenges the district court’s denial of his pre-trial motion to suppress evidence seized from his home by United States Secret Service agents and the adequacy of the government’s proof that he used “counterfeit access devices” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(1). We affirm.

For three years before his arrest in April, 1988, Brannan obtained and used numerous credit cards in names other than his own. Brannan procured these cards by submitting applications containing false or inflated information to such companies as American Express, Bullocks, and Torrey Pines Bank.

A. Suppression Motion

On April 28, 1988, Secret Service agents, acting without a warrant but with the consent of Brannan’s wife, searched Brannan’s residence and seized evidence of the offenses charged in the indictment. Mrs. Brannan was a joint owner of the house, but recently had moved out of the residence. Brannan had been arrested and charged with spousal abuse in February, 1988. After his wife moved out, Brannan changed the house locks.

The Supreme Court has held that “the consent of one who possesses common authority over premises or effects is valid as against the absent, nonconsenting person with whom that authority is shared.” United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 170, 94 S.Ct. 988, 993, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974). “Common authority” rests upon mutual use of the property by those generally having joint access or control such that it is reasonable to recognize that each of the parties has the right to permit inspection and has assumed the risk that the other party might consent to a search. United States v. Yarbrough, 852 F.2d 1522, 1534 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 171, 102 L.Ed.2d 140 (1988).

In United States v. Long, 524 F.2d 660 (9th Cir.1975), this court held that a wife who was the joint owner of a house with her husband had the right to give federal agents permission to enter and search the premises, even though she had moved out and her husband had changed all of the locks. Id. at 661. We rejected the defendant’s contention that his wife lacked joint access or control of the house within the meaning of Matlock. Id. Our decision in that case was influenced by the fact that Mrs. Long effectively had been forced to leave the house due to fear of her husband and had left “a substantial amount” of her personal possessions in the house, which she recovered while the agents conducted their search. Id. at 661 n. 1. The decision in Long controls the analysis here. It therefore was reasonable for the trial court to conclude that Susan Brannan retained actual authority to consent to the search of the Brannan house. We find no error in the district court’s denial of Brannan’s motion to suppress the evidence seized from the search.

B. Motion for Acquittal

Brannan was convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(1) for using “counterfeit access devices.” Under § 1029(e)(2), a counterfeit access device is defined as “any access device that is counterfeit, fictitious, altered, or forged ...” The district court found that Brannan’s procurement and use of credit cards in names similar to but not exactly the same as his own 1 constituted employment of “wholly fictitious” access devices which, albeit genuinely made by the issuers, qualified them as “counterfeit” within the meaning of § 1029(e)(2).

*109 Brannan contests the determination that he used “counterfeit” access devices under the terms of § 1029(e)(2). He concedes that he misused genuine credit cards, but argues that a conviction under § 1029(a)(1) must be supported by proof of counterfeit access devices. Misuse of genuine but “unauthorized” access devices is proscribed by § 1029(a)(2) of the statute, but there is a thousand-dollar threshold required for conviction. § 1029(e)(3) defines “unauthorized access device” as “any access device that is lost, stolen, expired, revoked, or obtained with intent to defraud.” Brannan contends that because the credit cards he used can be characterized only, if at all, as “unauthorized access devices,” his conviction under § 1029(a)(1) cannot be sustained.

In reviewing a denial of a motion for acquittal, this court examines the evidence in the light most favorable to the government in order to determine whether any rational trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Murray, 751 F.2d 1528, 1534 (9th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom., by Moore v. United States, 474 U.S. 979, 106 S.Ct. 381, 88 L.Ed.2d 335 (1985). The district court’s interpretation of the applicable statute is reviewed de novo. United States v. Mehrmanesh, 689 F.2d 822, 827 (9th Cir.1982).

As Brannan points out, because 18 U.S.C. § 1029 is of relatively recent vintage, there is a dearth of case law analyzing its various provisions. Brannan would have this court interpret “counterfeit,” as used in § 1029(a)(1), to mean access devices actually manufactured by the defendant himself, and not those fraudulently caused to be issued by the victimized companies. The argument flies in the face of Congress’s intent in enacting the statute to close the loopholes in extant federal legislation addressing credit card abuse and counterfeiting. See H.R.Rep. No. 894, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. (“House Report”), reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News (“USCCAN”) 3689, 3691.

Under section 1029(e)(2), “counterfeit access device” is defined to mean any access device that is “counterfeit, fictitious, altered, or forged” or an “identifiable component of an access device or counterfeit access device.” According to the legislative history of the statute, “[t]he term ‘fictitious’ is intended to cover a number of different types of counterfeit devices, including representations, depictions or facsimiles of an access device.” Id. at 19, USCCAN at 3705.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
898 F.2d 107, 1990 U.S. App. LEXIS 9008, 1990 WL 23809, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-michael-owen-brannan-ca9-1990.