United States v. Mitchell

429 F.3d 952, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 25106, 2005 WL 3105700
Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit·Decided November 21, 2005·No. 04-4248·Published·Cited by 20 cases

Opinion

*954 MCCONNELL, Circuit Judge.

Two troopers with the Utah highway patrol conducted a warrantless search of a motel room and found stolen mail. Angelia Larue Mitchell, who had been staying in the room, was indicted before the United States District Court in the District of Utah on two counts of possession of stolen mail. Ms. Mitchell filed a motion to suppress the evidence found in the motel room. The district court conducted an evidentiary hearing, after which it denied Ms. Mitchell’s motion on the grounds that she had abandoned the room and its contents prior to the search. After her motion was denied, Ms. Mitchell entered a conditional plea of guilty on count I of the indictment. The court sentenced her to ten months in prison followed by a thirty-six month term of supervised release. One of the conditions of her supervised release was that she must remain current on the restitution payments owed from her previous two federal convictions.

On appeal, Ms. Mitchell challenges her conviction and the special condition of supervised release. Although Ms. Mitchell claims that she reserved the motel room for another night prior to the search, and produced a copy of the motel ledger which lends some support to her claim, we hold that the district court did not commit clear error in its finding that Ms. Mitchell abandoned the room before it was searched. We also find, as an alternative basis for upholding the district court’s order denying the motion to suppress, that because the troopers were repeatedly told by the motel clerks that the room was unoccupied, they had apparent authority for the search. Finally, although courts may order restitution only for those losses caused by conduct related to the offense of conviction, we hold that a special condition of supervised release which requires the defendant to remain current on restitution payments from previous criminal convictions is not subject to the limitations of restitution. We therefore AFFIRM the conviction and sentence imposed by the district court.

BACKGROUND

On the morning of March 22, 2003, James Martin, a trooper with the Utah Highway Patrol, was performing a routine search for stolen vehicles in the area of Midvale, Utah. At approximately 5:45 a.m., Trooper Martin discovered a red Dodge Neon with stolen license plates parked outside the La Quinta Inn. He ran the car’s vehicle identification number through his computer and determined that the vehicle was registered to an Angelia Mitchell. The vehicle’s proper license plates were visible inside the car.

In an attempt to locate the owner or current possessor of the vehicle, Trooper Martin went into the front lobby of the La Quinta Inn and asked the clerk, Erika Soledad Villa, whether anyone with a red Dodge Neon was registered at the motel, or whether anyone by the name of Angelia Mitchell had checked into any of the rooms. Ms. Villa told him that there was no one by that name or with that type of vehicle registered at the motel.

Trooper Martin informed Ms. Villa that he was having the vehicle impounded. He gave Ms. Villa his business card with the phone number for police dispatch written on the back, and asked her to give the number to anyone who came looking for the car. He also asked Ms. Villa to call the dispatch and let them know if anyone came in asking about the car, in case the person asking had stolen it.

Later that day, sometime between 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m., Ms. Mitchell, who was staying in Room 266 of the motel, came down from her room and noticed that her *955 car was missing. Ms. Villa had been unaware that Ms. Mitchell was staying at the motel because her room was registered to a man named Cedric Wilkins, and neither Ms. Mitchell nor her car were listed in the motel’s files. Ms. Mitchell had been paying for the room, however, and had been staying there for over a week. When Ms. Mitchell discovered that her car was missing from the motel parking lot, she went down to the front desk to inquire about its whereabouts, and was told by Ms. Villa that it had been impounded by the police.

What happened next is contested by the parties. Ms. Villa testified that Ms. Mitchell became upset and checked out of the motel after learning that her car had been impounded. According to Ms. Mitchell, she never checked out of the room, and actually paid for another night at the motel while talking to Ms. Villa. Ms. Mitchell testified that there was another front desk clerk working alongside Ms. Villa, and that the other clerk was the one who handled her payment. However, both Ms. Villa and Irene Gish, one of the motel’s managers, testified that Ms. Villa was the only motel employee working at the front desk between 7:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. that day. After the encounter between Ms. Mitchell and Ms. Villa, Ms. Mitchell left the motel in another vehicle.

At approximately 2:55 p.m., a clerk at the La Quinta Inn, probably Ms. Villa, telephoned Trooper Martin. The clerk told him that “a lady had come in inquiring about her vehicle, the [red Dodge Neon, and] ... when she’d been told that the Dodge had been impounded, ... she checked out of the room and left in another vehicle.” R. Vol. II 44. Before Ms. Villa’s shift ended at 3:00 p.m., she also told the incoming front desk clerk, Jennifer Mabey, about the “stolen vehicle,” and that the person in Room 266 had “already checked out.” Id. at 12. Ms. Mabey did not testify at the evidentiary hearing.

Just after 3:00 p.m., only five or ten minutes after his telephone conversation with the clerk, Trooper Martin arrived back at the La Quinta Inn. He was accompanied by another trooper from the Utah Highway Patrol, Jacob Hicks. Troopers Martin and Hicks went inside the motel and asked the front desk clerk, probably Ms. Mabey, about the woman who had inquired about the red Dodge Neon. Trooper Martin specifically asked the clerk if the woman had checked out of the motel. She told him that the woman had “paid for and checked out of [Room 266].” Id. at 45. She also showed the troopers a room ledger that listed Room 266 as registered to a Cedric Wilkins, and again stated that “the woman had come in, paid for the room and then had checked out of the room, and the room was now not registered in their name.” Id. at 48. Trooper Hicks asked the clerk again whether the woman had checked out of Room 266, asking “So she’s not in the room? She’s checked out? She’s paid?,” to which the front desk clerk replied “Yes.” Id. at 63. The clerk then offered Troopers Martin and Hicks a key to Room 266.

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United States v. Mitchell, 429 F.3d 952, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 25106, 2005 WL 3105700 (10th Cir. 2005).

429 F.3d 952 (United States v. Mitchell) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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