United States v. Morejon-Pacheco

446 F. Supp. 83, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19690
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Florida
DecidedFebruary 6, 1978
Docket77-437-CR-JLK
StatusPublished

This text of 446 F. Supp. 83 (United States v. Morejon-Pacheco) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Morejon-Pacheco, 446 F. Supp. 83, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19690 (S.D. Fla. 1978).

Opinion

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO SUPPRESS

JAMES LAWRENCE KING, District Judge.

This cause came on for consideration upon the motion of the defendants to suppress evidence. The court, having considered the record and being fully advised in the premises, finds and concludes that the motion should be denied.

This motion was filed by the defendants Jorge Palenzuela and Virgen Palenzuela and was joined in by the remaining codefendants, Julio Morejon-Pacheco, Luis Ernesto Triana-Digas, and Rene Benitez. The matter was referred to U. S. Magistrate Sorrentino, who conducted an evidentiary hearing and filed a written report recommending that the motion be denied. All defendants filed or joined in objections to the Magistrate’s report. After having carefully considered the objections, the Magistrate’s report, the record, and the transcript of the evidentiary hearing, this court has concluded that the Magistrate’s recommendation is correct and should be carried out.

I. Facts

The facts surrounding the seizure of the evidence sought to be suppressed are briefly as follows. On July 18, 1977, a Special Agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency in undercover capacity went to the home of the defendants Jorge and Virgen Palenzuela with defendant Morejon in order to purchase some cocaine for which he had been negotiating as part of a conspiracy investigation. The deal was not consummated and the agent left. While he was in the home, however, he observed two packets of cocaine, a scale on which the cocaine was measured, and a glass in which a field test *84 as to the quality of the cocaine was made. He also observed a number of people entering the house and could not be sure how many left again.

Within an hour after the agent left the house with the defendant Morejon, these five defendants were placed under arrest. Morejon and Benitez were arrested at separate locations away from the house; Triana-Digas and the Palenzuelas were arrested in the front yard of the Palenzuela home. A small crowd gathered, and the officers and the agent took the three defendants into the Palenzuela home, searching it for any other co-conspirators who might possess weapons or destroy the contraband that the agent had so recently observed in the house. The agent testified that because of the number of people who had gathered he feared for the safety of the officers and those under arrest. He also thought that there might be co-conspirators still inside the house with access to weapons as well as to the cocaine. All defendants seek to suppress the items which were seized during this search, including a loaded automatic weapon and one-half .kilogram of cocaine.

II. Standing

A threshold issue not fully analyzed in the Magistrate’s report is that of the standing of defendants Morejon-Pacheco, Triana-Digas, and Benitez to contest the seizure of the cocaine at the Palenzuelas’ home. The odefendants argue, the government concedes, and the Magistrate’s report concludes that these three defendants have standing because they are charged in Count II of the indictment with possession of the cocaine seized with intent to distribute. The issue to be addressed here is whether the Fifth Circuit still recognizes a count of possession as conferring automatic standing, consider- . ing the recent Supreme Court decisions.

The Supreme Court created this concept of automatic standing in Jones v. U. S., 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), to prevent a defendant from having to give up one constitutional right — protection from self-incrimination — in order to assert another — privacy. The Court sought to eliminate the situation in which a defendant was required to prove what amounted to an essential element of the government’s case against him in order to contest an allegedly illegal search and seizure. This protection was fully developed in 1968 when the Court held that “testimony given by a defendant to meet such [standing] requirements should not be admissible against him at trial on the question of guilt or innocence.” Simmons v. U. S., 390 U.S. 377, 390, 88 S.Ct. 967, 974, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968).

Subsequently, Supreme Court propounded what is now the accepted test for standing under the circumstances arising in this case:

[T]here is no standing to contest a search and seizure where, as here, the defendants: (a) were not on the premises at the time of the contested search and seizure; (b) alleged no proprietary or possessory interest in the premises; and (c) were not charged with an offense that includes, as an essential element of the offense charged, possession of the seized evidence at the time of the contested search and seizure.

Brown v. U. S., 411 U.S. 223, 229, 93 S.Ct. 1565, 1569, 36 L.Ed.2d 208 (1973). However, the Court specifically declined to determine whether the Simmons decision “makes Jones ’ ‘automatic’ standing unnecessary” and decided to “reserve that question for a case where possession at the time of the contested search and seizure is ‘an essential element of the offense . charged.’ ” Brown, 411 U.S., at 229, 93 S.Ct., at 1569 (citing Simmons, 390 U.S., at 390, 88 S.Ct., at 974). This is such a case.

The circuits have split as to whether au-' tomatic standing is still available to a defendant who is charged with a possession crime but does not meet either of the other two standards. Hence, automatic standing is still the law in the Second Circuit and in the Ninth Circuit, but has been eliminated in the Sixth Circuit. See U. S. v. Banerman, 552 F.2d 61 (2nd Cir. 1977); U. S. v. Jamerson, 549 F.2d 1263 (9th Cir. 1977); U. S. v. Delguyd, 542 F.2d 346 (6th Cir. 1976). *85 The Fifth Circuit had adopted the automatic standing rule established by Jones. See U. S. v. Holmes, 521 F.2d 859 (5th Cir. 1975). Although subsequent case law in the circuit indicates that the three Brown standards operate independently to accord standing (See U. S. v. Smith, 550 F.2d 277 (5th Cir. 1977) (no evidence offered establishing standing under “any of the three categories set out in Brown which would indicate that a defendant charged with a possession crime should be granted standing, the narrow question presented here is still undecided.

In U. S. v. Archbold-Newball, 554 F.2d 665 (5th Cir. 1977), the defendants were held not entitled to “constructive standing” derived from Jones.

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Related

Jones v. United States
362 U.S. 257 (Supreme Court, 1960)
Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden
387 U.S. 294 (Supreme Court, 1967)
Simmons v. United States
390 U.S. 377 (Supreme Court, 1968)
Brown v. United States
411 U.S. 223 (Supreme Court, 1973)
United States v. Harold Smith
515 F.2d 1028 (Fifth Circuit, 1975)
Jerry Wayne Hopkins v. State of Alabama
524 F.2d 473 (Fifth Circuit, 1975)
United States v. Robert Lee Jamerson
549 F.2d 1263 (Ninth Circuit, 1977)
United States v. Herman Banerman
552 F.2d 61 (Second Circuit, 1977)
McGeehan v. Wainwright
526 F.2d 397 (Fifth Circuit, 1976)

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Bluebook (online)
446 F. Supp. 83, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19690, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-morejon-pacheco-flsd-1978.