United States v. Lester

98 F.4th 768

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Travis LESTER, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22-6076

No. 22-6077

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit

Decided and Filed: April 16, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee at Memphis. No. 2:21-cr-20152-1—Samuel H. Mays, Jr., District Judge.

ON BRIEF: David M. Bell, FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellant. Raney L. Irwin, Mary H. Morris, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Before: GIBBONS, WHITE, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.

THAPAR, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which GIBBONS, J., joined in full. WHITE, J. (pp. 779-86), delivered a separate opinion concurring in all but Part II.A. of the majority opinion and in the judgment.

OPINION

THAPAR, Circuit Judge.

Travis Lester was convicted of possessing a firearm as a felon. On appeal, Lester claims that Miranda and Fourth Amendment violations, evidentiary errors, and sentencing mistakes entitle him to a do-over. We disagree and affirm.

I.

After serving a forty-one-month prison sentence for possessing ammunition as a felon, Travis Lester began a thirty-six-month term of supervised release. Within a few months, Lester fell back into old habits. After twice testing positive for cocaine, he stopped appearing for his required addiction therapy and drug tests. Then Lester was charged with aggravated assault under Tennessee law for striking a woman in the head with a handgun and shooting at two other people.

Based on these charges and other supervised-release violations, Tennessee and the federal government issued arrest warrants. The U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force executed them. An informant told the Marshals that Lester was at the Memphis Villa Inn with Shebrica Phillips—his girlfriend, who also had an outstanding arrest warrant. So the Task Force went to the motel and lined up outside the couple's room. The officers knocked and announced themselves. Phillips opened the door, and the officers quickly arrested Lester and Phillips.

While patting Lester down, an officer found a plastic baggie containing a rocklike substance (later determined to be 4.9 grams of crack cocaine) and $869 in his pockets. The officer then asked, "[Is] there anything else on you, any other drugs, anything that would stick or harm me?" 22-6076 R. 50, Pg. ID 106. Lester responded, "No, just some weed in the room." Id. Meanwhile, other officers performed a protective sweep of the motel room to ensure nobody else was hiding. They didn't find anyone. But the officers did see a digital scale on the nightstand.

The officers field-tested the rocklike substance, which came back positive for crack cocaine. Based on the crack cocaine, the scale, and Lester's marijuana admission, the officers secured a warrant to search the room. Their search uncovered a stolen .40 caliber pistol loaded with a high-capacity magazine, a small bag of marijuana, and the scale they'd seen earlier.

A grand jury charged Lester with being a felon in possession of a firearm. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Before trial, Lester filed various motions. Relevant here, he filed a motion to suppress all the evidence derived from the officers' protective sweep and his marijuana admission on Fourth Amendment and Miranda grounds. Lester also filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence that he used the same pistol to commit three violent crimes in the months before his arrest. The district court denied Lester's suppression motion after determining the arresting officers hadn't violated his rights. But the court granted Lester's motion in limine, reasoning that any mention at trial of his prior violent acts would be unfairly prejudicial.

At trial, one of the officers described how he arrested Lester and found crack cocaine and cash in his pockets. Another officer explained how he obtained the search warrant and found the pistol, scale, and marijuana. Phillips swore under oath that she did not own the gun. And Siara Dowdy—one of Phillips's friends who also knew Lester through Phillips—testified she saw Lester with the same pistol four days before his arrest, when he came to her house to sell her father cocaine.

The jury convicted Lester, and the district court sentenced him to 120 months in prison. Because Lester violated the supervised-release conditions for his earlier ammunition-possession conviction, the court imposed an additional seventeen-month prison sentence to be served consecutively.

Lester appeals, alleging various pre-trial, trial, and sentencing errors.

II.

Pre-trial claims. Lester argues the district court should've granted his motion to suppress. Specifically, he asserts that the arresting officers violated: (A) his Miranda rights when they questioned him before issuing a warning; and (B) his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches when they searched his motel room before obtaining a warrant. We address each in turn, reviewing the district court's factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Dyer, 580 F.3d 386, 390 (6th Cir. 2009). Throughout, we view the evidence in the light most likely to support the district court's decision to deny the suppression motion. Id.

A.

Miranda. The Fifth Amendment provides that "[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." U.S. Const. amend. V. To protect this right, the Supreme Court has held that in certain contexts, police must issue Miranda warnings before interrogating a suspect in their custody. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 479, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

Lester argues the arresting officer violated that rule. Before informing Lester of his Miranda rights, the officer asked Lester during the pat-down if there was "anything else on you, any other drugs, anything that would stick or harm me." 22-6076 R. 50, Pg. ID 106. Lester's response: "No, just some weed in the room." Id. On appeal, Lester argues that this unwarned admission and the fruits of that admission—most importantly, the .40 caliber pistol in the motel room—should've been suppressed. We disagree.

Marijuana Statement: First, Miranda doesn't apply. That's because Miranda only governs "interrogations." Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 297-98, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980). And police questioning isn't an "interrogation" when an officer asks about information "he was already entitled to know" through a search incident to arrest. United States v. Woods, 711 F.3d 737, 740-42 (6th Cir. 2013). That's exactly what happened here. Since the officer had just arrested Lester, the officer inevitably would have discovered any items on Lester's person. See United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973). Thus, the officer was entitled to ask about those items. Woods, 711 F.3d at 741 ("To say that Officer Mardigian had the right to physically go through Woods's pockets but could not simply ask him 'What is in your pocket?' would be illogical."). To be sure, Lester responded to the officer's question with self-incriminating evidence about something that wasn't on his person. But an interaction doesn't transform into an "interrogation" merely because a suspect voluntarily offers an "unexpected and unresponsive" answer. Id.; see also Innis, 446 U.S. at 301-02, 100 S.Ct. 1682. Thus, the officer's question wasn't an interrogation, and Miranda doesn't apply.

In response, the concurrence insists the officer's question was an "interrogation" because it was reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response.¹ Perhaps, but that's not the whole story. Under Supreme Court precedent, questions asked "normally attendant to arrest" aren't "interrogations" subject to Miranda—even if they might yield an incriminating answer. Innis, 446 U.S. at 301, 100 S.Ct. 1682; see also Woods, 711 F.3d at 743 ("Woods's argument that any express questioning of a suspect in custody amounts to an interrogation . . . [is] conclusively refuted by the [Supreme] Court's caselaw."). Applying this rule, our court in Woods held that questions about what's on an arrestee's person are "normally attendant to arrest" and thus outside Miranda's scope. 711 F.3d at 740-44.

Attempts to distinguish Woods fall short. The concurrence argues that the officer's question here was more likely to elicit an incriminating response than the question was in Woods. Not so. Just as in Woods, the answer to the officer's narrow question here ("Is there anything else on you, any other drugs, anything that would stick or harm me?") could have been "either innocuous or incriminating." Id. at 741. After all, Lester could have said "no." If anything, the open-ended Woods question ("What is in your pocket?") was more likely to incriminate. Imagine Lester had a stolen credit card or forged prescription in his pocket. Unlike the officer's targeted question in this case, the Woods question would sweep in this and limitless other incriminating information. Thus, this case is well within the rule established in Woods.²

Moreover, even if Miranda did govern this question, it would be subject to the "public safety" exception. See New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984). Under that exception, officers may ask "questions necessary to secure their own safety or the safety of the public" without violating Miranda. Id. at 659, 104 S.Ct. 2626.

Quarles is the leading case. There, police knew the suspect had a gun but couldn't find it on his person. Id. at 651-52, 104 S.Ct. 2626. Concerned that someone else might recover the weapon, the officer asked the suspect where it was. Id. at 652, 104 S.Ct. 2626. Only after the officer found the gun hidden in a supermarket did he Mirandize the suspect and ask further questions. Id. The Court held that the suspect's risk of self-incrimination was outweighed by the officer's need to protect himself and the public. Id....