United States v. Melo

954 F.3d 334

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,

v.Jamie L. MELO, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 18-2147

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

March 27, 2020

Gary G. Pelletier, with whom Pelletier Clark & Caley, LLC was on brief, for appellant.

Mark T. Quinlivan, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Andrew E. Lelling, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

Before Howard, Chief Judge, Thompson and Barron, Circuit Judges.

BARRON, Circuit Judge.

Jamie Melo challenges his 2017 convictions, which arise from the investigation into a criminal scheme involving Carlos Rafael. Colloquially known as the "Codfather," Rafael owned numerous commercial fishing businesses in the New Bedford, Massachusetts, area and was the leader of a conspiracy that smuggled unreported cash-income from his businesses to his personal bank accounts in the Azores, which are Portuguese islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Melo's convictions stemmed from his role in assisting Rafael in smuggling cash through Logan International Airport in Boston and onto a plane headed to the Azores in the fall of 2015. The convictions were for one count of conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, and one count of structuring the export of monetary transactions, in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 5324(c)(3). Finding no merit to Melo's challenges to these convictions, we affirm.

I.

In early 2015, the United States Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") began investigating Rafael after learning that he had not reported some of his taxable income. Undercover IRS agents, feigning interest in buying one of Rafael's businesses, soon learned that he was taking unreported cash with him on flights to the Azores and depositing the cash in a bank account that he maintained there.

Rafael explained to the undercover agents that he was able to smuggle cash through the airport because he had a connection in the Bristol County Sheriff's Office in Massachusetts, Antonio Freitas, who could help him get past airport security. Rafael also told them that Jamie Melo was a friend of his in the Bristol County Sheriff's Office.

Rafael later told the undercover agents that he was planning a trip to the Azores on November 10, 2015. He repeatedly declined the undercover agents' requests, however, to carry money for them on that flight.

When these agents first asked Rafael to do so, he refused to carry their money and suggested that they "would never meet" Freitas. In rejecting a second request from the undercover agents to carry their money with him, one of the undercover agents testified that Rafael refused to do so because there would "be law enforcement officers with him from the Sheriff's Office and he did not feel comfortable with those individuals with him to be smuggling the cash."

On the day of the planned trip, federal law enforcement agents set up surveillance to track the movements of Rafael and his travel companions at the airport. Melo, who was also traveling to the Azores that day to manage the "Thanksgiving in the Azores" program that he ran through the Bristol County Sheriff's Office, arranged for a Sheriff's Office van to pick up other passengers, including Rafael, who were taking the same flight to the Azores.

Before going through security at the airport, Melo met with three of the other Azores-bound travelers in a public restroom. He asked them if they could carry envelopes for Rafael onto the plane.

When Rafael went through the security checkpoint, agents for the United States Transportation Security Administration ("TSA") discovered that he was carrying $27,000 in cash on his person. In response, the TSA agents directed Rafael to a United States Customs and Border Patrol window, where he could declare the currency.

Rafael then joined Melo on the plane. The two sat together in first class. When the plane landed, the envelopes found their way back to Rafael. Soon thereafter, he deposited $76,000 in cash in his personal bank account in the Azores.

Law enforcement continued investigating the cash-smuggling scheme after the November 10, 2015, trip. Sometime thereafter, in consequence of that investigation, Rafael pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, bulk cash smuggling, and tax evasion. Freitas, for his part, was convicted of related crimes after a jury trial.

On August 30, 2017, Special Agent Alison Pauley ("SA Pauley") of the Federal

Bureau of Investigation and Special Agent Michael Ryan ("SA Ryan") of the United States Department of Homeland Security traveled to Melo's home to request an interview with him regarding the November 2015 trip to the Azores. Melo consented to an interview and invited the agents into his residence.

During the course of the interview, which Melo's attorney John Zajac participated in by phone, Melo admitted, among other things, to having passed out envelopes on Rafael's behalf to other passengers on the trip and to having carried an envelope for Rafael on the November 10, 2015, flight. Melo also stated that he only began to suspect that the envelopes contained cash after the TSA agents had stopped Rafael and forced him to report his currency.

On October 25, 2017, a grand jury in the District of Massachusetts handed down a three-count indictment against Melo. The indictment charged him with having engaged in conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (count one), bulk cash smuggling and aiding and abetting, in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 5332(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 2 (count two), and structuring the export of monetary transactions, in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 5324(c)(3) (count three). A jury found him guilty on counts one and three. The District Court subsequently sentenced Melo to one year of probation. Melo timely filed his notice of appeal ten days later.

II.

We start with Melo's challenge, based on Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), to the District Court's denial of his motion to suppress statements that he made to SAs Pauley and Ryan during the August 30, 2017, interview. The District Court rejected the motion on the ground that, although it was not "an easy [case]," Melo did not need to be given the Miranda warnings -- which were given only after he had been arrested following the conclusion of that interview -- before or during the interview because Melo was not then in custody.

When reviewing a district court's decision on a motion to suppress, we consider its "conclusions of law de novo and its factual findings, including its credibility determinations, for clear error." United States v. De La Cruz, 835 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2016). In the Miranda context especially, we are reluctant to disturb the district court's suppression decision, such that "[i]f any reasonable view of the evidence supports the denial of a motion to suppress, we will affirm the denial." United States v. Boskic, 545 F.3d 69, 77 (1st Cir. 2008).

Because there is no dispute that the agents subjected Melo to an interrogation through the questions that they asked during the interview, see United States v. Sanchez, 817 F.3d 38, 44 (1st Cir. 2016) ("Interrogation for Miranda purposes includes ‘any words or actions on the part of the police ... that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect.’ " (quoting Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 301, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980) )), "the need for a Miranda warning" in this case "turns on whether a suspect is in custody," United States v. Swan, 842 F.3d 28, 31 (1st Cir. 2016) (quoting United States v. Hughes, 640 F.3d 428, 435 (1st Cir. 2011) ). We employ a two-step process for making that determination.

"[T]he initial step is to ascertain whether, in light of ‘the objective circumstances of the interrogation,’ a ‘reasonable person [would] have felt he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave.’ " Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. 499, 509, 132 S.Ct. 1181, 182 L.Ed.2d 17 (2012) (second alteration in original) (first quoting Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 322-23, 114 S.Ct. 1526, 128 L.Ed.2d 293 (1994) (per curiam) and then quoting Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112, 116 S.Ct. 457, 133 L.Ed.2d 383 (1995) ). We have previously identified a nonexhaustive number of circumstances that are relevant to this aspect of our custody analysis, including "whether the suspect was questioned in familiar or at least neutral surroundings, the number of law enforcement officers present at the scene, the degree of physical restraint placed upon the suspect, and the duration and character of the interrogation." Swan, 842 F.3d at 31 (quoting United States v. Masse, 816 F.2d 805, 809 (1st Cir. 1987) ). In conducting this analysis, we must keep in mind that a finding of custody "depends on the objective circumstances of the interrogation, not on the subjective views harbored by either the interrogating officers or the person being questioned." Stansbury, 511 U.S. at 323, 114 S.Ct. 1526.

This inquiry into "whether an individual's freedom of movement was curtailed, however, is simply the first step in the analysis, not the last." Howes, 565 U.S. at 509, 132 S.Ct. 1181. Once we complete the freedom-of-movement step, we must still ask "the additional question whether the relevant environment presents the same inherently coercive pressures as the type of station house questioning at issue in Miranda." Id.

In considering the circumstances in which the questioning took place here, we note at the outset that the interview was conducted in Melo's home. That is of some significance because, although "a suspect's dwelling may at times comprise a custodial interrogation, such a location generally presents a less intimidating atmosphere than, say, a police station." Hughes, 640 F.3d at 435-36 (internal citation omitted) ("[I]t is important to note that the interview occurred in surroundings familiar to the defendant: his own home.").

In addition, we note, only two armed officers were present for the questioning, see id. at 436 (finding that...