United States v. Moore

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. DARIN CARLYLE MOORE, JR., et al., Defendants.

Criminal No. 18-198 (JEB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

May 17, 2021

MEMORANDUM OPINION

The Government has charged Darin Carlyle Moore, Jr., Gabriel Brown, John Sweeney, and James Taylor with the abduction and murder of a Maryland man as part of a conspiracy to hold him for ransom. With trial currently set for September, Moore has filed a series of pretrial motions. He seeks to suppress evidence obtained from the seizure of his car, see ECF No. 149 (Moore Mot. to Suppress), to sever his trial from that of his Codefendants, see ECF No. 178 (Moore Mot. to Sever), and to bar admission of purported hearsay and other-crimes evidence. See ECF Nos. 176 (Moore Mot. in Limine); 148 (Moore Mot. to Strike). The Government, meanwhile, asks the Court to either require Taylor's telecommunications expert to provide a fuller report or to preclude him from testifying altogether. See ECF No. 161 (Gov't Mot. in Limine). The Court will deny all of the Motions with the exception of Moore's Motion to Strike other-crimes evidence, which it grants in part and denies in part.

I. Background

In early 2019, a grand jury returned a five-count superseding indictment, the facts of which, for purposes of this decision, the Court accepts as true. See United States v. Ballestas, 795 F.3d 138, 149 (D.C. Cir. 2015). On June 19, 2018, the four Defendants kidnapped and held Andre Carlos Simmons, Jr., for ransom before killing him in the early hours of June 20. See ECF No. 41 (Superseding Indictment) at 2-6. Efforts to locate and target Simmons and his associates began a month earlier — sometime in May 2018. Id. at 2-3. On the evening of June 19, Simmons was abducted in Maryland before being transported to the District in Moore's vehicle. Id. at 3. Defendants then demanded money from his family and associates in exchange for Simmons's safe return. Id. at 4. After collecting the ransom, they nonetheless took Simmons to an alley elsewhere in the District, where they repeatedly shot him to death. Id. at 4-6.

From these facts, Defendants are charged with Kidnapping (18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)); Conspiracy to Commit Kidnapping (18 U.S.C. §1201(c)); Using, Carrying, Possessing, Brandishing, and Discharging a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence (18 U.S.C. §924(c)(1)(A)(ii),(iii)); and two counts of First-Degree Murder While Armed (Premeditated and Felony Murder) (D.C. Code §§ 22-2101, 22-4502, 22-2104.01(b)(1) and 22-1805). Id. at 2-6.

II. Legal Analysis

This Opinion addresses five Motions, which are largely unconnected. It thus analyzes them separately, setting out the appropriate legal standard in each.

A. Motion to Suppress re: Seizure of Nissan Maxima

Moore first moves to suppress evidence obtained from the search of his Nissan Maxima, the car in which Simmons was allegedly taken into the District. See Moore Mot. to Suppress at 3-4. In the hours after the murder, the Maxima was towed from the site of Moore's arrest at his girlfriend's residence in Maryland, where it was parked in the driveway, to the District of Columbia Department of Forensic Sciences Lab, where it was subsequently searched. See ECF No. 1 (Compl.), ¶¶ 10-12. Although authorities did obtain a warrant before searching thevehicle, see Moore Mot. to Suppress at 2, there was no warrant at the time of the initial seizure. See Compl., ¶ 12. Moore thus argues that the lack of a warrant bars the seizure and towing of the vehicle. The Court disagrees. In explaining why, it separately discusses the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement and the independent-source doctrine.

1. Automobile Exception

The "automobile exception" allows for the warrantless search or seizure of a motor vehicle "[i]f a car is readily mobile and probable cause exists to believe it contains contraband." United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544, 567 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (alteration in original) (quoting Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 938, 940 (1996)); see also United States v. Lawson, 410 F.3d 735, 740 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (considering whether officers had "probable cause to believe [a motor vehicle] contain[ed] contraband or evidence of a crime"); Maryland v. Dyson, 527 U.S. 465, 467 (1999). Authorities "may either conduct an immediate search or remove the vehicle to a police station and search it at some later time." Lawson, 410 F.3d at 741 (citing Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 52 (1970)).

This exception extends to cars parked in private driveways. See United States v. Goncalves, 642 F.3d 245, 250-51 (1st Cir. 2011) (applying automobile exception to vehicle "parked in a private driveway and unoccupied by anyone who might drive it away"); United States v. Brookins, 345 F.3d 231, 237-38 & n.8 (4th Cir. 2003) (same). Although the automobile exception alone does not justify intrusion onto the curtilage of a home, see Collins v. Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 1663, 1668 (2018), Defendant argues neither that the driveway was curtilage nor that the officers were unlawfully present at the residence to arrest Moore and to execute a search warrant of the home. See Moore Mot. to Suppress.

He similarly does not dispute that authorities had probable cause to believe that there was evidence of the kidnapping-murder in the Maxima. Id. In particular, police observed plastic zip-ties in plain view on the passenger seat of the car (consistent with those used to bind the decedent) as well as damage to the vehicle (consistent with witness accounts of the kidnapping). See ECF No. 110 (Opp. to Mot. to Exclude Statements) at 6; Compl., ¶ 12.

That leaves only the question of whether the car was "readily mobile." It need not be "immediately mobile." California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 391 (1985) ("Even in cases where an automobile [is] not immediately mobile, the lesser expectation of privacy resulting from its use as a readily mobile vehicle justifie[s] application of the vehicular exception."). A car is "readily mobile" even when parked and inaccessible to a detained suspect. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 878 F. Supp. 2d 190, 206 (D.D.C. 2012) ("The fact that the car subject to the search . . . was parked and inaccessible to [the] defendant[,] . . . who was already under arrest at the time the search was executed and had turned over the car keys to the police, does not render the automobile exception inapplicable."); Olaniyi v. District of Columbia, 763 F. Supp. 2d 70, 103-04 (D.D.C. 2011) (similar); see also United States v. Young, 371 F. App'x. 358, 361 (4th Cir. 2010) ("The inherent mobility of the car, combined with the lesser expectation of privacy in an automobile as compared to a home or office, justify application of the exception even if the police have control over the automobile at the time of the warrantless search.") (citing United States v. Kelly, 592 F.3d 586, 590-91 (4th Cir. 2010)). As a result, the fact that Moore had been arrested when authorities seized the Maxima does not disable the ready mobility of the vehicle.

While Defendant relies on Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443 (1971), to impute an additional exigency-like requirement into the automobile exception, the Supreme Court has rejected that approach. Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 938, 939-40 (1996) (reversing statecourt's "incorrect reading" that the automobile exception requires exigent or unforeseen circumstances); see also Dyson, 527 U.S. at 466 (noting that "'automobile exception' has no separate exigency requirement"). The seizure of the Maxima, moreover, would pass muster even under the erroneous test that Moore proposes. Whereas in Coolidge the automobile exception was inapplicable because the suspect "had already had ample opportunity to destroy any evidence he thought incriminating" in the month-plus period since the crime, see 403 U.S. at 460-61, the Maxima was towed within hours of the murder. See Compl., ¶¶ 10-12.

The automobile exception, accordingly, justifies the warrantless seizure of Defendant's vehicle.

2. Independent Source

Even if the automobile exception did not apply — and the initial seizure of the Maxima thus violated the Fourth Amendment — the intervening search warrant cures any deficiencies such that the items recovered need not be suppressed.

Generally, fruit of the poisonous tree is subject to the exclusionary rule. See generally United States v. Hood, 435 F. Supp. 3d 1, 6 (D.D.C. 2020) ("When the government conducts an unconstitutional search or seizure, the Court must exclude any evidence obtained as the 'fruit' of that search or seizure.") (quoting United States v. Smith, 373 F. Supp. 3d 223, 236 (D.D.C. 2019)). But "evidence subsequently seized pursuant to a valid search warrant is admissible when 'there was an independent source for the warrant under which that evidence was seized.'" United States v. Glover, 681 F.3d 411, 418 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 814 (1984)).

In Glover, the D.C. Circuit held that officers' initial warrantless entry into the defendant's house, though unlawful, did not bar evidence from a subsequent search conducted pursuant to awarrant obtained in the interim. Id. at 418. Critically, officers had an independent basis for the warrant — namely, the smell of illegal narcotics detected before officers ever entered the house — untainted by the illegal activity. Id. Here, evidence was in plain view of the officers — namely, the aforementioned zip-ties on the passenger seat and front-end damage to the Maxima — prior to and independent of the car's being towed to the forensic-sciences lab. In that way, evidence obtained from the search was no more the fruit of the seizure than in Glover. Towing the vehicle yielded nothing beyond the mere preservation of evidence. In sum, because the officers' observations before the towing constituted an independent source for the warrant, the Fourth Amendment does not preclude admission of that evidence...