United States v. Williams

347 F.Supp.3d 312

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff,

v.Donnish WILLIAMS, Defendant.

Case No. 18-20475

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division.

Signed October 16, 2018

Paul Kuebler, U.S. Attorney's Office, Detroit, MI, for Plaintiff.

Federal Defender, Brandy Y. Robinson, Federal Defender Office, Detroit, MI, for Defendant.

ORDER AND OPINION GRANTING MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE [17]

Arthur J. Tarnow, Senior United States District Judge

Defendant Donnish Williams is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). She moves to suppress the firearm, which was recovered in a warrantless search of her backpack, which was in her work vehicle. The motion is fully briefed, and the Court held a hearing on September 25, 2018.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On the afternoon of June 12, 2018, officers of the Detroit Police Department responded to a call that a Detroit Public Works ("DPW") employee was carrying a firearm. When the officers reached the DPW headquarters, two DPW supervisors showed them a photograph of a torso with a gun tucked into the waist-band of a pair of jeans. Therssen BodyCam at 3:23; Def. Ex. 2. The torso in the photograph was tattooed with a distinctive cartoon doll. Def. Ex. 2. The picture also reveals that the subject of the photograph is wearing a blue braided belt and a green safety vest. Id.

The supervisors told the officers where to find the employee who was alleged to be carrying a pistol, and noted that she would "probably [be] wearing a backpack." Therssen BodyCam at 11:03. The officers then drove to the public park where Defendant Williams was working. When Ms. Williams approached the officers and identified herself, Officer Therssen immediately frisked her by pulling up her shirt and turning her around. Id. at. 25:10-20. Upon finding no weapon, he asked, "Where's that weapon you had on you?" Ms. Williams replied, "I never had no weapon on me." The officer then asked, "where's your backpack?" and Ms. Williams replied, "I don't have no backpack with me." Id at. 25:17. She then pulled up her shirt to demonstrate he had no gun on her person, revealing a blue braided belt and a tattoo of a similar size and shape as the one in the photograph. Id. at. 25:29; Def. Ex. 2.

Ms. Williams then engaged in a brief verbal exchange with the officers and the site foreperson, Ms. Hill. She told the officers she took the bus to work but was then corrected by Ms. Hill, who said that she took the bus to the DPW yard but then drove to the worksite at the park. Jones Bodycam 2 at 1:00. Upon being asked which car was Ms. Williams,' Ms. Hill pointed at one of the parked trucks and exclaimed, "she drives it, it one of the pickups...the one right there." Id. Officer Therssen then walked over to the truck, opened the front door, and searched the driver's compartment. Therssen BodyCam at 25:55-26:40. He then proceeded to open the back door, and there he found a blue backpack. Id. He opened the backpack, rifled through its contents, and withdrew the pistol that is the subject of this motion. Id.

ANALYSIS

The Fourth Amendment provides,

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

U.S. Const. amend. IV.

A warrantless search violates the Fourth Amendment unless it falls into one of several exceptions. The Government argues that Ms. Williams does not have standing to argue a Fourth Amendment violation, and that even if she does, the consent and automobile exceptions would apply to the search. The Court will consider first whether or not Ms. Williams has standing to challenge the warrantless search. It will then consider whether or not the consent or automobile exceptions to the warrant requirement apply.

I. Fourth Amendment Standing

The threshold question is whether the defendant has standing to challenge the search and seizure of her backpack. A defendant who has "neither a property nor a possessory interest in the automobile, nor an interest in the property seized" lacks Fourth Amendment standing. Rakas v. Illinois , 439 U.S. 128, 145, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978) (holding that defendants lacked standing because they made "no showing that they had any legitimate expectation of privacy in the glove compartment or area under the seat of the car in which they were merely passengers."). Whether such an interest in the place searched exists depends on "1) whether [the defendant] manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in the object of the challenged search; and 2) whether society is prepared to recognize that expectation as legitimate." United States v. Sangineto-Miranda , 859 F.2d 1501, 1510 (6th Cir. 1988). The subjective expectation of privacy analysis is fact intensive and depends on several factors in addition to "a proprietary or possessory interest in the place to be searched." United States v. King , 227 F.3d 732, 744 (6th Cir. 2000). Those factors include "whether the defendant has the right to exclude others from the place in question; whether he had taken normal precautions to maintain his privacy; whether he has exhibited a subjective expectation that the area would remain free from governmental intrusion; and whether he was legitimately on the premises." Id.

A defendant's expectation of privacy in a place may exceed his or her contractual or proprietary rights to the place searched. Byrd v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S.Ct. 1518, 200 L.Ed.2d 805 (2018) (holding that a driver of a rental cars who is not listed on the lease and therefore in violation of the terms of the lease still has Fourth Amendment standing to challenge a search of the car); Minnesota v. Olson , 495 U.S. 91, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990) (holding that an overnight guest may have standing to challenge the search of a house in which he had no ownership interest); United States v. Smith , 263 F.3d 571 (6th Cir. 2001) (also holding that an unauthorized driver of a rental car has standing to challenge a search). Thus, contract law principles inform Fourth Amendment standing, but do not govern it.

The government's reliance on DPW regulations and employment contracts is therefore insufficient. The Court need not decide whether the Ms. Williams had an expectation of privacy in the car itself, because even if she did not, she clearly had an expectation of privacy in her zipped backpack, over which she retained both ownership and the right to exclude others. See United States v. Peyton , 745 F.3d 546, 552-54 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (holding that police officers' search of a shoebox in the defendant's room, after his great-grandmother had consented to the search of the house, was illegal because the defendant clearly had an expectation of privacy in the shoebox apart from that in his grandmother's house); United States v. Taylor , 600 F.3d 678 (6th Cir. 2010) (holding that the search of a defendant's shoebox in an apartment was illegal, even though the defendant was not a tenant in the apartment and the actual tenant consented to the search); United States v. Buchner , 7 F.3d 1149, 1154 (5th Cir. 1993) ("The owner of a suitcase located in another's car may have a legitimate expectation of privacy with respect to the contents of his suitcase."); United States v. Welch , 4 F.3d 761, 764 (9th Cir. 1993) ("The shared control of ‘host’ property does not serve to forfeit the expectation of privacy in containers within that property.") citing United States v. Karo , 468 U.S. 705, 725-27, 104 S.Ct. 3296, 82 L.Ed.2d 530 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring) ). Further, a legitimate expectation of privacy in a place is not forfeited just because it is unlocked, or because others may at times have access to the place. Katz v. United States , 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) ("The point is not that the booth is accessible to the public at other times but that it is a temporarily private place whose momentary occupants' expectations of freedom from intrusion are recognized as reasonable.").

The next question—whether society is prepared to recognize an expectation of privacy in a backpack in a work vehicle—should also be answered in the affirmative. One does not lose expectations of privacy in one's personal effects merely because they are stored on another's property. Indeed that is not the law. Bond v. United States , 529 U.S. 334, 120 S.Ct. 1462, 146 L.Ed.2d 365 (2000) (holding that passengers on a greyhound bus had a legitimate expectation of privacy in luggage stored in an overhead compartment); United States v. Waller , 426 F.3d 838, 848 (6th Cir. 2005) ("The expectation of privacy in one's luggage is not lessened by storing it on the premises of a third-party. Rather, the expectations may well be at their most intense when such effects are deposited temporarily or kept semi-permanently in places under the general control of another.") (Citations omitted).

It is not even the policy of DPW, the internal regulations of which bar employees from using work vehicles illegally, but nowhere provide that DPW can search an employee's personal belongings. Gov't Ex. C. The Government argued at the hearing that such an expectation of privacy cannot lie in contraband, but this position fails to appreciate the core Fourth Amendment principle that illegal searches do not become legal just because contraband is recovered from a person's personal effects. Id. To accept this contention would be to say that the ends justify the means, which is the antithesis of the exclusionary rule.

There is a question of whether, by denying that she had a backpack with her, Ms. Williams abandoned the backpack and with it her Fourth Amendment standing. Repudiating one's ownership in an item can constitute abandonment. United...