75 F. Supp. 3d 1154
N.D. Cal.2014Background
- On Feb. 22, 2013 Berkeley PD officers in a semi-marked car saw David Conerly walking; he fled when he saw the vehicle. An anonymous tip led officers to 2748 Acton St.
- Officers detained Antoine Custer outside the house, smelled burnt marijuana from a vehicle, learned Robert Custer (a probationer with a search condition) lived at the address, and entered the home to conduct a probation search.
- Inside, officers saw Conerly exit a bedroom, ordered him to put his hands on his head, handcuffed him within seconds, and searched him, recovering ~1.4 g suspected marijuana and $1,003.
- Officers obtained consent from Emma Custer to search further, found crack cocaine in the bedroom and Conerly’s jacket in the living room. Conerly was transported to jail and Mirandized.
- After booking, Conerly spontaneously told Officer Dozier there was a loaded handgun hidden under a pillow in the bedroom; he later wrote a short confession and made a jail call admitting ownership. Officers later located the gun after Conerly’s statements.
- Conerly moved to suppress the physical evidence (including the gun) and post-arrest statements as fruits of an unlawful arrest/search; the court granted the motion.
Issues
| Issue | Conerly's Argument | Government's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Did Flores’ command to “stop” and Conerly’s flight constitute a seizure or lawful basis to detain? | Conerly: not seized on the street; flight did not supply lawful basis for detention. | Govt: flight in a high-crime area gave reasonable suspicion under Wardlow. | Court: No seizure on street; flight in this location did not supply reasonable suspicion because the area was not shown to be a high-crime, circumscribed location. |
| Was entry into the Acton St. home lawful? | Conerly: officers improperly entered and used force to effectuate arrest of him. | Govt: entry lawful because officers were executing a suspicionless probation search of Robert Custer’s residence. | Court: Entry into the home was lawful under the probationer search exception. |
| Was Conerly detained or arrested upon being handcuffed inside the home, and if arrested, was there probable cause? | Conerly: officers effected an arrest (guns drawn, handcuffed immediately) without probable cause. | Govt: conduct was a safety-related detention supported by the fact Conerly fled and the area’s character. | Court: The tactics constituted an arrest; officers lacked probable cause at the moment of arrest (neither §148 arrest nor marijuana possession could be established then). |
| Should the gun and statements be suppressed or admitted under inevitable discovery? | Conerly: statements and gun are fruits of unlawful arrest and should be suppressed; inevitable discovery claim speculative. | Govt: gun and confession would have been inevitably discovered during a lawful probation search or after identifying Conerly as a parolee. | Court: Suppressed—statements and gun are fruits of the unlawful arrest; inevitable discovery rejected as speculative and because discovery depended on Conerly’s coerced disclosures. |
Key Cases Cited
- McClendon v. United States, 718 F.3d 1211 (9th Cir. 2013) (exclusionary rule and fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree principle)
- Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (U.S. 1963) (fruits doctrine articulated)
- Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (U.S. 1996) (subjective intent irrelevant when lawful basis for stop exists)
- United States v. King, 736 F.3d 805 (9th Cir. 2013) (suspicionless search of probationer’s residence with search condition)
- Allen v. City of Los Angeles, 66 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 1995) (totality test whether stop becomes arrest; safety-based intrusiveness analysis)
- United States v. Delgadillo-Velasquez, 856 F.2d 1292 (9th Cir. 1988) (weapons-drawn, face-down handcuffing treated as arrest)
- Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (U.S. 1968) (reasonable-suspicion standard for investigatory stops)
- Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (U.S. 2000) (flight in a high-crime area can support reasonable suspicion)
- United States v. Montero-Camargo, 208 F.3d 1122 (9th Cir. 2000) (caution on using “high-crime area” factor; limit to circumscribed locations)
- Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431 (U.S. 1984) (inevitable discovery doctrine)