United States v. Eugene Sweeney
821 F.3d 893
| 7th Cir. | 2016Background
- Defendant Eugene Sweeney was identified by the victim as the robber of a Milwaukee bar; police arrested him at his apartment building and found a handgun in a common crawl space in the building basement.
- Officers searched Sweeney’s apartment (with consent from his girlfriend) and a shared rear stairwell/basement area without a warrant; Officer Gasser recovered a black plastic bag containing a handgun from the crawl space under the stairs.
- Sweeney moved to suppress the firearm; a magistrate judge recommended suppression based on trespass reasoning post-Jones/Jardines, but the district judge denied suppression after an evidentiary hearing.
- At trial a jury convicted Sweeney of Hobbs Act armed robbery (18 U.S.C. § 1951), brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence (18 U.S.C. § 924(c)), and being a felon in possession of a firearm (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)).
- Judge Adelman sentenced Sweeney as an armed career criminal under the ACCA (18 U.S.C. § 924(e)), imposing the mandatory minimum 22 years; the court also imposed supervised release with standard and several special conditions.
- On appeal the Seventh Circuit affirmed the convictions (denial of suppression) but vacated the sentence and remanded for re-sentencing because of supervised-release procedure issues and unresolved questions about ACCA predicate convictions.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether the warrantless search of the building basement/crawl space violated the Fourth Amendment | Government: the basement was common area not protected by the Fourth Amendment; no warrant required | Sweeney: police trespassed and searched a constitutionally protected area (invoking Jones/Jardines); suppression required | Court: No Fourth Amendment violation—basement was common/shared space, not curtilage or property Sweeney could exclusively possess or exclude others from; denial of suppression affirmed |
| Whether a trespass-based Jones/Jardines theory applies when police enter shared common areas | Sweeney: Jardines/Jones support finding a trespass/search when officers physically intrude to obtain information | Government: even if there was a physical intrusion, Sweeney lacked possessory/exclusionary rights in the common basement so Jones-based protection does not apply | Court: Jones/Jardines trespass theory requires possession/exclusive control; Sweeney had none, so trespass theory does not aid him |
| Whether Sweeney had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the shared basement | Sweeney: argued the locked building and limited public access supported privacy expectations | Government: basement was shared by tenants, used for laundry/utilities, no individualized storage or locked exclusive space | Court: No reasonable expectation of privacy in the shared basement; dog-sniff cases distinguished—this search did not intrude into apartment interiors; conviction stands |
| Whether sentencing (ACCA status and supervised release) was proper | Government: Sweeney qualifies as an armed career criminal based on prior convictions; standard/special supervised-release conditions appropriate | Sweeney (on appeal): challenged sufficiency of findings for supervised release and—first raised on appeal—whether certain juvenile/witness-intimidation predicates qualify for ACCA | Court: Vacated and remanded for re-sentencing—district court must properly state/support supervised-release conditions; ACCA predicate questions left to district court on remand for full record and consideration of their impact on sentence |
Key Cases Cited
- United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012) (revived property/trespass-based Fourth Amendment analysis)
- Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013) (applied trespass/curtilage analysis to police dog sniff on a home’s porch)
- Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 (1984) (limits on Fourth Amendment protection; open-fields doctrine)
- United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294 (1987) (Dunn factors for curtilage analysis)
- United States v. Villegas, 495 F.3d 761 (7th Cir. 2007) (common-area search precedent in multi-unit dwellings)