Joel Leon Beal was convicted of manufacturing or attempting to manufacture 50 grams or more of actual methamphetamine after having previously been convicted of a felony drug offense in violation of 21
Eric Barker, a loss prevention officer at a Wal-Mart store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, called police on the afternoon of May 6, 2004 to report that a man had just left the store after stealing lithium batteries. He also described the suspect and his vehicle. On his way to Wal-Mart Officer Wayne Handeland noticed a vehicle driving toward him that matched the description and license number reported by Barker. Handeland stopped the vehicle and talked with the driver who was Joel Beal. Beal did not have any form of identification with him, and he gave the officer the name of his twin brother, Justin Leroy Beal. Officer Handeland learned through a background check that Justin had a suspended license, and Beal was arrested for driving with a suspended license. The police confirmed that he fit' the description of the man who had taken the batteries from Wal-Mart.
The Cedar Rapids Police Department requires that an inventory search be conducted and the vehicle towed when the driver is arrested and there is no other licensed driver in the car. The officers saw a twin pack of Duraeell lithium batteries on the floor of the front seat of Beal’s car. In the backseat they found additional lithium batteries, a Wal-Mart sack containing baby wipes and garbage bags, a Wal-Mart receipt, Rubbermaid pitchers, starting fluid, Muriatic acid, and an overnight bag. The officers found a scale and baggies inside the bag (at the station other officers performed a thorough search of the bag and found a methamphetamine pipe and a coffee filter with residue). They found a black garbage bag in the trunk which contained 76 empty boxes and numerous blister packs for pseudoephed-rine tablets, peeled lithium batteries, a coffee filter with residue, ground pseu-doephedrine, and a tissue with blood on it. Also in the trunk were cans of starting fluid, a large canister of diesel starting fluid, and invoices from Altorfer and Martin Equipment.
Beal had been able to call his girlfriend, Stacy Ellis, while he was waiting for Handeland to complete his background check. Ellis was the registered owner of the vehicle, and she arrived at the scene before the officers searched it. After they began their search, Ellis told them she owned the car and offered to take custody of it. The officers declined her offer, telling her that they had seen precursors to methamphetamine manufacturing in the car. Beal moved to suppress all evidence obtained from the vehicle, arguing that the warrantless search infringed his constitutional rights because Ellis had been present and willing to take the vehicle. The district court denied the motion, and the case proceeded to trial.
At trial the government presented the testimony of three police officers. Two testified about what was found in the vehicle, and Officer Anthony Robinson explained that the materials found were consistent with methamphetamine manufacture and distribution. The prosecutor asked Robinson what Beal’s criminal history was, and he answered that Beal had two state court convictions for possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine,
Two jailhouse informants testified for the government. Cesar Cardenas told the jury that Beal admitted to him that he had used the materials found in the vehicle to manufacture methamphetamine and that he had purchased pseudoephedrine in Chicago. Beal attempted to impeach Cardenas by questioning him about other cases in which he had testified and in which the juries returned verdicts inconsistent with his testimony. The government objected, and the district court sustained the objection. Andre Jackson, another inmate, testified that Beal told him he had been caught with pseudoephedrine pills in his trunk, that he had used the pills to manufacture methamphetamine, and that he planned to introduce evidence that his identical twin was the individual on the Wal-Mart videotape.
Beal introduced evidence to counter the government’s case. His younger brother Jeremy testified that Beal earned money fixing cars, that he used starting fluid when he worked on vehicles, and that the batteries in his camera were dead. Jeremy also testified that the individual purchasing pseudoephedrine on the Wal-Mart videotape appeared to be Beal’s twin brother Justin, that Justin had methamphetamine related convictions, and that Justin had previously borrowed the car driven by Beal on the day of the arrest. Jeremy’s girlfriend testified that Beal lived with them and worked on vehicles. The defense also introduced undisputed evidence that it was not Beal’s blood that was in the garbage bag with the precursor materials.
Beal called other inmates to undermine the testimony by Cardenas and Jackson. Michael Bergman testified that Beal did not talk to other inmates and had not talked to Andre Jackson. Vincent Allen testified that he never heard Beal tell Cardenas about the matters he testified about and that he would have been able to hear any conversation between the two. He also testified that Beal told him he picked up the bag of empty pseudoephed-rine boxes while he was out fishing or hunting for mushrooms.
The jury returned a guilty verdict, finding that Beal had manufactured or attempted to manufacture 50 grams or more of methamphetamine after a prior conviction for a felony drug offense, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A), 846 and 851. Due to uncertainty in the law after
Blakely v. Washington,
Beal appeals, claiming that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress because the warrantless search was unnecessary and it infringed his Fourth Amendment rights. The government responds that the officers followed constitutionally permissible procedures when they conducted the inventory search and that the search was performed incident to a lawful arrest and with probable cause. “We will uphold the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress unless it rests on clearly erroneous findings of fact or reflects an erroneous view of the applicable law.”
United States v. Rogers,
Vehicle searches without a warrant are per se unreasonable, subject to a few well-established exceptions.
United States v. Madrid,
Beal argues that the search of the vehicle was impermissible because it was performed for investigatory purposes only. Since the registered owner had arrived at the scene of the stop and was ready and willing to take the vehicle, he asserts that there was no need for officers to impound the, car and inventory its contents. Beal does not cite to any cases in which an inventory search was found to be invalid because a vehicle’s registered owner appeared before it was impounded. Here, the officers followed the Cedar Rapids Police Department policy governing inventory searches when it performed the search,
see United States v. Petty,
The government argues that even if Beal were correct in contending that there was not a permissible inventory search, a warrantless search of the automobile would have also been permissible based on probable cause and as a search incident to a lawful arrest. Beal does not challenge the lawfulness of his arrest, and the officers had the authority to search the passenger compartment of the vehicle incident to the arrest.
New York v. Belton,
Beal also argues that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to grant his motion for a mistrial based on prosecutorial misconduct. He claims that the prosecutor improperly encouraged a witness to testify about his inadmissable prior theft convictions by asking an overly broad question about his criminal history. He asserts that evidence of the prior thefts was especially harmful to his case because there was not strong evidence of guilt and the jury could have assumed that he had previously been convicted of stealing items relating to manufacturing methamphetamine. The government argues that the defendant’s rights were not so substantially affected by Officer Robinson’s reference to Beal’s theft convictions so as to necessitate a new trial. In determining whether a defendant has been deprived of a fair trial, we consider three factors: (1) the cumulative effect of the misconduct; (2) the strength of the properly admitted evidence of the defendant’s guilt; and (3) the curative action taken by the district court.
United States v. Beeks,
The district court is in a better position to measure the effect of inadmissable testimony on a jury than an appellate court,
United States v. Nelson,
The trial spanned two days and involved eighteen witnesses. The effect of Officer Robinson’s comment concerning Beal’s prior theft convictions was a single remark in the midst of trial.
See United States v. Flute,
Finally, Beal argues that the district court erred by limiting his cross examination of governinent witness Cesar Cardenas. Cardenas was a jailhouse informant who had previously testified in at least two other trials in which defendants had been found not guilty. Beal argues that the jury verdicts in these other trials reveal a pattern of untruthfulness on the part of Cardenas and that he had a character for untruthfulness. He contends that he should therefore have been permitted to ask Cardenas about the other trials. We review evidentiary rulings regarding the proper scope of a cross examination for
Federal Rule of Evidence 608(b) permits the court in its discretion to allow cross examination of witnesses regarding specific instances of a witness’s own conduct if the past experiences are probative of a character for untruthfulness. Even if ad-missable under Rule 608(b), a district court may nevertheless exclude the evidence if its “probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.” Fed.R.Evid. 403.
There is no way to know the basis for the jury, acquittals in the-other cases in which Cardenas testified. We have recognized a court’s inability to “discern what the jury really meant” or the “possibility that the jury exercised lenity.”
United States v. Kragness,
For these reasons the judgment of the district court is affirmed.
Notes
. The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United State's District Judge for the Northern District of Iowa.