UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOSE SEGOVIANO, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 20-2930
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
Argued April 1, 2021 — Decided April 1, 2022
Before MANION, ROVNER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:18-cr-391-1 — Charles R. Norgle, Judge.
OPINION
ROVNER,
I.
The events that led to the search began on May 4, 2018, when an ATF agent conducting a covert law enforcement operation in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago was shot. An arrest warrant was issued for Ernesto Godinez, charging him with assault of a federal agent. Two days later, agents obtained cellphone location data that placed a known telephone of Godinez at or near Segoviano’s apartment building. The agents began surveillance of that apartment building at approximately 1 p.m. that day, and at approximately 5 p.m. they observed Godinez’s girlfriend, Destiny Rodriguez, exit the apartment building. They detained her,1 and a couple of hours later, at 7:23 p.m., federal agents entered the apartment building in search of Godinez. According to the agents, when they entered the vestibule of the building, they saw a closed door to their left and another door in front of them that led into a stairway to the second floor. Two agents diverted to the door on the left, and the others proceeded through the door to the stairway. About halfway up the stairs, they realized that the stairs did not merely lead to a common area of the second floor, but instead led directly into a second floor apartment. They called out to the occupant of the apartment, Segoviano, who came to the top of the stairs. The agents then asked Segoviano if there was anyone else in the apartment and asked for permission to search his apartment for the purpose of determining if a fugitive, Godinez, was there. Segoviano replied that there was no one else in the apartment and consented to that search of his apartment. The agents removed Segoviano from the apartment, handcuffed him, and conducted the limited search. While the agents were calling out to Segoviano from the stairs in the initial entry, an occupant of the apartment to the left of the building entryway opened the apartment door, and two agents asked her to step back into the apartment; the agents then entered with her, conducted a sweep of the apartment at which time they found another occupant, and detained the residents of that apartment as well.
Although the search of Segoviano’s apartment revealed no other persons in the apartment, the agents nevertheless kept Segoviano in handcuffs, brought him back into his own apartment, and seated him at his dining room table. Approximately 6-7 agents were present in the apartment as agents questioned Segoviano. For approximately 20-30 minutes of that questioning, Segoviano remained handcuffed,
In the course of that interrogation, Segoviano acknowledged possessing marijuana and cocaine in the apartment, and the presence of firearms for which he possessed a Firearm Owners’ Identification card. The agents informed Segoviano that based on that admission they could obtain a search warrant for the apartment, and Segoviano then signed a consent to allow the search of the apartment, the grounds, and the detached garage. The agents never provided Miranda warnings to Segoviano.
The search yielded four firearms, approximately 2.28 kilograms of marijuana, and approximately 95 grams of cocaine. Segoviano was subsequently charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. At some point, the agents also searched the backyard and a detached garage, and found in that detached garage a white Kia Sorrento, which was the same color, make, and model of the SUV that surveillance cameras recorded Godinez entering on the day of the shooting approximately 30 minutes prior to that shooting. The agents determined that the Kia in the garage was a vehicle registered to Rodriguez.2 During the subsequent interview at his home, Segoviano informed the agents that Godinez had visited his home earlier that day before he became aware that Godinez was wanted for a criminal offense. Segoviano was never charged with any offense related to harboring a fugitive.
The district court denied his motion to suppress the evidence obtained during the interrogation and search, and Segoviano pled guilty to both counts under a conditional plea agreement that allowed him to appeal that denial of the motion to suppress. Segoviano asserts on appeal that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress, arguing that the evidence should have been suppressed because: “(1) the statements and consent were given during an unlawful detention and therefore were not voluntary; (2) the statements and search were the result of an unlawfully extended detention, which continued beyond law enforcement’s stated purpose, and therefore were not voluntary; and (3) the statements were obtained as a result of a Miranda-less custodial interrogation.” Appellant’s Brief at 6.
II.
The pre-arrest detention in this case was constitutionally problematic. As an initial matter, the agents lawfully could enter the vestibule of the apartment building, as that was a public area as to which a resident would have no reasonable expectation of privacy. See United States v. Vargas, 915 F.3d 417, 419 (7th Cir. 2019); United States v. Sweeney, 821 F.3d 893, 902 (7th Cir. 2016). And the parties agree that the entry into the stairwell was not an intentional entry into Segoviano’s apartment, and was based on the false belief that the stairwell was also part of the public area of the apartment building.
The
The
The district court, in denying the motion to suppress, determined that there was no
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We have applied that standard in myriad cases. For instance, in United States v. Ruiz, 785 F.3d 1134 (7th Cir. 2015), we considered whether officers had reasonable suspicion to approach and detain Ruiz’s vehicle in a residential area. In Ruiz, drug enforcement officers had observed a series of encounters involving three different vehicles, one of which was driven by a person with drug convictions and the other two registered to the subjects of an ongoing drug-trafficking investigation. Id. at 1141–42. The culmination of those encounters involved Ruiz entering one of the vehicles in a mall parking lot, where he was redirected from the front passenger seat to the rear driver-side. Id. at 1142. Upon exiting that car, he appeared to have trouble locating his car, indicating he either forgot the location or was not familiar with the vehicle. When he entered that car, he engaged in actions consistent with the operation of a vehicle trap compartment, which is a hidden compartment in a vehicle typically used to hide items such as valuables or contraband. Id. Ruiz then drove away and, once it became clear that he knew a marked squad car was following him, bypassed the exit toward Wisconsin (where his car was registered), drove into a residential neighborhood, and pulled into the driveway of a house advertised for rent, but did not communicate with anyone there. Id. Once the marked squad car passed, he again engaged in actions consistent with the operation of a vehicle trap, and began backing out of the driveway, but immediately stopped and put his car into park when the squad car drove back into view. Id. We expressed “doubt that any of Ruiz’s actions
In contrast, in United States v. Ienco, 182 F.3d 517 (7th Cir. 1999), we held that the observations by the officers were insufficient to establish reasonable suspicion. In Ienco, officers responded to a 911 call regarding a disturbance with two men in the lobby of an office building. Id. at 521. A person in a nervous and agitated state intercepted the police car as it approached the building, and told the officers “they’re in the building.” Id. As the officer pulled into the driveway, two men in business suits exited the building. The officers instructed them to stop, questioned them as to whether they saw anything in the building and their reasons for being there, and confiscated their wallets and driver’s licenses. Id. We held that the seizure occurred when the men were ordered to stop, and that the officers lacked an articulable reasonable suspicion that the men were engaged or had been engaged in criminal conduct, noting that “even ‘inspired hunches’ do not invest the police with the authority to ‘stop people at will.’” Id. at 524, quoting United States v. Sholola, 124 F.3d 803, 812 (7th Cir. 1997). See also Thompson v. Wagner, 319 F.3d 931, 936 (7th Cir. 2003) (no reasonable suspicion where the officers failed to undertake “even a modicum of additional investigation” to corroborate the informant’s tip); United States v. Lopez, 907 F.3d 472, 483 (7th Cir. 2018) (no reasonable suspicion where the officers “failed to undertake ‘even a modicum of additional investigation’ to see if the Lopezes’ or others’ actions matched the informant’s tale or to wait for Lopez’s actions to create an independent basis for reasonable suspicion.”).
We turn, then, to the application of the reasonable suspicion standard in this case. The government argues that the district court properly held that the agents possessed reason-able suspicion to believe that Segoviano was engaged in criminal activity—namely, the offense of harboring a fugitive. The district court, however, based that determination on facts that fall well short of those that the Supreme Court and this court have determined sufficient to meet the reasonable suspicion standard. Specifically, the district court noted that the agents, acting on an arrest warrant for Godinez, used cellphone location data to track him to the area of Segoviano’s apartment building, that they observed Rodriguez emerge from that building, and that they detained her, “allowing them to gather further information, which led to agents deciding to secure Defendant’s apartment in an attempt to locate Godinez.” As we noted earlier, there is nothing in the record indicating that the agents gathered any information from Rodriguez at all, and the government does not argue that it did so. The district court then proceeded to conclude that given the totality of circumstances, there was reasonable suspicion that Segoviano had engaged in criminal activity. Its analysis supporting the conclusion, in its entirety, is as follows:
At the time Defendant was detained, agents were attempting to apprehend Godinez, a man charged with shooting another ATF agent in the face. See 18 CR 278, Dkt. 1 at ¶ 4. The agents were operating under the facts known to them at the time, e.g., that Godinez might have been in the area. It is reasonable to infer, that when agents found Defendant in the same area they believed Godinez to be in, the agents believed Defendant posed a serious threat to them and others
given the protentional [sic] dangers involved with effectuating an arrest on a suspected gunman. See Howell v. Smith, 853 F.3d 892, 898 (7th Cir. 2017) (recognizing the possibility of the presence of a weapon as one instance in the limited circumstances in which the use of handcuffs is appropriate during a Terry stop); United States v. Stewart, 388 F.3d 1079, 1085 (7th Cir. 2004) (“To require an officer to risk his life in order to make an investigatory stop would run contrary to the intent of Terry.”) (internal quotations and citation omitted). Therefore, the agents had reasonable suspicion to lawfully detain Defendant.
Dist. Ct. Order at 5.
Based on that analysis of reasonable suspicion at the time of the initial sweep, the court then reasoned that the continued detention was permissible under Terry because it was “reasonably related in scope and duration to the circumstances that justified the stop in the first instance.” Dist. Ct. Order at 7. The court further held that the discovery of the white Kia Sorrento in the garage, that was the same color, make, and model as the one Godinez was seen driving 30 minutes prior to the shooting, justified prolonging Segoviano’s detention. Id. at 8.
Those facts relied upon by the district court are insufficient as a matter of law to constitute reasonable suspicion that Segoviano was harboring a fugitive. The district court’s determination of reasonable suspicion rests on facts that could indicate to the agents that “Godinez might have been in the area.” There are absolutely no facts tying Segoviano or his apartment to Godinez—the fugitive as to whom the government claims to have reasonable suspicion that Segoviano is harboring—or even to Godinez’s girlfriend, Rodriguez. In order for a seizure to be based on “particularized suspicion,” it must be based on some objective manifestation of criminal activity and “must raise a suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing.” Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418. As the Supreme Court emphasized, “‘[t]his demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this Court’s
We have repeatedly and consistently held that “[a] mere suspicion of illegal activity at a particular place is not enough to transfer that suspicion to anyone who leaves that property.” Bohman, 683 F.3d at 864; United States v. Rickman, 952 F.3d 876, 881 (7th Cir. 2020); see also Brown, 443 U.S. at 52 (reasonable suspicion was absent in stop of appellant in an alley because “[t]he fact that appellant was in a neighborhood frequented by drug users, standing alone, is not a basis for concluding that appellant himself was engaged in criminal conduct;” ”[i]n short, the appellant’s activity was no different from the activity of other pedestrians in that neighborhood”); Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 91 (1979) (“a person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person”). In order to demonstrate reasonable suspicion to seize Segoviano, the facts known to the agents must demonstrate that he was “not simply proximate to criminal activity but a participant in it.” United States v. Richards, 719 F.3d 746, 757 (7th Cir. 2013). Thus, for instance, in Bohman, we reversed the denial of a motion to suppress where a vehicle was stopped solely because it emerged from a site suspected to be a methamphetamine cook site, holding that the suspicion as to illegal activity at the place was not enough to justify stopping those emerging from that property. Id. at 864.
Similarly, in United States v. Johnson, 170 F.3d 708 (7th Cir. 1999), we held that reasonable suspicion was absent under facts that are analogous to those in this case. In Johnson, the police had received reports of drug activity taking place in an apartment building which identified four apartments, including apartment 7, as places in which drug dealing might be occurring. Id. at 711. The maintenance person for the building confirmed that he had observed a large number of people going to apartment 7, leaving quickly, and then departing through the rear building exit, leading him to believe that there could be drug dealing occurring there. Id. The officers decided to conduct a “knock and talk,” in which they would listen at the door of the apartment, and then knock and seek consent to search it. Id. Before the officers could knock, however, Johnson unexpectedly opened the door from within the apartment, startling both himself and the officers. Johnson then tried to walk past the officers, but an officer stuck out a hand to stop him and directed the other officer to take control of him, thus seizing him for
We held that the seizure violated the
as part of a regulatory scheme, and exigent circumstances. Id. The government does not argue that any such exceptions apply here.
Therefore, under well-established
Nothing discovered in the initial search for the fugitive—either in the apartment or the garage—alters that conclusion. At that point, the only additional information that the agents possessed was the discovery of the white Kia Sedona in the detached garage. Although characterized at times as “Godinez’s vehicle” found in “Segoviano’s garage,” those are not the facts here. As the government recognizes at other points in its brief, the vehicle was located in a garage that was a common area for the use of the residents of the multi-unit apartment building, and the vehicle was
Moreover, if those facts were sufficient to constitute reasonable suspicion, it would apply to every resident of the entire apartment building. And in fact, the government at oral argument maintained that those facts known to the agents provided reasonable suspicion as to the residents of every apartment encountered by the agents upon their entrance into that building. That contention indisputably establishes that the “reasonable suspicion” alleged here is not individualized, or even isolated to a specific apartment, but rather is based on nothing more than their presence in the area in which the fugitive was suspected to be. An expansion of reasonable suspicion to include such a generalized law enforcement action would eviscerate the protections of the
Because the continued detention in handcuffs following the sweep was itself unconstitutional, the government cannot rely on the evidence obtained during the subsequent continuation of that detention and the ensuing interrogation and search that stemmed from it. Segoviano raises a number of other
For completeness, we address the supplemental ruling by the district court. After the district court denied Segoviano’s motion to suppress, the government sought and obtained a supplemental ruling by the court that the evidence was also admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine, but that holding is inapplicable here. The inevitable discovery determination was based on the court’s conclusion that the firearm, marijuana and cocaine would have been discovered even without Segoviano’s consent to the second search, because Segoviano told law enforcement about the presence of the gun and drugs before the alleged consent to the second search. Accordingly, the agents could have obtained a warrant and would have discovered those items even absent the consent. That inevitable discovery holding would be relevant if the determinative issue in this appeal was whether the consent to the second search was voluntary, but it is irrelevant to the issue as to the validity of the initial seizure itself.
Accordingly, the decision of the district court denying the motion to suppress is REVERSED, and the case REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.