UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. RICHARD WYATT, Defendant.
Criminal Action No. 16-cr-00057-MSK
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Chief Judge Marcia S. Krieger
November 29, 2016
THIS MATTER comes before the Court on Defendant, Richard Wyatt‘s, Motion to Suppress (# 38) and the Government‘s Response (# 53).
This motion concerns a search of Mr. Wyatt‘s business by the ATF. He seeks suppression of all evidence seized due to misconduct by officers conducting the search. Notably, he does not allege that there were any defects in the warrant executed by the ATF, nor that the ATF exceeded the scope of the warrant when seizing evidence. Instead, Mr. Wyatt argues that the manner in which the ATF exercised the warrant so exceeded the Fourth Amendment‘s guarantees that suppression of all evidence seized pursuant to the warrant is required. In particular, Mr. Wyatt asserts that the ATF search violated his1 Fourth Amendment rights because
I. Facts
For purposes of this motion, the factual record is, primarily, an oral proffer made by Mr. Wyatt‘s counsel at a hearing on October 18, 2016 (# 62). (Mr. Wyatt also relies on certain physical exhibits - namely, photographs and a video -- that illustrate certain aspects of the contentions in the proffer.) That hearing concerned a separate motion to suppress, arising out of the same search. At the conclusion of that hearing, the Court noted the pendency of the instant motion by Mr. Wyatt, seeking “blanket suppression” of the fruits of the ATF search. To determine whether a further evidentiary hearing was necessary on that motion, the Court invited Mr. Wyatt‘s counsel to make a proffer of the evidence he would elicit, were an evidentiary hearing to be held. The Court summarizes that proffer below, taken in the light most favorable to Mr. Wyatt.
In 2009, the ATF began investigation of Mr. Wyatt and his business, Gunsmoke, Inc., with regard to suspicions that they sold firearms without proper federal licenses. In 2015, the ATF obtained a warrant to search Gunsmoke, Inc.‘s business premises and to seize evidence of firearms sales and gunsmithing services.
ATF agents executed the warrant on March 31, 2015. When Mr. Wyatt pulled into Gunsmoke‘s parking lot at approximately 9:00 a.m., armed Wheat Ridge police officers pulled up behind him. Mr. Wyatt first engaged with Wheat Ridge officers, with whom he was familiar.
Mr. Wyatt again asked to see the warrant and insisted on calling his lawyer. The ATF agent showed Mr. Wyatt a copy of the warrant, and they argued at some length - perhaps as long as half an hour -- over whether the property address of the building was indeed the address shown on the warrant.2 Eventually, Mr. Wyatt agreed to provide the ATF agents with keys to the building and codes to provide them access to interior areas. Mr. Wyatt demanded to be permitted to leave the premises and the ATF agents apparently offered him two options: he could stay in the parking lot during the search and be detained and denied access to his phone, or he could leave the premises, but if he left the premises and returned, he would be arrested. Mr. Wyatt states that he expressed an intention to take the latter option and leave. Before he could leave, however, a Wheat Ridge police officer began questioning him about a related criminal case, preventing him from leaving. This questioning lasted some 30-45 minutes.
Upon entering the shop, Mr. Wyatt observed various forms of damage that had been caused by the ATF agents. Specifically, he described (and evidenced via exhibits): (i) “various mementos and pictures, some of them of great value, that were either hanging on the wall or were very carefully put away” which “ended up with broken frames and basically deposited on the ground“; (ii) apparently, as many as three prints or images were “simply removed” from the building, despite not being listed in the warrant; (iii) gun cases that various weapons were kept it were “thr[own] into a pile on the floor” and one gun case “was torn up and thrown into a pile“: (iv) two valuable weapons were “thrown into this pile on the floor [ ] and left there,” at least one of them suffering a scratch in the process (although Mr. Wyatt‘s counsel focused instead on “the indignity” that one of the weapons had sentimental value to Mr. Wyatt and was kept on a shelf in his office, yet “it was . . . thrown on the floor and left in this manner“); (v) other weapons, prints,
At the conclusion of the proffer, Mr. Wyatt‘s counsel summarized the various offenses as “gratuitous damage, the things that just weren‘t necessary, valuable prints, even these, you know, throwing collector item handguns down on the floor, things that simply made no sense[, ] 30 minutes of . . . constant requests to have the right to read the warrant and know what‘s in the warrant, and instead, what they did is they continued to detain him and part of it was the goal of having him questioned by other police officers on related cases.”
The ATF seized a wide array of business records and other documents, numerous firearms, Denver Sheriff badges, and various other physical items. The Court does not understand Mr. Wyatt to contend that any of these items fell outside the scope of the search warrant or were otherwise seized in violation of any specific
II. Analysis
The
It is important to note, however, that not every constitutional violation, and not every
Generally, suppression is warranted only where there is a causal connection between the illegal police conduct and the evidence obtained; in other words, where, but-for the illegal conduct, the contested evidence would not have been discovered. See, e.g., Hudson, 547 U.S. at 592; United States v. Hargus, 128 F.3d 1358, 1363 (10th Cir. 1997) (“If evidence is illegally seized, the general rule is that only the improperly seized evidence, not all of the evidence, must be suppressed, unless there was flagrant disregard for the terms of the warrant“). In circumstances where a
A. Suppression Resulting From Flagrant Disregard for Warrant‘s Limitations
In cases where police misconduct is particularly egregious, broad (or, as some courts have described, “blanket“) suppression may be warranted even without a causal connection between the misconduct and the evidence. “Blanket suppression” is typically reserved for instances where officers completely ignore a warrant‘s limitations and treat a search as a general “fishing expedition,” rummaging through property for any indication of broad criminal activity. See United States v. Webster, 809 F.3d 1158 (10th Cir. 2016) (blanket suppression is warranted where searches conducted pursuant to a warrant turn into general searches in disregard of the particularity requirement); United States v. Le, 173 F.3d 1258, 1270 (10th Cir. 1999); United States v. Moraga, 76 Fed App‘x 223, 229 (10th Cir. 2003); see also United States v. Shi Yan Liu, 239 F.3d 138, 140-41 (2d Cir. 2000) (the rationale for blanket suppression is that a search that greatly exceeds the bounds of a warrant and is not conducted in good faith essentially becomes
The seminal case in the 10th Circuit for this proposition is United States v. Medlin, 842 F.2d 1194 (10th Cir. 1988). There, federal officials obtained a warrant to seize “illegally possessed and/or stolen firearms” from the defendant. The federal officials, accompanied by local police, executed the warrant, seizing 130 firearms. However, during the search, the local officers also proceed to search for any other stolen property that might be evidence of state crimes, eventually seizing more than 600 additional items, none of which were covered by the warrant. After concluding that the federal officers were responsible for the seizures made by the local officials, the 10th Circuit took up the question of whether suppression of the properly-seized firearms was warranted. Describing the general rule as “evidence which is properly seized pursuant to a warrant must be suppressed if the officers executing the warrant exhibit ‘flagrant disregard’ for its terms,” the court found that standard to be satisfied by the local officers’ conduct. Id. at 1198-99. The court‘s reasoning was that “[w]hen law enforcement officers grossly exceed the scope of a search warrant in seizing property, the particularity requirement is undermined and a valid warrant is transformed into a general warrant thereby requiring suppression of all evidence seized under that warrant.” Id. at 1199.
The rule in Medlin has been consistently applied in similar cases. For example, in United States v. Foster, 100 F.3d 846, 849 (10th Cir. 1996), officers flagrantly disregarded the scope of a warrant authorizing seizure of marijuana and guns, searching and seizing all items of “value,”
The 10th Circuit also found no basis for suppression in United States v. Webster, 809 F.3d 1158 (10th Cir. 2016). There, two teams of local officers executed a warrant to seize drugs and drug paraphernalia from the defendant‘s home. The execution was accomplished by the first team, a group specializing in forced entries, entered and secured the defendant‘s home, followed by a narcotics team that actually conducted the search for and seizure of drugs and other items mentioned in the warrant. At some point thereafter, the defendant noticed that other items of his personal property, including cash, a cell phone, and a game console were missing. Although the defendant proceeded to plead guilty to the drug charges, he later learned from FBI officials that
In sum, blanket suppression is predominantly applied where agents grossly disregard the specific limits of a warrant and proceed to search for and seize property that is entirely unrelated to that authorized by the warrant.
Here, Mr. Wyatt‘s proffer does not describe the type of flagrant disregard for a warrant‘s terms shown in cases like Medlin or Foster. Mr. Wyatt does not allege that ATF agents seized a large quantity of personal property falling outside of the scope of the warrant, nor that agents needlessly prolonged their exploration of the Gunsmoke property in order to do so. At best, Mr. Wyatt‘s proffer seems to suggest that ATF agents may have6 removed as many as three “prints” - the Court understands this to mean framed posters, photos, or other artwork - from the building, apparently without authorization in the warrant. Although the Court does not condone officers ever seizing any item of property beyond that authorized by a warrant, the Court finds that, in the circumstances presented here, the improper removal of as many as three prints would be de minimis, particularly in light of the record that reflects a warrant seizure inventory that runs
B. Suppression Resulting From General Disregard for Constitutional Rights
Suppression of evidence is also sometimes warranted where law enforcement acts particularly reprehensibly, with flagrant disregard for a suspect‘s constitutional rights. U.S. v. Edwards, 666 F.3d 877, 886 (4th Cir. 2011); United States v. Thompson, 667 F.Supp.2d 758 (S.D. Ohio 2009). The question of whether law enforcement officers acted with such extreme disregard for the intended intensity of a search that suppression is required to deter such conduct is resolved on a case by case basis. United States v. Penn, 647 F.2d 876, 882 n. 7 (9th Cir. 1980), cert den‘d, 449 U.S. 903 (1980).
Here, Mr. Wyatt‘s proffer can be generally divided into three specific categories: (i) ATF agents needlessly damaged his property; (ii) the agents detained him for an unreasonable amount of time; and (iii) the agents exposed him to negative media coverage. The Court examines each category separately, before considering them as a whole.
1. Property Damage
Damage to or destruction of property that is not reasonably necessary to effectively execute a search warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Becker, 929 F.2d 442, 446 (9th Cir. 1991); Tarpley v. Greene, 684 F.2d 1, 9 (D.C. Cir. 1982). However, courts also
Mr. Wyatt has not cited, in either his oral proffer or in his subsequent brief, authority finding a Fourth Amendment violation requiring suppression in circumstances involving comparable levels of property damage to that he describes. Mr. Wyatt identifies only four specific instances of property damage - broken picture frames, an antique cash register that was broken, a gun case that was “torn up,” and an antique weapon that suffered damage in the form of a “scratch.” Mr. Wyatt‘s proffer (and the exhibits he refers to in support of that proffer) conveys the impression that these were all comparatively minor forms of damage; he does not, for example, describe wholesale destruction of large numbers of items, smashing of glass or other fragile items, or other indicia of purposeful damage. Various cases finding similar types of damage have universally found no Fourth Amendment violation, particularly in the absence of evidence that the damage was purposefully or maliciously caused. See, e.g., Kirkland v. City of New York, 2007 WL 1541367 (E.D.N.Y. May 25, 2007) (“damage to an antique table, the front door, door frame, and the wall near the door” where police executed a no-knock warrant was “[nothing more than] the ordinary disarray incident to the execution of the warrant“);
Under these circumstances, and given the size and scope of the search to be performed and the amount of property properly seized under the warrant, the Court cannot say that the few instances of damage cited by Mr. Wyatt and the lack of facts suggesting malicious or intentional destruction would permit a finding that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred or that suppression was warranted. This analysis is not changed by Mr. Wyatt‘s remaining contentions - that ATF agents carelessly handled his property (without causing apparent damage) or rudely disposed of it in piles on the floor. Once again, Mr. Wyatt is obligated to come forward with evidence of something more than negligence or careless handling of property on the part of officers, and his proffer does not do so.
The Supreme Court has definitively held that police may detain occupants of a residence while conducting a search authorized by a warrant in certain circumstances. Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 704-05 (1981); United States v. Glover, 211 Fed App‘x 811, 813 (10th Cir. Jan. 10, 2007). The use of handcuffs is likewise reasonable where there is a potential risk to officer safety. Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93, 100 (2005).
In Muelher, the Supreme Court examined whether it was reasonable for officers to detain suspects for two to three hours while searching real property for weapons. It determined that there is an inherent safety risk in executing a search warrant for weapons, sufficient to justify the detention of (and use of handcuffs on) the target suspec. Id. The defendant in Muehler also complained, as does Mr. Wyatt, that while she was detained, law enforcement questioned her about other illegal activity - there, her immigration status. The Supreme Court found that officers’ questioning of a suspect “does not constitute a seizure” separate from the physical detention, so long as the questioning did not otherwise prolong the detention. Id. at 101.
In Mr. Wyatt‘s case, his proffer suggests that he was initially detained and placed in handcuffs while ATF officers questioned him about the address shown on the warrant and about whether he would produce keys and access codes for the building. It is not clear whether Mr. Wyatt contends that this portion of his detention violates some aspect of the Fourth Amendment, but the Court sees no basis for such an argument. Muehler squarely contemplates that detention, even via handcuffs, is appropriate in this context.
Mr. Wyatt‘s proffer then seems to suggest that, as ATF agents entered the building and began the search, he was offered the option to leave the premises. He expressed an intention to do so, but that he was prevented from leaving by a Wheat Ridge police officer who sought to
Normally, when police officers needlessly prolong a detention, the remedy is the suppression of physical evidence that, but for that prolonged detention, would not have been discovered or seized. See U.S. v. Peralez, 526 F.3d 1115, 1121-22 (8th Cir. 2008). Here, however, the physical evidence seized by the ATF officers would have been obtained regardless of whether Mr. Wyatt promptly returned to his home or whether he was improperly detained by the Wheat Ridge officer in the parking lot, as the search of the Gunsmoke premises would have continued in either event. In such circumstances, suppression of the fruits of the ATF search would not be appropriate. See e.g. Hudson, 547 U.S. at 594 (refusing the remedy of suppression of physical evidence where agents executed search warrant without first knocking and announcing their presence; “the interests that were violated in this case have nothing to do with the seizure of the evidence“). It might also be appropriate to suppress the statements Mr. Wyatt
That leaves Mr. Wyatt to argue that the Wheat Ridge officer‘s prolonging of his detention for a period of 30-45 minutes was, in and of itself (or, when coupled with the other colorable quarrels Mr. Wyatt has with the circumstances of the search), sufficient to render the entirety of the search so unreasonable as to warrant exclusion of the seized evidence. Mr. Wyatt cites United States v. Thompson, 667 F.Supp.2d 758 (S.D. Ohio 2009), where the District Court granted a motion to suppress all fruits from a warrant search of a home because officials refused to show a copy of the warrant to the residents and because police detained one of the residents, in a semi-clothed state, on the back patio for a period of 5 hours while conducting the search without offering her food or water or the opportunity to dress. If nothing else - and this Court is not necessarily persuaded by the entirety of Thompson‘s reasoning (particularly with regard to the remedy it grants) -- Thompson is distinguishable on its facts, as Mr. Wyatt‘s 30-45 minute detention by the Wheat Ridge officer is hardly comparable to Ms. Thompson‘s 5-hour detention, to say nothing of the further indignities she suffered that Mr. Wyatt did not. Whatever inconvenience Mr. Wyatt suffered for those 30-45 minutes is not proportional to the societal interests in the admissibility of evidence that was properly seized by ATF agents conducting a search pursuant to a valid warrant inside a premises away from where Mr. Wyatt was being detained. Whether Mr. Wyatt‘s detention by the Wheat Ridge officer was so unreasonable as to permit him to successfully seek civil damages from that officer in a § 1983 suit is one question; this Court concludes that it is not so unreasonable, individually or collectively, as to permit a remedy in the form of suppression of the physical evidence seized by ATF agents from the Gunsmoke premises.
The Supreme Court has, on several occasions, held that police officers’ inviting members of the media to observe the execution of a warrant to constitute a Fourth Amendment violation. Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603 (1999); Hanlon v. Berger, 526 U.S. 808 (1999); see also Robinson v. City & County of Denver, 39 F.Supp.2d 1257, 1265 (D. Colo. 1999).
However, this is not what occurred here. Mr. Wyatt does not allege that ATF officials solicited a media presence during the execution of the warrant, much less that they allowed members of the media inside the Gunsmoke premises to observe the search itself. Rather, Mr. Wyatt‘s arguments are much more limited: when he returned to the property near the conclusion of the search, members of the media had arrived and were filming (apparently from a vantage point on public property - at least Mr. Wyatt does not assert otherwise). He complains that ATF officials refused to let him avoid the media gaze by entering through a back door, instead requiring him to enter through the front door, in full view of the media.
The Court is unable to find a case, and Mr. Wyatt cites none, in which the unsolicited presence of the media, on a public street, observing the execution of a warrant somehow constitutes a violation of a defendant‘s Fourth Amendment rights. Nor does Mr. Wyatt point to any authority that suggests that agents have some constitutional obligation to assist a defendant in evading the media‘s gaze. In Lauro v. Charles, 219 F.3d 202, 211 (2d Cir. 2000), the court reasoned that “the Fourth Amendment shields arrestees from police conduct that unreasonably aggravates the intrusion on privacy properly occasioned by the initial seizure.” Thus, police officers’ decisions to stage a re-enactment of the defendant‘s initial “perp walk” into the police station for the benefit of late-arriving news media was found to be a Fourth Amendment violation. But the court acknowledged that action having “legitimate law enforcement
Here, Mr. Wyatt does not argue that the ATF agents lacked any legitimate law enforcement purpose in requiring him to return to the store to have him open a safe. Nor does he specifically assert that requiring him to enter the property through the front door lacked any legitimate justification. Although Mr. Wyatt‘s proffer suggests that he wished to avoid the media‘s gaze - understandably so - by entering through the back door, he does not indicate that ATF agents promised him that he could do so or that they otherwise induced him to come to the property under false pretenses. Thus, the fact that his arrival at the property had the incidental effect of exposing him to the media is of no constitutional significance; indeed, courts have frequently recognized the significant public interest attendant in the media observing (from a publicly-accessible location) law enforcement‘s interactions with accused persons. Id., Brown v. Pepe, 42 F.Supp.3d 310, 316 (D.Ma. 2014) (rejecting Fourth Amendment claim by defendant subjected to ordinary, media-observed “perp walk” into police station for booking). Certainly, Mr. Wyatt points to no authority that requires law enforcement officials to assist a suspect in avoiding media scrutiny or accommodate the suspect‘s desire for privacy. So long as law enforcement officials are engaged in legitimate operational functions when the media exposure occurs and the media‘s presence remains on public property, cases like Lauro and Caldarola suggest that the Fourth Amendment is satisfied. Nothing in Mr. Wyatt‘s proffer suggests that
4. Totality of the Circumstances
The preceding analysis disposes of Mr. Wyatt‘s various complaints individually. In the interests of completeness, the Court also briefly considers whether the aggregation of all of his complaints would yield a colorable Fourth Amendment violation warranting suppression, even if none of them suffice on their own.
The Court finds that they do not. At best, Mr. Wyatt has identified only two types of conduct that even arguably implicate on his Fourth Amendment rights relative to the search: the relatively minor damage to his personal property occurring during the search, and the improper extension of his detention by 30-45 minutes by a Wheat Ridge police officer. Even combined, these acts are not severe enough in their consequences nor egregious enough in their motivations to warrant the extreme remedy of suppression of otherwise validly-obtained evidence. Both are of a quantum more suited to recompense - if any is warranted - by means of a civil suit for damages, not suppression of evidence.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court finds that, even taking Mr. Wyatt‘s proffer in the light most favorable to him, Mr. Wyatt has failed to articulate facts that, if proven, would warrant the remedy of suppression that he seeks. Accordingly, the Court finds no need to conduct an
DATED this 29th day of November, 2016.
BY THE COURT:
Marcia S. Krieger
United States District Court