United States v. Evans, No. 14-1669 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseOfficers responded to a call of a rape in progress and saw a car leave an apartment complex about 1,000 feet from the scene. The car stopped and remained idle for 30 to 45 seconds. Investigators recovered a Missouri identification card by the window that was broken to gain access, with the name Acie Evans and a photograph. Officers then observed the same car drive by at less than five miles per hour and identified the driver as the man whose photograph appeared on the identification card. The car was registered to Bobby Evans. Because the last names matched, officers followed the car into the nearby apartment complex. The manager indicated that Acie was an emergency contact for a tenant and remembered showing an apartment to Acie before leasing it to the tenant. Entering the building they believed the driver had entered, officers knocked on a door that was partially open. A man resembling the driver answered and identified himself as Acie Evans. A computer check revealed that Evans’s license was suspended. Officers arrested Evans for driving without a license. The manager wanted Evans and his vehicle removed from the property. The officers towed Evans’s vehicle. During an inventory search, officers recovered a loaded pistol. Evans entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) and was sentenced to 180 months. The Eighth Circuit affirmed denial of a motion to dismiss.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law. Police officers' decision to impound defendant's vehicle was based on department policy regarding towing; district court's determination that the manager of the apartment complex where the vehicle was parked had asked officers to remove the vehicle was not clearly erroneous; district court did not err in determining the officers did not have an improper investigatory motive for the search of the vehicle.
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