United States v. Nora, No. 12-50485 (9th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseAfter law enforcement officers arrested Defendant they obtained a warrant to search his home. The search of Defendant’s home resulted in the seizure of illegal drugs and firearms. Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion. On appeal, Defendant argued that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest him, and because the search warrant was based on information acquired as a result of his unlawful arrest, the warrant was invalid and the evidence discovered during the search must be suppressed. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s order denying Defendant’s suppression motion, holding (1) although Defendant’s arrest was supported by probable cause, the manner in which the officers made the arrest violated Payton v. New York; (2) evidence obtained as a result of Defendant’s unlawful arrest must be suppressed, and the remaining untainted evidence did not provide probable cause to issue a warrant; and (3) consequently, the entire warrant was invalid, and all evidence seized pursuant to it must be suppressed.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel reversed the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence seized from the defendant’s home, and remanded for further proceedings, in a case in which the defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute. The panel held that although the defendant’s arrest was supported by probable cause, the arrest violated Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980), and violated the Fourth Amendment, where the officers physically took the defendant into custody outside his home in the front yard only by surrounding his house and ordering him to come out at gunpoint, and no exigency existed. The panel held that evidence seized during a pat-down search incident to an arrest made in violation of Payton must be suppressed, whether the search occurs inside the home or, as in the case of the cash and marijuana here, outside the home. The panel held that the defendant’s post-arrest statements are subject to suppression as well, as fruit of the unlawful search of his person. The panel held that suppression of this evidence renders the portions of the warrant authorizing a search for narcotics-related evidence and evidence of gang membership invalid. The panel held that the remaining untainted evidence did not establish probable cause to search the defendant’s home for the broad range of firearms described in the warrant, and that as a consequence, the entire warrant was invalid and all evidence seized pursuant to it must be suppressed.
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