United States v. Braden, Jr., No. 15-3958 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted of possession with the intent to distribute marijuana and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. The court concluded that the district court's failure to suppress defendant's statement made sua sponte outside his home was not plain error where defendant has not shown that the outcome of his trial could have been any different if his statement had been suppressed; the search warrant was supported by probable cause and the district court did not err by denying defendant's motion to suppress; and the district court did not err by allowing an officer's testimony regarding the correlation between firearms and drugs. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Melloy, Author, with Colloton and Shepherd, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. Defendant's motion to suppress did not address a pre-Miranda statement he made to officers about the presence of "weed" as they executed a search warrant, and the issue was not preserved for review; reviewing the claim for plain error, defendant has not shown the outcome of his trial would have been different had the statement been suppressed as there was overwhelming evidence that he possessed marijuana with intent to distribute; the affidavit supplied in support of the search warrant for defendant's residence was sufficient to establish probable cause that drugs and firearms would be found there; the district court did not commit plain error in admitting evidence from a police witness that firearms are tools of the drug trade; even if was error, the admission of the evidence did not affect defendant's substantial rights as that evidence did not, in light of the other evidence in the case, affect the outcome of the trial.
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