USA V. ESQUEDA, No. 22-50170 (9th Cir. 2023)
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In the Central District of California, defendant-appellant Christopher Esqueda was convicted for possession of a firearm as a felon, following the denial of his motion to suppress evidence collected during an undercover operation. Undercover agents, with Esqueda's consent, entered his motel room to conduct a controlled purchase of a firearm. The agents secretly recorded the encounter using audio-video equipment concealed on their persons. Esqueda argued that the secret recording of the encounter exceeded the scope of the "implied license" he granted when he consented to the officers' physical entry, hence infringing upon his Fourth Amendment rights.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision. The court held that no Fourth Amendment search occurred. It relied on longstanding Supreme Court precedents asserting that an undercover officer who physically enters a premises with express consent and secretly records only what he can see and hear by virtue of his consented entry does not trespass, physically intrude, or otherwise engage in a search violative of the Fourth Amendment. The court noted that the Supreme Court's decisions in Florida v. Jardines and United States v. Jones, which outline a property-based, trespassory test for Fourth Amendment violations, do not disturb this principle.
Court Description: Criminal Law The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Christopher Esqueda’s motion to suppress evidence in a case in which Esqueda entered a conditional plea to possessing a firearm as a felon, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
An informant and undercover officers conducted a controlled purchase of a firearm from Esqueda in his motel room. The undercover agents—without a search warrant—entered the motel room with the consent of Esqueda and his co-defendant. The agents surreptitiously recorded the encounter using audio-video equipment concealed on their persons. The video recordings depicted the interior of Esqueda’s motel room during the encounter and showed Esqueda handing a .22 caliber revolver to an undercover officer.
Esqueda argued that the officers’ secret recording of the encounter exceeded the scope of the “implied license” he granted when he consented to the officers’ physical entry. He therefore claimed that the officers conducted a search violative of his Fourth Amendment rights under the Supreme Court’s trespassory, unlicensed physical intrusion test outlined in Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013), and United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012).
The panel rejected this argument because longstanding Supreme Court precedent that preceded Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), dictates that an undercover officer who physically enters a premises with express consent and secretly records only what he can see and hear by virtue of his consented entry does not trespass, physically intrude, or otherwise engage in a search violative of the Fourth Amendment. The panel wrote that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Jardines and Jones do not disturb that well-settled principle. The panel therefore held that no search violative of the Fourth Amendment occurred.
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