STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. JOSHUA DANIEL FLEMING, Defendant-Appellant.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 9-425 / 08-1132
Filed July 22, 2009
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
JOSHUA DANIEL FLEMING,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, John C. Nelson,
Judge.
Defendant appeals arguing a search warrant was invalid. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Patricia Reynolds, Assistant
State Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Mary E. Tabor, Assistant Attorney
General, Patrick Jennings, County Attorney, and Jayme Kirsch, Assistant County
Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Mahan, P.J., and Eisenhauer and Mansfield, JJ.
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EISENHAUER, J.
This appeal relates to the validity of a search.
After a traffic stop on
November 25, 2007, the car‟s occupants informed the police they were on their
way to a house to purchase drugs from Andrew Nearman. The police verified
Nearman was the owner of the house, a single-family residence, and obtained a
search warrant the same day. Joshua Fleming was detained in the dining room
when the warrant was executed and subsequently stipulated he was a resident of
Nearman‟s house.
Fleming used the house‟s address on correspondence.
Nearman,
Fleming, and a third party shared a common entrance, living room, dining room,
and kitchen. Fleming had his own bedroom, and a small amount of marijuana
was found in Fleming‟s bedroom.
Fleming moved to suppress the evidence
arguing the officers, “after learning of Fleming‟s separate occupancy of the
bedroom,” needed to obtain a new warrant for this separate room and their
bedroom search was not authorized or justified. The motion was denied.
At trial, Fleming testified he had a rental agreement with Nearman and he
had exclusive possession of the bedroom.
In upholding the seizure of the
evidence from Fleming‟s bedroom, the court ruled:
This is not a situation akin to a standard landlord/tenant
arrangement–the house involved is a single family residential
dwelling titled solely in the name of Andrew Nearman. [Fleming]
did not have an address different than that of Mr. Nearman. There
has been no evidence presented that the room [Fleming] claims to
be his exclusive bedroom has a number associated with it or that it
can be locked and/or is locked regularly. There was no evidence
presented to show that Mr. Nearman had a rental certificate from
the city to allow himself to legally be a landlord . . . nor was a
written lease ever provided . . . .
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The search warrant that issued contemplated and allowed
for a search of the entire single family dwelling where [Fleming]
resided. . . . [Fleming‟s] privacy interests, whatever they may have
been, were protected by the warrant application process and under
the circumstances a search warrant allowing for a search of the
entire house was appropriate.
Fleming appeals his conviction and sentence arguing his constitutional
rights were violated when the court failed to grant his motion to suppress.
Fleming requests a dismissal “due to the illegal search.”
We review
constitutional issues de novo. State v. Taft, 506 N.W.2d 757, 762 (Iowa 1993).
We believe the legality of the Fleming warrant and search is supported by
the Iowa Supreme Court‟s analysis in State v. Lehr, 258 N.W.2d 158 (Iowa
1977). Defendant Lehr was the lessee of an upstairs apartment occupied by
three other men and consisting of a rear stairway, back porch, living room, dining
room, kitchen, bathroom, and four bedrooms. Lehr, 258 N.W.2d at 159. The
police were told one of Lehr‟s roommates was selling drugs out of the apartment.
Id.
A warrant for the search of the apartment was issued, and drugs were
recovered in numerous areas of the apartment, including Lehr‟s bedroom. Id.
On appeal, Lehr argued the search warrant and the search conducted
were illegal because the warrant should have been limited to a search of his
roommate and the roommate‟s part of the apartment. Id. at 160. In rejecting
Lehr‟s claim, the court ruled: “Under the circumstances here and the living
arrangements of the four men in the apartment, we hold that the district judge
properly issued a warrant for search of the apartment.” Id.
Likewise, under the living arrangements here, a single-family residence
where Fleming produced no evidence of multiple mailboxes, multiple addresses,
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multiple buzzers, or multiple utility bills, and where Fleming had use of the
common areas of the house as demonstrated by his detention in the dining room,
the court properly issued a warrant for search of the entire house, and the
officers acted legally in executing the search. See United States v. Canestri, 518
F.2d 269, 273 (2nd Cir. 1975) (holding a warrant directing the entire house be
searched included a locked storeroom, otherwise “the purposes of a search
warrant could be frustrated by the mere declaration of the owner of a one-family
residence that one of the rooms therein „belongs‟ to a party not named in the
warrant”); People v. Gorg, 321 P.2d 143, 148 (Cal. Ct. App. 1958) (rejecting
claim a warrant issued in the name of one tenant does not authorize the officers
to search those parts of the premises not occupied by the person named in the
warrant where the three bedrooms opened into shared
living room, kitchen,
bath, and halls making all of the rooms one living unit); see also People v. Bell,
290 N.E.2d 214, 217 (Ill. 1972) (holding warrant authorizing a search of entire
first-floor apartment not overly broad where the apartment was one unit for
residential use and the defendant had access to its various parts).
AFFIRMED.
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