Opinion
A15-0737
02-08-2016
State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Frederick Alusine Huballa, Appellant.
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Elizabeth R. Johnston, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent) Oliver E. Nelson, III, Magna Law Firm, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn . Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014). Affirmed
Johnson, Judge Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-13-41083 Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Elizabeth R. Johnston, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent) Oliver E. Nelson, III, Magna Law Firm, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant) Considered and decided by Johnson, Presiding Judge; Larkin, Judge; and Harten, Judge.
Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10. --------
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
JOHNSON, Judge
Frederick Alusine Huballa was convicted of fifth-degree controlled substance crime based on evidence that he possessed marijuana. On appeal, he argues that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence that was found in a warrantless search of his backpack. We conclude that the district court did not err by concluding that the evidence is admissible pursuant to the inevitable-discovery doctrine. Therefore, we affirm.
FACTS
On November 2, 2013, Minneapolis police officers responded to a report of troubling noises in an apartment, including screaming or thumping and breaking glass. The woman who answered the door was visibly shaken and nervous. Officers noticed red marks and dark bruising on the woman's neck. The woman said that a man, later identified as Huballa, was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom.
An officer went upstairs to the bedroom, found Huballa, and brought him downstairs. Huballa told the officers that he was on probation in Dakota County and that one condition of his probation was that he remain law abiding. He said that his probation paperwork was somewhere in the apartment. Huballa also said that if he was going to be leaving the apartment, he wanted to bring a jacket and a backpack that were in the upstairs bedroom. An officer retrieved the items and brought them downstairs. As the officer set the backpack on the floor, Huballa said, "Yeah, that one."
Officers arrested Huballa for domestic assault and took him outside to a squad car. The woman told an officer that she and Huballa had been fighting and that Huballa had strangled her several times and thrown her to the ground. The woman also said that Huballa's probation paperwork was in his backpack, which was still in the apartment. The officer looked inside the open backpack and saw several papers. When the officer removed the papers from the backpack, she saw large plastic baggies containing a substance that she suspected to be marijuana, another container with a substance that she suspected to be marijuana, and a digital scale.
Officers took Huballa to the Hennepin County jail, where he was booked and his property was subjected to an inventory search. When searching the backpack, officers found, in addition to the marijuana and scale that were observed at the apartment, a marijuana pipe and another person's prescription bottle containing 19 amphetamine pills.
In December 2013, the state charged Huballa with fifth-degree controlled substance crime, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 152.025, subd. 2(a)(1) (2012). In April 2014, Huballa moved to suppress the evidence that was found in the warrantless search of his backpack. According to the state's responsive brief, the parties agreed to submit the motion to the district court based solely on the police reports. The district court denied Huballa's motion. The district court reasoned that the challenged evidence is admissible because it was obtained in a search incident to a valid arrest and because of the inevitable-discovery doctrine.
The parties agreed to a stipulated-evidence court trial. See Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 4. The district court found Huballa guilty. The district court imposed a sentence of 13 months of imprisonment but stayed the sentence for three years. Huballa appeals.
DECISION
Huballa argues that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress the evidence found in the warrantless search of the backpack. He challenges each of the two bases of the district court's ruling. We begin by analyzing the second basis of the district court's ruling, the inevitable-discovery doctrine.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" and states that "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." U.S. Const. amend. IV; see also Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. A warrantless search of a person's papers and effects is presumed to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which would require the evidence obtained in the search to be excluded from trial. See State v. Licari, 659 N.W.2d 243, 250 (Minn. 2003). But evidence discovered in a warrantless search of a person's property may nonetheless be admissible if there is a recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement or to the exclusionary rule. See id.
One such exception is the inevitable-discovery doctrine. See id. at 254. If "the fruits of a challenged search 'ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means,' then the seized evidence is admissible even if the search violated the warrant requirement." Id. (quoting Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444, 104 S. Ct. 2501, 2509 (1984)). The United States Supreme Court adopted the inevitable-discovery doctrine as an exception to the exclusionary rule to ensure that the "exclusion of evidence that would inevitably have been discovered" does not "put the government in a worse position, because the police would have obtained that evidence if no misconduct had taken place." Nix, 467 U.S. at 444, 104 S. Ct. at 2509. The state bears the burden of establishing the exception by a preponderance of the evidence. Licari, 659 N.W.2d at 254. The state may not rely on speculation but, rather, must base the exception "on demonstrated historical facts capable of ready verification or impeachment." Nix, 467 U.S. at 444 n.5, 104 S. Ct. at 2509 n.5.
In this case, the state contends that the items found in Huballa's backpack inevitably would have been discovered in an inventory search after he was taken to the police station for booking. Police officers may conduct an inventory search "whenever an arrestee is to be jailed, . . . as part of a standardized procedure," and, in doing so, "may examine 'all the items removed from the arrestee's person or possession.'" State v. Rodewald, 376 N.W.2d 416, 420 (Minn. 1985) (quoting Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 646, 103 S. Ct. 2605, 2609 (1983)). In Minnesota, all jails are required to have a standardized procedure for processing arrestees, which must include "a search of the inmate and the inmate's possessions" and the "inventory and storage of the inmate's personal property." Minn. R. 2911.2525, subp. 1(C)-(D) (Supp. 2014); see also 38 Minn. Reg. 522, 522 (Oct. 21, 2013) (adopting rule). Furthermore, Minnesota caselaw recognizes that the inevitable-discovery doctrine may be based on the inevitability of an inventory search in cases in which a person is arrested and taken to jail for booking. Rodewald, 376 N.W.2d at 418, 422; Geer v. State, 406 N.W.2d 34, 36 (Minn. App. 1987), review denied (Minn. July 15, 1987).
The evidence in the record reveals that the officers were in the process of arresting Huballa and taking him to a county jail, which inevitably would have led to an inventory search of his backpack. Officers had arrested Huballa, removed him from the apartment, and placed him in a squad car. Before he was removed, Huballa requested that his backpack accompany him when he left the apartment. An officer had complied with Huballa's request by retrieving the backpack from an upstairs bedroom, bringing it downstairs, and setting it near the door to the apartment. From these facts, it was reasonable for the district court to infer that, before the warrantless search of the backpack was performed, the officers intended to bring both Huballa and the backpack to jail. The officers responsible for the booking process were required by state law to conduct an inventory search of Huballa's property at the jail. See Minn. R. 2911.2525, subp. 1(C)-(D). In fact, the police reports reflect that officers actually performed an inventory search of Huballa's belongings at the jail. Thus, the state proved by a preponderance of the evidence that, even if one officer had not performed a warrantless search of the backpack at the apartment, the officers inevitably would have discovered the incriminating evidence when performing an inventory search at the jail.
Huballa contends that the district court's reasoning is inconsistent with this court's opinion in State v. Barajas, 817 N.W.2d 204 (Minn. App. 2012), review denied (Minn. Oct. 16, 2012). In that case, a police officer conducted a warrantless search of the contents of a detained man's cellular telephone. Id. at 210. The state invoked the inevitable-discovery doctrine and argued that officers inevitably would have discovered the same information based on a consent form that the detainee subsequently signed. Id. at 219-20. This court rejected the state's argument on the ground that the officers did not "possess lawful means of discovery and [were not], in fact, pursuing . . . lawful means prior to their illegal conduct." Id. at 219 (alterations in original) (quotation omitted). Barajas is distinguishable because the alternative means of discovering the challenged evidence did not arise until after the officer conducted the unlawful warrantless search. Id. at 210. In this case, however, the alternative means of discovering the evidence in Huballa's backpack arose as soon as they decided to arrest him and made preparations to take the backpack to the jail, which occurred before the officer performed the warrantless search of Huballa's backpack. Thus, the application of the inevitable-discovery doctrine is not defeated for the reasons that existed in Barajas.
This case is more similar to Geer. In that case, officers arrested a man while his duffel bag was lying on the ground approximately 35 to 40 feet away. Geer, 406 N.W.2d at 35. One officer conducted a warrantless search of the duffel bag, which revealed a sawed-off shotgun. Id. The state invoked the inevitable-discovery doctrine based on the inevitability of an inventory search after the man was arrested and brought to jail for booking. Id. at 36. This court readily concluded that "[t]he discovery of Geer's shotgun would have been inevitable by means of an inventory search," which we recognized is permissible "[w]henever the police have an arrestee who is to be jailed." Id. (citing Lafayette, 462 U.S. at 646, 103 S. Ct. at 2609-10). This court applied the inevitable-discovery doctrine in Geer even though the officers did not actually perform an inventory search after taking Geer to the police station. Id. The facts of this case present an even stronger case than Geer for the application of the inevitable-discovery doctrine because the police officers in this case actually performed an inventory search of Huballa's backpack at the jail.
Thus, the district court did not err by finding that the evidence in Huballa's backpack inevitably would have been discovered in the inventory search at the jail and, thus, that the evidence is admissible pursuant to the inevitable-discovery doctrine. In light of that conclusion, we need not consider Huballa's challenge to the district court's application of the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant requirement.
Affirmed.