UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-4788
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
MARVIN WAYNE WILLIAMS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Roger W. Titus, District Judge
(8:07-cr-00288-RWT-1)
Submitted: June 10, 2009 Decided: July 10, 2009
Before NIEMEYER and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Gary A. Ticknor, Elkridge, Maryland, for Appellant. Rod J.
Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Michele W. Sartori,
Assistant United States Attorney, Greenbelt, Maryland, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Marvin Wayne Williams appeals the district court’s
pretrial denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized from
his home pursuant to a search warrant based upon probable cause
stemming from a traffic stop, and his motion to suppress a
statement he made to an arresting officer. Williams
subsequently pled guilty to possession of firearms and
ammunition by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1) (2006), and possessing with the intent to distribute
50 grams of more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§ 841(a)(1) (2006), and was sentenced to 151 months’
imprisonment. Williams moved to suppress the evidence upon
which the indictment was based, arguing that his vehicle was
stopped and searched without reasonable suspicion or probable
cause, leading to the discovery of narcotics on his person that
was used to prove probable cause in obtaining a warrant to
search his home. Alternatively, Williams moved to suppress the
evidence seized from his home based upon arguments that the
affidavit used to obtain the search warrant “did not establish
probable cause to believe evidence of a crime would be found”
and “was so deficient that no objectively reasonable officer
would have relied in good faith on the legality of the search
warrant.” Williams also moved to suppress an incriminating
statement he made to the police officers who arrested him after
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searching his home, to the effect that all the evidence of
illegal activity found at the home belonged to him, rather than
to his girlfriend, who was present during the search, after the
officers stated their intent to arrest her as well. He argued
that his statement resulted from an unreasonable seizure and was
coerced and obtained in violation of his Miranda * rights. We
affirm the district court’s denial of the motions to suppress.
We review the district court’s factual findings
underlying the denial of a motion to suppress for clear error
and its legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Grossman,
400 F.3d 212, 216 (4th Cir. 2005). When a suppression motion
has been denied, we construe the evidence in the light most
favorable to the government. United States v. Seidman, 156 F.3d
542, 547 (4th Cir. 1998).
I. Motion to Suppress Evidence
“As a general matter, the decision to stop an
automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to
believe that a traffic violation has occurred,” regardless of
the officer’s subjective motivations. Whren v. United States,
517 U.S. 806, 810, 813-19 (1996) (citations omitted). “[O]nly
the probability, and not a prima facie showing, of criminal
*
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
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activity is the standard of probable cause.” Illinois v. Gates,
462 U.S. 213, 235 (1983) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted).
We hold that the district court did not err in denying
the motion to suppress the evidence seized from Williams’ home
based upon lack of probable cause for the traffic stop that led
to issuance of the search warrant. The evidence, including a
video recording of the stop and the events leading up to it
taken from the arresting officer’s vehicle, shows that the
officer observed several potential and actual traffic
violations, including possible illegal window tint, a possible
illegal windshield obstruction, failure to stop at a red light,
and failure to signal a right turn, before he pulled Williams
over. The fact that Williams was not ultimately charged with
illegal window tint or having an obstructed windshield does not
conclusively indicate that the officer did not observe probable
violations of those types. In addition, the video evidence
clearly shows that Williams failed to stop or signal before
turning right at a red light. Because the stop was based upon
probable cause, the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant
was not deficient.
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II. Motion to Suppress Statement
A statement is voluntary if it is “the product of an
essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker.”
Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 225 (1973). An
analysis of the voluntariness of a statement is derived from the
totality of the circumstances. Id. at 226. The relevant
determination regarding voluntariness is whether government
agents have overborne the defendant’s will or left his “capacity
for self-determination critically impaired.” Id. at 225.
We hold that the district court did not err in denying
Williams’ motion to suppress the statement he made to the
arresting officers because the statement was made voluntarily.
The testimony of one of the arresting officers indicates that
Williams was not questioned during the search of his apartment,
and that he voluntarily stated that all of the evidence found at
the apartment was his after the officer told the other officers
to arrest Williams’ girlfriend. The evidence does not indicate
that the officer threatened to arrest Williams’ girlfriend in
order to elicit any sort of admission from Williams, but rather
that he ordered her arrest as a logical result of her presence
at the apartment where a large quantity of cocaine base was
discovered. Furthermore, as discussed above, the statement was
not made in the context of an illegal search.
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For the reasons stated above, we affirm the district
court’s order denying Williams’ motions to suppress. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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