United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 99-1548
UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
ROBERT L. CORAINE,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Stahl, Circuit Judge,
Bjorn R. Lange, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Federal
Defender Office, for appellant.
Jean B. Weld, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Mark
E. Howard, Assistant United States Attorney, and Paul M. Gagnon,
United States Attorney, were on brief for appellee.
December 23, 1999
STAHL, Circuit Judge. Robert Coraine challenges the
validity of the search that led to his conviction as a felon in
possession of a firearm. For the following reasons, we affirm.
I.
Background
The facts of this case are not seriously disputed. On
November 7, 1997, an undercover investigation by several
Massachusetts law enforcement agencies culminated in Robert
Coraine's arrest on gaming charges. He was advised of his Miranda
rights and taken to the police station in Salisbury, Massachusetts.
Because he had a mobile home in Seabrook, New Hampshire,
several New Hampshire state police officers participated in
Coraine's interrogation. One of those officers, Terrance Kinneen,
spoke with Coraine in his holding cell for several minutes and did
not notice anything unusual about his demeanor. Other than when he
mentioned a friend who was dying of cancer, Coraine did not appear
particularly anxious, panicked, or distressed. However, the
investigating officers found a card in Coraine's wallet that
stated:
The patient Robert L. Coraine is under
psychiatric care at the Lynn Hospital out-
patient psychiatric unit. He suffers from
diabetes, clinical depression, acute anxiety
and panic disorders. He is under medications
of several mood and mind altering drugs,
including Prozac and Xanax. Do not refuse him
his medication! Confinement or restraint
could trigger severe and violent instability.
Do not incarcerate! Call the phone number on
this card immediately.
Although the police did not call the number on the card
until several hours later, they did permit Coraine to take a one
milligram tablet of Xanax to alleviate any anxiety. The police
also provided him with a blanket after he complained of being cold.
At that point, it was approximately 1:00 p.m., about an hour after
Coraine was first arrested.
Shortly before 2:00 p.m., a member of the West Newbury
Police Department, David L'Esperance, removed Coraine from his
holding cell and again advised him of his Miranda rights. After
allowing him to take a second dose of Xanax, Officer L'Esperance
asked Coraine whether the police could search his New Hampshire
mobile home. Coraine agreed to the search and confirmed that
agreement by signing a consent form that another New Hampshire
police officer, Brian Hester, had produced for him to read and
review.
Because Coraine never invoked his right to remain silent
or his right to consult an attorney, the interrogation continued.
Officer Hester asked him a number of questions, such as whether the
police would have to unlock his mobile home in order to search it,
whether there could be other people in it, and whether there might
be firearms there. Coraine stated that he had two firearms there,
and when the New Hampshire State Police subsequently carried out a
warrantless search of the premises, they did find a shotgun, a Colt
.45 pistol, and ammunition. At the time, Coraine was a convicted
felon.
On February 11, 1998, a grand jury in the District of New
Hampshire indicted Coraine for being a felon in possession of a
firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). He moved to
suppress the weapons and ammunition that the police had seized from
his mobile home, arguing that the officers coerced his consent to
the search by promising to let him go in exchange. He also argued
that his consent was invalid because he was suffering from an
anxiety attack that impaired his ability to think freely at the
time.
After a hearing, the district court denied the motion to
suppress, finding that (1) although the police told Coraine that he
might be home in time for dinner if he were released on bail, they
never promised to release him in exchange for his consent to the
search; (2) although he had an anxiety disorder, he was not
suffering from an anxiety attack when he consented to the search;
and (3) in any event, even if he was somewhat upset at times, he
had taken Xanax to calm himself down before he had to decide
whether to give his consent.
Coraine entered a conditional plea of guilty preserving
his right to challenge the search. This appeal followed. II.
The district court's decision to grant or deny a motion
to suppress requires de novo review on appeal. See United States
v. McCarthy, 77 F.3d 522, 529 (1st Cir. 1996). But the district
court's findings of fact deserve deference as long as a reasonable
view of the evidence will support them. See United States v.
DeMasi, 40 F.3d 1306, 1311 (1st Cir. 1994). The voluntariness of
the defendant's consent to a search is a factual determination of
this kind, reviewable only for clear error. See United States v.
Salimonu, 182 F.3d 63, 70 (1st Cir. 1999); United States v. Forbes,
181 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1999).
III.
We now address Coraine's claim that the district court
should have suppressed the seized evidence. Generally speaking,
the Fourth Amendment requires the police to have a warrant in order
to search someone's home. "A warrantless [residential] search
violates the Fourth Amendment unless it comes within one of the
'few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions' to
the warrant requirement. A consensual search is one such
exception." Forbes, 181 F.3d at 5 (quoting Schneckloth v.
Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 219 (1973)).
In order to be effective, a person's consent to a search
must be freely and voluntarily given. See United States v.
Schaefer, 87 F.3d 562, 569 (1st Cir. 1996). Voluntariness turns on
a number of factors, including the person's "age, education,
experience, intelligence, and knowledge of the right to withhold
consent." United States v. Barnett, 989 F.2d 546, 555 (1st Cir.
1993). The court can also consider "whether the consenting party
was advised of his or her constitutional rights and whether
permission to search was obtained by coercive means or under
inherently coercive circumstances." Id. (citing Schneckloth, 412
U.S. at 226; United States v. Twomey, 884 F.2d 46, 51 (1st Cir.
1989)). The totality of circumstances must be taken into account.
See Barnett, 989 F.2d at 554-55.
At the time of his arrest, Coraine was a fifty-year-old
high school graduate with some post-secondary education. He had
been advised of his Miranda rights on other occasions. In this
instance, he actually received his Miranda warnings twice before
the police asked for permission to search his mobile home. With
these facts in mind, there can be little doubt that Coraine
appreciated the significance of giving his consent and that he
understood his right to withhold his consent if he chose.
Coraine contends that even if he understood the
consequences of letting the police search his mobile home, his
consent was invalid because it was obtained by coercion. The
gravamen of his claim is that the police forced him to consent by
promising to let him go if he agreed to the search and they failed
to uncover evidence of gaming at his mobile home. But Officer
L'Esperance's testimony at the suppression hearing claimed
something very different: although Coraine was told that he might
be home in time for dinner if he were released on bail, neither
L'Esperance nor anyone else promised him anything in exchange for
his consent.
The district court credited Officer L'Esperance's
testimony in this regard because of his "demeanor on the stand and
his forthright response to questioning." When faced with
conflicting testimony and nothing more, the district court's
decision to believe one witness instead of another and to draw an
appropriate conclusion cannot be considered clearly erroneous. See
United States v. Jones, 187 F.3d 210, 214 (1st Cir. 1999)
(observing that "[w]here evaluations of witnesses' credibility are
concerned, we are especially deferential to the district court's
judgment" in denying a motion to suppress in a criminal case).
Coraine's plea that an anxiety attack induced him to
consent is no more availing. Officers Kinneen, L'Esperance, and
Hester all testified at the suppression hearing that even if
Coraine had a medical condition that made him susceptible to an
anxiety attack, and even if he became somewhat upset at a point
during his interrogation, his speech and demeanor appeared to be
normal when they asked for permission to search his mobile home.
Although Coraine's psychiatrist, Dr. Yoshiharu Akabane, submitted
an affidavit arguing that Coraine's anxiety problems rendered his
consent involuntary, another psychiatrist, Dr. Albert Drukteinis,
examined him and found the medical evidence to be inconclusive.
After considering the evidence as a whole, the district
court ruled that (1) Coraine was susceptible to anxiety or panic
attacks; but (2) he was not actually undergoing an anxiety or panic
attack when he gave his consent to the search; and (3) in any
event, even if he was upset when he was arrested, he was given
medication to calm him down before he was asked to consent to a
police search of his mobile home. With nothing more in the record
than competing testimony, we cannot say that the district court
committed clear error in weighing the evidence, making the
requisite credibility determinations, and arriving at these factual
conclusions. See United States v. Carty, 993 F.2d 1005, 1008-09
(1st Cir. 1993).
Coraine also argues that it was improper for the police
to seize weapons from his home when the primary purpose of their
search was to look for evidence of gaming. As Coraine correctly
observes, "'[a] consensual search may not exceed the scope of the
consent given.'" United States v. Turner, 169 F.3d 84, 87 (1st
Cir. 1999) (quoting United States v. Rudolph, 970 F.2d 467, 468
(8th Cir. 1992)). "'[I]f government agents obtain consent . . . to
search for a stolen television set,'" for example, "'they must
limit their activity to that which is necessary to search for such
an item.'" Turner, 169 F.3d at 87 (quoting United States v.
Dichiarinte, 445 F.2d 126, 129 n.3 (7th Cir. 1971)).
Shortly after Coraine consented to the search, the police
specifically inquired about any firearms that he might have had in
his mobile home. While it is true that the focus of the
interrogation may have caused Coraine to believe that the police
were looking only for evidence of gambling activity, the officers
nevertheless were entitled to seize any weapons that they found in
the course of their search because Coraine was a convicted felon
who could not lawfully possess a firearm. Considering that
evidence of gaming could have been hidden virtually anywhere in the
mobile home, it was not unreasonable for the police to look behind
a piece of furniture, for example, and to seize the shotgun that
Coraine told them they would find there. Cf. United States v. Kim,
27 F.3d 947, 956 (3d Cir. 1994) ("[W]hen one gives general
permission to search for drugs in a confined area, that permission
extends to any items within that area that a reasonable person
would believe to contain drugs."), quoted in Turner, 169 F.3d at
88.
IV.
Conclusion
Against this background, the district court correctly
upheld the validity of the search and seizure on the basis of
Coraine's consent and properly denied his motion to suppress.
Affirmed.