UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-4462
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
CALVIN JAMES HALL, a/k/a Kebo,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Joseph F. Anderson, Jr., Senior
District Judge. (3:12-cr-00513-JFA-16)
Submitted: October 28, 2015 Decided: November 10, 2015
Before NIEMEYER and KING, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Todd Hagins, THE HAGINS LAW FIRM, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina,
for Appellant. William N. Nettles, United States Attorney, J.D.
Rowell, Assistant United States Attorney, Leslie R. Caldwell,
Assistant Attorney General, Sung-Hee Suh, Deputy Assistant
Attorney General, Thomas E. Booth, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Calvin Hall appeals his convictions and life sentence for
conspiring to participate in racketeering activity, in violation
of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(d), 1963(a) (2012) (Count 1); conspiring to
possess with intent to distribute 280 grams or more of cocaine
base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), 846
(2012) (Count 10); two counts of possessing with intent to
distribute cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1),
(b)(1)(C), 18 U.S.C. § 2 (2012) (Counts 14, 44); using a
telephone to facilitate a drug conspiracy, in violation of 21
U.S.C. § 843(b) (2012), 18 U.S.C. § 2 (Count 47); and
interfering with commerce by robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§§ 2, 1951 (2012) (Count 83).
On appeal, Hall contends that (1) evidence seized during
the traffic stop should have been suppressed because the
attending officer lacked reasonable suspicion of illegal
activity; (2) evidence obtained from Hall’s cell phone should
have been suppressed, despite the good faith exception to the
exclusionary rule and the independent source doctrine;
(3) wiretap evidence should have been suppressed because the
district court clearly erred in finding that the wiretap was
necessary; and (4) his sentence contravened United States v.
Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013). We affirm.
2
I
When evaluating a district court’s denial of a motion to
suppress evidence, we review its legal determinations de novo
and its factual determinations for clear error. United
States v. Sowards, 690 F.3d 583, 587 (4th Cir. 2012). We
construe the evidence “in the light most favorable to the
Government, the prevailing party below.” Id.
A
“When a police officer stops an automobile and detains the
occupants briefly, the stop amounts to a seizure” under the
Fourth Amendment. United States v. Digiovanni, 650 F.3d 498,
506 (4th Cir. 2011). An officer “may initiate a brief
investigatory stop if the officer has reasonable suspicion to
believe that ‘criminal activity may be afoot.’” United
States v. Griffin, 589 F.3d 148, 152 (4th Cir. 2009) (quoting
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)).
To determine whether reasonable suspicion exists, courts
conduct a “totality of the circumstances” inquiry, asking
“whether the officer had a particularized and objective basis
for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal
activity.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Reasonable
suspicion is “a commonsense, nontechnical conception that deals
with the factual and practical considerations of everyday life
on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians,
3
act.” United States v. McCoy, 513 F.3d 405, 411 (4th Cir. 2008)
(brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).
Generally, when an officer effects a Fourth Amendment
seizure based in large part on information received from an
informant, the reliability of that informant is an important
consideration in determining whether reasonable suspicion
existed. See United States v. DeQuasie, 373 F.3d 509, 518-19
(4th Cir. 2004). Reasonable suspicion depends as much on the
“content (or quantity)” of the information provided as it does
on the “reliability (or quality)” of the information. United
States v. Perkins, 363 F.3d 317, 329 (4th Cir. 2004).
Applying these standards to the record before us, we
conclude that the police officer in this case had reasonable
suspicion to stop Hall’s vehicle. The reliability of the
informant is not in question, and the police knew that drug
deals often occurred at the arranged location. Moreover, the
timing of Hall’s arrival and his behavior were inconsistent with
the informant’s information and, together, provided reasonable
suspicion. Accordingly, the district court did not err in
denying Hall’s motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a
result of the traffic stop.
B
Hall next challenges the admission of evidence found in a
forensic search of his phone. The exclusionary rule prohibits
4
introducing “evidence obtained in violation of a defendant’s
Fourth Amendment rights, but the sole purpose of the rule is to
deter future Fourth Amendment violations, and its application
properly has been restricted to those situations in which its
remedial purpose is effectively advanced.” United States v.
Stephens, 764 F.3d 327, 335 (4th Cir. 2014) (citations and
internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, No. 14-1313,
2015 WL 1970174 (U.S. Oct. 5, 2015). As a result, “when the
police act with an objectively reasonable good-faith belief that
their conduct is lawful, . . . the deterrence rationale loses
much of its force, and exclusion cannot pay its way.” Davis v.
United States, 131 S. Ct. 2419, 2427-28 (2011) (citation and
internal quotation marks omitted). Consequently, the
exclusionary rule does not apply to searches conducted in
accordance with then-binding appellate precedent, even if that
precedent is later overruled. Id. at 2423-24.
In this case, at the time of the search, this court had
ruled that the contents of a cell phone could be retrieved
without a warrant during a search incident to arrest. See
United States v. Murphy, 552 F.3d 405, 410-12 (4th Cir. 2009).
While the Supreme Court later held to the contrary, in Riley v.
California, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2484-85 (2014), the searching
officer’s conduct was in accord with then-binding precedent.
5
Therefore, the district court properly declined to suppress the
evidence obtained.
II
Hall challenges the district court’s admission of evidence
secured by wiretap. We review a district court’s determination
of the necessity for a wiretap under 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (2012) for
abuse of discretion. See United States v. Wilson, 484 F.3d 267,
280 (4th Cir. 2007).
To justify a wiretap, the Government must demonstrate that
“normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed
or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be
too dangerous.” 18 U.S.C. § 2518(3)(c). The burden imposed by
this provision “is not great, and the adequacy of such a showing
is to be tested in a practical and commonsense fashion that does
not hamper unduly the investigative powers of law enforcement
agents.” Wilson, 484 F.3d at 281 (internal quotation marks
omitted). “[T]he Government need only present specific factual
information sufficient to establish that it has encountered
difficulties in penetrating the criminal enterprise or in
gathering evidence such that wiretapping becomes reasonable.”
Id. (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).
We have upheld findings of necessity where traditional
investigative techniques revealed some illegal activity, but
failed to adequately penetrate the full extent of the
6
conspiracy. Wilson, 484 F.3d 267; United States v. Leavis, 853
F.2d 215, 221 (4th Cir. 1988). In Wilson, traditional
investigative techniques provided valuable information, but
failed to “identify the higher-ups of the conspiracy,” or
“uncover the conspiracy’s cocaine source and the extent to which
the coconspirators distributed it for resale.” 484 F.3d at 281.
Upholding the district court’s finding of necessity, we
emphasized that wiretaps are particularly necessary “where
crimes are committed by large and sophisticated organizations.”
Id. Indeed, “read[ing] the statute in an overly restrictive
manner . . . could result in helping insulate more complex and
sophisticated conspiracies.” Id.
We find Hall’s case materially indistinguishable from
Wilson. Consequently, the district court correctly denied
Hall’s motion to suppress this evidence.
III
Finally, Hall contends that the district court erred in
sentencing him. We review de novo a constitutional challenge to
a sentence. United States v. Dowell, 771 F.3d 162, 167 (4th
Cir. 2014).
The Due Process Clause and the Sixth Amendment require that
any fact that raises the minimum or maximum sentence a defendant
faces must be charged in the indictment and admitted by the
defendant or proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
7
Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151, 2155, 2160-63 (2013).
Excepted from this general requirement is the fact of a prior
conviction. Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224
(1998); see Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2160 n.1 (refusing to revisit
Almendarez-Torres).
When a defendant is convicted of a drug conspiracy, “prior
felony drug convictions that fall within the conspiracy period
may be used to enhance the defendant’s sentence if the
conspiracy continued after his earlier convictions were final.”
United States v. Smith, 451 F.3d 209, 224-25 (4th Cir. 2006).
Under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A), a defendant convicted of a drug
trafficking offense “after two or more prior convictions for a
felony drug offense have become final” is subject to a mandatory
sentence of life imprisonment.
The district court’s failure to seek from the jury a
specific verdict as to whether Hall’s participation in the
conspiracy continued after the date on which his prior
convictions became final was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Under Count 44, the jury determined that on June 26, 2012, Hall
received cocaine from individuals who were known members of the
Bloods, which he then intended to distribute. Hall’s prior
convictions became final in October 2011. Thus, the district
court’s failure to obtain a specific finding from the jury that
8
Hall participated in the conspiracy beyond October 2011 was
harmless.
IV
We affirm the district court’s judgment and deny Hall’s
motion to file a pro se brief. 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
9