NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
__________
No. 16-4229
__________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
KEENA J. STANTON
a/k/a Lloyd Jackson
a/k/a Travis Jackson
a/k/a Keenan Stanton
Keena J. Stanton,
Appellant
__________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Criminal No. 2-11-cr-00057-001)
District Judge: Honorable Nora B. Fischer
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
July 10, 2018
BEFORE: SHWARTZ, NYGAARD, and RENDELL, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: August 16, 2018)
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OPINION*
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NYGAARD, Circuit Judge.
Keena Stanton appeals the District Court’s denial of his motion to suppress
evidence obtained from an apartment where officers arrested him.1 We will affirm the
order of the District Court.
Stanton was on probation when he evaded a traffic stop on July 31, 2010. During
a high-speed chase, police saw an item being thrown out of the window of Stanton’s
vehicle. Police captured Stanton, arrested him, and then recovered the item thrown out of
the window, a sawed-off shotgun. Stanton was charged with weapons and motor vehicle
violations.
Stanton’s probation officer, Marc Wilner, did not know about the July 31 arrest
until three days later. By then, police had released Stanton from custody on bond.
Wilner obtained a warrant for Stanton’s arrest for violating the terms of his parole but he
was unable to find him. Stanton failed to appear at a preliminary hearing, prompting a
bench warrant for his arrest. His whereabouts remained unknown for over one month.
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
1
Stanton also appeals his sentence. The Government cross-appealed Stanton’s sentence
at Case Number 16-4395. We will address all sentencing issues in a separate opinion at
that case number.
2
In September 2010, a confidential informant told Wilner that she had given
permission to Donna Gessley and Robert Liberto to live in an apartment that the
informant leased. Officers knew Gessley and Liberto as drug addicts. The apartment
was close to the address listed as Stanton’s residence. The informant identified Stanton
from a mugshot as someone who had been at the apartment. She believed he was selling
drugs to Gessley, Liberto, and others from there. Wilner confirmed that Stanton’s name
did not appear on the lease for the premises, and then asked the informant to visit the
apartment to see if Stanton was there. She went later that day, reported back that he was
there and that she observed Stanton placing two guns on top of a cabinet in the kitchen.
The informant gave Wilner permission to search the premises. She also offered Wilner a
key to the apartment but he did not take it.
A short time later, Wilner and officers from the Allegheny County Fugitive Task
Force surrounded the apartment building. An officer from the Task Force knocked on the
front door of the apartment and explained to Gessley (who opened the door) that they
were there to arrest Stanton. Gessley invited the officers in. Liberto, the other renter,
was also there. As they searched for Stanton, they observed a black digital scale on a
table in the living room and a bag with a white substance on the floor nearby. They
found Stanton in a bedroom. During a pat-down at the time of his arrest, police
discovered another bag with a white substance in Stanton’s pocket.
After taking Stanton out of the apartment, one of the officers from the Task Force
asked Gessley for permission to search the apartment. She agreed, signing a consent to
search form. Liberto objected. Officers discovered two guns (a Browning .22 caliber,
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and a 9-millimeter pistol) on top of a kitchen cabinet (just as the informant had reported).
The arrest report reveals that officers seized the digital scale, two bags containing crack
cocaine, and two handguns.
A federal Grand Jury issued a five-count indictment charging Stanton with crimes
from both the July 2010 and September 2010 arrests.2 Stanton pleaded not guilty. He
later moved to suppress the evidence seized after both arrests. The District Court denied
the motion. A jury convicted him of felon in possession of a firearm (under 18 U.S.C.
§§922(g)(1) and 924(e)) arising from the July arrest, and possession of crack
cocaine with intent to distribute (under 21 U.S.C. §841) arising from the
September arrest.
On appeal, Stanton challenges the District Court’s denial of his motion to suppress
the crack cocaine found in the living room, the digital scale, and the guns seized during
his September 9 arrest. He contends that officers, acting only on the authority of the
bench warrant, unlawfully searched the apartment after Stanton’s arrest in September
without a warrant and without probable cause or exigent circumstances to justify the
search. We review the District Court’s factual findings for clear error and give plenary
2
The indictment had five counts: Count I. Being a convicted felon while in
possession of the shotgun in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§922(g)(1) and 924(e), arising
from the July 2010 arrest; Count II. Possession of firearms in violation of Sections
922(g)(1) and 924(e), arising from September 2010 arrest; Count III. Maintaining
a drug-involved premises in violation of 21 U.S.C. §856(a)(1), arising from
September 2010 arrest; Count IV. Posession of crack cocaine with the intent to
distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. §841, arising from September 2010 arrest;
Count V. Possessing a firearm in relation to a drug-trafficking crime in violation
of Section 924(c)(1)(A)(i), arising from September 2010 arrest. U.S. App. 357-64.
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review to its application of the law to those facts. United States v. Mallory, 765 F.3d 373,
381 (3d Cir. 2014).
Stanton has failed to persuade us that a constitutional violation occurred.3 He
wants us to focus on the bench warrant as the sole basis for officers’ presence in the
apartment to argue that a probable cause standard (rather than a reasonable suspicion
standard applicable to searches involving probationers) applies here, and that the officers’
information about the circumstances in the apartment prior to their entry was limited to
the presence of Stanton. But regardless, the result is the same.
The officers had a warrant and had Gessley’s consent to enter the apartment to
arrest Stanton. As the officers walked through the apartment, obviously incriminating
objects (the scale and the nearby bag of crack cocaine) that fell into their view as they
looked for Stanton were properly seized after they arrested him. Harris v. United States,
390 U.S. 234, 236 (1968). As a result, the District Court did not err by admitting these
items in evidence.
We conclude that the District Court properly admitted the guns into evidence
under the inevitable discovery exception to the warrant requirement. This exception
allows for the admission of illegally obtained evidence where such evidence would have
3
The Government argues that Stanton does not have standing to challenge the admission
of this evidence. However, the District Court declined to rule on a statement that, at least
in part, grounds the Government’s argument: a legal conclusion made by Stanton’s
counsel that he did not have a privacy interest in the apartment. We may uphold the
denial of a motion to suppress on any basis supported by the record. See United States v.
Dupree, 617 F.3d 724, 728 n.2 (3d Cir. 2010).
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been discovered by the authorities through a proper channel. See Nix v. Williams, 467
U.S. 431, 444 (1984). The accumulation of evidence discussed by the District Court
supporting the inevitability that a search warrant would have issued, gives us confidence
that the District Court did not err by denying the motion and admitting the guns in
evidence
For all of these reasons, we will affirm the order of the District Court.
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