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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 18-12440
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:17-cr-20696-KMW-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
WILLIE LEE JONES,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(January 6, 2020)
Before WILSON, ROSENBAUM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Willie Lee Jones appeals his conviction for possession of firearms and
ammunition by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and
924(e)(1). On appeal, Jones argues that the district court erred by denying his
pretrial motion to suppress statements he gave before officers advised him of his
rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and to suppress a firearm
seized by police during a warrantless search while responding to a call about a
domestic dispute with shots fired. After careful review, we affirm.
I.
The relevant facts, as found by the district court following a suppression
hearing, are as follows. At around 6:00 a.m. on August 28, 2017, Lieutenant Melissa
Peacock responded to a dispatch describing a 911 “priority call” that reported a
domestic-abuse incident with shots fired inside an apartment. When she arrived at
the door of the second-floor apartment, she heard a distressed woman inside
“banging and screaming” and what sounded like furniture being moved around or
overturned within the apartment. Peacock knocked on the door, announced herself
as law enforcement, and ordered the occupants to open the door. A male voice
answered that “they’re trying to kill me, I’m not coming out.” A female voice stated
that “he’s not going to let me out.”
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Around this time, Officer Delvin Brooks arrived, and Peacock briefed him on
the situation. 1 A woman in the parking lot below the outdoor balcony to the second-
floor apartment yelled to the officers that “he’s got guns in there.” Peacock knocked
on the door a second time. Right around this time, a woman opened the door and
exited the apartment, “crying hysterically” and carrying a child in her arms. She
walked away from the apartment and the officers. As the woman exited, a male
voice exclaimed that he was “going to kill them all.”
Peacock looked inside the apartment, which was dark, and saw a man, later
determined to be Jones, emerging from a back area. The officers entered the
apartment with guns drawn and ordered Jones to stop moving and get on the ground.
Jones eventually complied, and Brooks moved to handcuff Jones while Peacock
stepped past him and did a ten-second “sweep” of the apartment. During this time,
Jones made statements like, “they’re in here, they’re trying to kill us, they’re all in
here,” indicating that individuals were shooting in or near the apartment in an
attempt to kill him and his family.
Peacock returned to Jones and asked him, “where’s the gun, hon?” Jones
stated that it was in the bathroom, though he denied that it was his. Jones also denied
that anyone else was in the apartment. Peacock went to the bathroom to secure the
1
Brooks was wearing a body camera that captured events following his arrival, and a
recording was played at the suppression hearing.
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gun, which was on the back of the toilet, and performed a “cursory search” of the
apartment with her flashlight. Peacock first looked into the kitchen alcove on the
right side of the apartment, and then crossed over to the other side of the unit to
glance into the bedroom, where she observed two bullet holes in the bedroom
window and a spent 9mm casing on the floor. She also found a live rifle round by
the front door.
Jones continued yelling at the officers that other individuals were “trying to
get in here,” and that he “needed to protect his family.” Peacock asked Jones how
many rounds he had fired. Jones said he fired two or three shots “at the guys,”
explaining that several men had shot at the apartment trying to kill them and that
“[his] girl” had been calling the police all night, but no one responded.
When backup officers arrived, Brooks took Jones outside, and officers were
posted outside the apartment. Jones was taken to the hospital for evaluation.
Meanwhile, Detective Tescha Harris was debriefed by Peacock and then approached
Shavon Washington, the woman who had fled the apartment with her child at the
outset of the confrontation. Washington stated that she rented the apartment and that
Jones was her boyfriend. Harris asked Washington for consent to search the
apartment and provided her a consent-to-search form, which Washington read and
signed. Officers then searched the apartment and found two 9mm casings, a 9mm
round, an assault-rifle round, and an assault rifle.
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Based on these factual findings, the district court adopted a magistrate judge’s
report and recommendation and denied the motion to suppress. As to the evidence
of the firearm found on the toilet, the court concluded that exigent circumstances
justified entry into the apartment; that once inside, officers were entitled to conduct
a protective sweep; and that the 9mm firearm found in plain view during the scope
of that sweep was admissible. As to Jones’s statements to officers, the court found
that Peacock’s questions fell within the public-safety exception to Miranda because
officers had reason to believe that other persons were in or near the apartment and
attempting to kill Jones and his family. Finally, the court concluded that officers
validly obtained consent to search the apartment from Washington.
II.
We review a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence for clear
error as to factual findings and de novo as to its application of the law. United States
v. Watkins, 760 F.3d 1271, 1282 (11th Cir. 2014). We may affirm the denial of a
motion to suppress on any ground supported by the record, United States v.
McDowell, 250 F.3d 1354, 1361 (11th Cir. 2001), and we may consider the entire
record, including trial testimony, in determining whether suppression was properly
denied, United States v. Newsome, 475 F.3d 1221, 1224 (11th Cir. 2007).
III.
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Jones presents two arguments on appeal. First, he contends that the firearm
found on the toilet should be suppressed because law enforcement unlawfully
searched the apartment without a warrant or exigent circumstances. Second, he
argues that his statement identifying the location of that firearm should be
suppressed because he was interrogated at the scene in violation of Miranda, and
that his involuntary statement tainted all subsequent events. We address each
argument in turn.
A.
The Fourth Amendment protects “against unreasonable searches and
seizures” of the home. U.S. Const. amend. IV. Warrantless searches and seizures
within a home are presumptively unreasonable. United States v. Walker, 799 F.3d
1361, 1363 (11th Cir. 2015); Bashir v. Rockdale Cty., Ga., 445 F.3d 1323, 1327
(11th Cir. 2006). This general rule is “subject only to a few jealously and carefully
drawn exceptions.” McClish v. Nugent, 483 F.3d 1231, 1240 (11th Cir. 2007)
(quotation marks omitted). Among them, “the police may enter a private premises
and conduct a search if ‘exigent circumstances’ mandate immediate action.” United
States v. Holloway, 290 F.3d 1331, 1334 (11th Cir. 2002) (citing Michigan v. Tyler,
436 U.S. 499, 509 (1978)). Any contraband found in plain view during such a search
may lawfully be seized. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 465 (1971)
(“Where the initial intrusion that brings the police within plain view of such an
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article is supported, not by a warrant, but by one of the recognized exceptions to the
warrant requirement, the seizure is also legitimate.”).
“[E]mergency situations involving endangerment to life fall squarely within
the exigent circumstances exception.” Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1337. Specifically,
warrantless searches and seizures of a home are constitutional “[w]hen the police
reasonably believe an emergency exists which calls for an immediate response to
protect citizens from imminent danger.” Id. When evaluating whether this
“emergency aid” exception applies, the officers’ subjective motivations are
irrelevant. United States v. Timmann, 741 F.3d 1170, 1178 (11th Cir. 2013). And
“we must be mindful that the police must act quickly, based on hurried and
incomplete information.” United States v. Cooks, 920 F.3d 735, 743 (11th Cir.)
(quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 218 (2019).
In Holloway, we applied the emergency-aid exception to validate a
warrantless search of a home for victims of gunfire. 290 F.3d at 1338. Officers
responded to two dispatches relaying reports of gunshots and arguing at a mobile
home. Id. When they arrived, they found and temporarily secured the defendant
and his wife, who were on the front porch. Id. at 1338, 1340. An officer then
conducted a limited search of the home for victims of gunfire, finding a shotgun in
plain view. Id. at 1340. We held that the warrantless search was constitutional
because the officers reasonably believed an emergency situation justified a
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warrantless search of the home for victims of gunfire. Id. at 1338. And because the
exigencies of the situation justified the officers’ presence inside the home, the
officers were authorized to seize the shotgun in plain view without a warrant. Id. at
1340.
Separate from the emergency-aid exception, the Fourth Amendment “allows
some warrantless protective sweeps of a defendant’s home to ensure the safety of
police officers and others.” United States v. Noriega, 676 F.3d 1252, 1259 (11th
Cir. 2012). “A protective sweep is a quick and limited search of premises, incident
to an arrest and conducted to protect the safety of police officers or others. It is
narrowly confined to a cursory visual inspection of those places in which a person
might be hiding.” Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 327 (2012) (quotation marks
omitted). A protective sweep is authorized when there are “articulable facts which,
taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, would warrant a
reasonably prudent officer in believing that the area to be swept harbors an individual
posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.” Id. at 334.
Here, the district court properly denied suppression of the firearm. Jones
admits that the officers’ warrantless entry into the apartment was justified by the
emergency-aid exception. We agree. Lieutenant Peacock responded to a dispatch
describing a 911 “priority call” reporting a domestic-abuse incident with shots fired
inside the apartment. When she arrived at the apartment, she heard a woman inside
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pleading to be let out and a man refusing to open the door because unidentified
individuals were trying to kill him. Soon after, a neighbor stated that Jones had guns
in the apartment and a woman opened the door carrying a child and fled the
apartment “crying hysterically.” We think it’s clear from these facts that, as Jones
states, “the officers were justified in reasonably believing that there may have been
someone in danger within the apartment.” Jones Initial Br. at 9.
We are not persuaded by Jones’s claim that this exigency ended once he was
handcuffed on the ground. Based on the 911 call reporting gunshots and a domestic
disturbance, combined with Peacock’s initial observations upon arriving at the
scene, the officers were, as in Holloway, permitted to conduct a limited search of the
home for victims of gunfire. See Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1338 (report of gunshots
and domestic disturbance justified entry and warrantless search). While Jones
asserts that the officers should have known that no one else was in the apartment
based on comments by Jones and Washington, we are mindful that “officers must be
given the authority and flexibility to act quickly, based on limited information, when
human life is at stake.” Cooks, 920 F.3d at 743 (quotation marks omitted). In the
circumstances presented, it was objectively reasonable for Peacock to verify Jones’s
claim and ensure that no victim needed immediate assistance.
Jones claims that Peacock used information learned during the sweep to
justify the sweep itself. But we need not credit Peacock’s explanation of her reasons
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for taking the actions that she did. Peacock’s subjective beliefs and motives are
irrelevant to the Fourth Amendment inquiry. See Timmann, 741 F.3d at 1178. What
matters is whether her actions were objectively reasonable. And for the reasons we
have explained, we conclude that they were.
Moreover, the “cursory search” described by Peacock did not exceed the
limited scope of searches authorized under the emergency-aid exception. See Cooks,
920 F.3d at 746 (“The ultimate question is whether the intrusion was strictly
circumscribed and limited to the areas where a person reasonably could be found.”
(quotation marks omitted)). Jones makes no claim that the bathroom was not within
the realm of areas where a victim might be found. Nor does he dispute that the
firearm on the back of the toilet was in plain view of an officer looking into the
bathroom or that Peacock had probable cause to seize the gun as evidence. Because
Peacock was authorized to be in the position from which she could seize the firearm,
seizure was permitted under the plain-view doctrine. See Coolidge, 403 U.S. at 465.
Alternatively, we agree with the district court that Peacock’s “cursory search”
of the apartment was authorized under the “protective sweep” doctrine. See
Timmann, 741 F.3d at 1181 (“A protective sweep may also be undertaken without
an arrest warrant, so long as the officers are lawfully within the premises due to, for
example, the existence of exigent circumstances.”). Upon entering the apartment,
officers had reason to believe that shots had been fired inside the apartment, that a
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woman fled the scene because she felt she and her child were in danger, and that
Jones had threatened to kill unidentified individuals who were “trying to kill [him].”
From this information, the officers had “articulable facts which, taken together with
the rational inferences from those facts, would warrant a reasonably prudent officer”
in believing that an individual in or near the apartment “pos[ed] a danger to those on
the arrest scene.” Buie, 494 U.S. at 334.
Accordingly, it was objectively reasonable for Peacock to conduct a protective
sweep of the residence to ensure the safety of Jones and the other officers. And the
scope of a protective-sweep search, like the scope of a search under the emergency-
aid exception, included the bathroom because it was a place in which a person posing
a danger to the officers might be hiding. See id. at 334–35.
For these reasons, Jones has not shown that officers violated his Fourth
Amendment rights in conducting a brief, warrantless search of the apartment.
B.
When a person is “in custody,” he or she generally may not be questioned
before being informed of his or her Miranda rights. New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S.
649, 654 (1984). A narrow exception to this rule applies where there is a threat to
the safety of the public or law-enforcement officers. Id. at 656, 658. “The public
safety exception allows officers to question a suspect without first Mirandizing him
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when necessary to protect either themselves or the general public.” Newsome, 475
F.3d at 1224.
In United States v. Newsome, we applied the public-safety exception in a case
where the defendant was taken into custody while in a motel room for the non-fatal
shooting of his wife and child. 475 F.3d at 1223. While on the ground and before
he was read his Miranda rights, an officer asked him if there was “anything or
anyone in the room that [the officer] should know about.” Id. The defendant advised
the officer that he had a gun “over there,” and motioned with his head towards a
nightstand. Id. When the officer did not see the gun, he asked the defendant where
it was, and the defendant pointed the officer to a black bag containing the weapon.
Id. The defendant sought to suppress his statements and the gun. Id.
We concluded that under the public-safety exception, the statements and gun
were admissible. Id. at 1224–25. Although the defendant argued that the officers
questioned him after the room was secured, we explained that the evidence showed
“a very rapid sequence of events,” where the defendant was questioned “right after
the officers ordered him to the ground and while he was being searched.” Id. at
1225. We further noted that at the time of entry, the officers were under the
impression that another person was also in the room, so officers could have
reasonably been concerned that the other person could be hiding in the room, ready
to ambush them. Id. Therefore, we explained, the officers acted appropriately to
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protect themselves and other motel guests. Id. We also found that the officer “asked
what was necessary to secure the scene,” noting that the officer followed up his broad
question by attempting “to pinpoint the exact location of the gun.” Id. (“An officer
is not expected to craft a perfect question in the heat of the moment.”).
Here, the district court properly denied suppression of Jones’s statement
identifying the location of the gun because the public-safety exception applies. As
we have discussed above, officers entered the apartment in response to a 911 call
that reported a domestic disturbance and shots fired within the apartment. Before
the officers asked Jones any questions, a bystander had stated that Jones was armed,
a woman fled the apartment “crying hysterically,” and an agitated Jones threatened
violence against unnamed individuals who, he said, were “in here” and trying to kill
him and his family. Accordingly, the officers had reason to believe that there was
at least one firearm that had been fired in the apartment and that other individuals
might have been in or near the apartment. See United States v. Ochoa, 941 F.3d
1074, 1096–98 (11th Cir. 2019) (stating that, even in the absence of “specific reason
to suspect that any particular person remained in the residence,” the officer was
reasonably concerned that others remained).
Jones argues that there was no public-safety rationale for Lieutenant
Peacock’s question—“where’s the gun, hon?”—once Jones was restrained because
he could not access the firearm and everyone in the apartment had been accounted
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for. But as in Newsome, the evidence at the suppression hearing showed “a very
rapid sequence of events.” Newsome, 475 F.3d at 1225. Peacock asked Jones where
the gun was “right after the officers ordered him to the ground and while he was
being secured.” Id. At the time the question was asked, the officers did not know
where the gun was, and Peacock reasonably could have been concerned that the gun
may have remained within Jones’s reach, if he broke Officer Brooks’s hold on him.
For these reasons, we conclude that Peacock’s question concerning the
location of the gun was permissible for officer safety under the public-safety
exception. “And “[b]ecause there was no Fifth Amendment violation, the evidence
obtained from the search was properly admitted.” Id. at 1226.
IV.
In sum, we affirm the denial of Jones’s motion to suppress.
AFFIRMED.
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