State v. Boyles

2015 UT App 185
_________________________________________________________

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

STATE OF UTAH,
Plaintiff and Appellee,
v.
EVAN D. BOYLES,
Defendant and Appellant.

Opinion
No. 20130578-CA
Filed July 30, 2015

Second District Court, Ogden Department
The Honorable W. Brent West
No. 111901766

Evan D. Boyles, Appellant Pro Se

Dee W. Smith, Branden B. Miles, and Brody E.
Flint, Attorneys for Appellee

JUDGE JOHN A. PEARCE authored this Opinion, in which JUDGES
STEPHEN L. ROTH and MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN concurred.

PEARCE, Judge:

¶1 This case considers whether police officers executing a
search warrant for a single-level, three-bedroom house needed to
obtain a new warrant after they encountered a locked interior
door sporting a no-trespassing sign. We conclude that the trial
court did not err by determining that the locked door and sign
were insufficient to provide a reasonable officer notice that the
 State v. Boyles

bedroom behind the door was a separate residence.1 We
therefore affirm the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motion
to suppress the evidence found in that bedroom.

BACKGROUND

¶2 A confidential informant told the police that he had
purchased methamphetamine from James Fitts on multiple
occasions. According to the informant, he had purchased the
drugs at Fitts’s residence and Fitts stored his merchandise in his
bedroom.

¶3 Under police direction, the informant then made two
controlled purchases of drugs from Fitts. The informant first
went to the house and bought methamphetamine from Fitts
using marked money. After this purchase, the informant
reported that three people lived in the house: James Fitts, Evan
D. Boyles, and K.Z. The second controlled purchase also took
place at the house. The informant noted that Boyles had been
‚present at the location‛ during the second transaction.

¶4 The police sought a search warrant. The affidavit
supporting the warrant request recounted the facts the
informant provided. The affidavit also detailed Fitts’s and
Boyles’s criminal histories. The affidavit noted that Boyles
resided at the house, that he had ‚an extensive history of
Possession of Illegal Narcotics,‛ and that four of Boyles’s nine
prior convictions had involved drugs.2 The police requested a

1. For the purposes of this opinion, we assume, without
deciding, that the bedroom was a separate residence.

2. According to the affidavit, Boyles had been convicted of
possessing methamphetamine twice and had pled guilty to
possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute on a third
occasion.

20130578-CA 2 2015 UT App 185
 State v. Boyles

search warrant to seize methamphetamine and drug
paraphernalia from James Fitts, the house, and the house’s
curtilage. Specifically, the affidavit described the property to be
searched as including ‚all outbuildings, garages, sheds, vehicles,
trailers, boats, locked containers, and other property contained
within the property lines (curtilage).‛ Citing officer safety and
the possibility of evidence being destroyed, the affidavit asked
‚that the police officers executing the search warrant not be
required to give notice of authority (no-knock) and be able to
execute the search warrant day or night.‛ A district court judge
reviewed the affidavit and issued a warrant to search Fitts and
the house.

¶5 Police officers executed the warrant on July 12, 2011.
When the officers arrived, Boyles and his girlfriend were in the
backyard. Boyles and Fitts were detained while the officers
searched the house. While the officers did not know the ‚entire
layout of the home‛ when they entered, one officer later testified
that he ‚had an idea‛ which room was Fitts’s.

¶6 While searching the house, the officers encountered a
locked door with a no-trespassing sign hanging on it. Officers
broke down the door and discovered a bedroom containing drug
paraphernalia. When asked, Boyles admitted that the locked
bedroom was his. The officers also found heroin in another
room, later identified as Fitts’s bedroom.3

¶7 The State charged Boyles with possession of drug
paraphernalia. Boyles elected to represent himself at the pretrial
proceedings and at trial. Boyles filed a motion to suppress the
evidence discovered in his bedroom. After a hearing on the

3. The record does not reveal the order in which the officers
searched the two rooms nor does it reveal the point at which the
officers confirmed that the bedroom containing heroin was
Fitts’s.

20130578-CA 3 2015 UT App 185
 State v. Boyles

motion, the trial court found that the officers had acted in good
faith in obtaining the warrant and that the warrant allowed the
officers to search the entire property. The trial court further
found (1) that Boyles ‚maintain*ed+ a separate, locked bedroom
within the home‛; (2) that although ‚the officers had reason to
believe there were multiple people living in the home, there is no
evidence that the police officers knew that [Boyles] maintained
exclusive control over a particular bedroom‛; and (3) that there
‚was no indication that the bedroom was intended to be a
separately occupied portion of the home like an apartment.‛ The
court concluded that the ‚scope of the search warrant reasonably
included *Boyles’s+ room‛ and therefore denied the motion to
suppress. A jury convicted Boyles of possession of drug
paraphernalia, a class A misdemeanor. Boyles appeals.4

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶8 Boyles contends that the trial court erred by denying his
motion to suppress. He argues that the officers lacked probable
cause to search his bedroom and that the warrant failed to
properly describe the place to be searched. In an appeal from the
denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we review the trial

4. Boyles was represented by appointed counsel throughout the
appellate process. Counsel filed briefs and participated in oral
argument. After the oral argument in this matter, counsel sought
to withdraw because Boyles expressed dissatisfaction with his
representation and threatened to file legal action against him.
Counsel requested that Boyles be appointed a new attorney or be
allowed to proceed pro se. We granted the motion to withdraw
and remanded to the district court. At a subsequent hearing, the
district court noted that this matter had been fully briefed and
argued and that ‚*a+ll parties agreed that the case can be
submitted to the Appellate Court for decision.‛ The district court
also permitted Boyles to proceed pro se.

20130578-CA 4 2015 UT App 185
 State v. Boyles

court’s factual findings for clear error and its conclusions of law
for correctness. State v. Rogers, 2014 UT App 89, ¶ 4, 325 P.3d 884.

ANALYSIS

¶9 The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
protects the ‚right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures.‛ ‚*T]he touchstone of [Fourth] Amendment analysis
has been the question whether a person has a constitutionally
protected reasonable expectation of privacy.‛ Oliver v. United
States, 466 U.S. 170, 177 (1984) (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted). We assume, without deciding, that Boyles had a
reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to his bedroom
independent of that which he enjoyed as to the house as a whole.

¶10 Police officers generally need a warrant to search a place
in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. See
Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 164 (1978) (‚The bulwark of
Fourth Amendment protection, of course, is the Warrant Clause,
requiring that, absent certain exceptions, police obtain a warrant
from a neutral and disinterested magistrate before embarking
upon a search.‛). Before issuing a search warrant, a magistrate
must determine that probable cause exists to conduct the search,
id.; often, this determination is based upon an affidavit filed by
the investigating officer. ‚[A] warrant affidavit must set forth
particular facts and circumstances underlying the existence of
probable cause, so as to allow the magistrate to make an
independent evaluation of the matter.‛ Id. at 165.

I. Validity of the Search Warrant

¶11 Boyles contends that the affidavit in his case
‚misrepresented the true nature of the living arrangement‛ and
was therefore invalid. He argues that ‚*t+his deprived the

20130578-CA 5 2015 UT App 185
 State v. Boyles

magistrate of the ability to accurately assess probable cause for
the entire structure, since he did not know that Mr. Boyles had a
separately accessed and rented space.‛5 He asserts that, ‚*h+ad
the court known that fact, it would have granted the search
warrant, but excepted Mr. Boyles’ room from the search.‛

¶12 ‚When the Fourth Amendment demands a factual
showing sufficient to comprise ‘probable cause,’ the obvious
assumption is that there will be a truthful showing.‛ Franks, 438
U.S. at 164–65 (emphasis omitted) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted). ‚This does not mean ‘truthful’ in the
sense that every fact recited in the warrant affidavit is
necessarily correct, for probable cause may be founded upon
hearsay and upon information received from informants, as well
as upon information within the affiant’s own knowledge that
sometimes must be garnered hastily.‛ Id. at 165. Rather, a
warrant affidavit ‚is to be ‘truthful’ in the sense that the
information put forth is believed or appropriately accepted by
the affiant as true.‛ Id.

¶13 A warrant is not necessarily invalidated by the later
discovery that some of the information supporting the warrant is
inaccurate. Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 85–86 (1987). In
Garrison, police officers possessed a valid warrant to search ‚the
person of Lawrence McWebb and ‘the premises known as 2036
Park Avenue third floor apartment’‛ for drugs. Id. at 80. When
the police applied for the warrant and when they began their
search, they reasonably believed there was only one apartment
on the third floor. Id. While executing the warrant, the officers
entered a vestibule on the third floor and encountered two open
doors. Id. at 81. They began searching and discovered

5. Boyles’s basis for claiming that his room was ‚separately
accessed‛ is unclear. Every indication in the record before us
suggests that Boyles and the officers accessed the room using an
interior door in the house.

20130578-CA 6 2015 UT App 185
 State v. Boyles

incriminating evidence including heroin. Id. However, they then
realized that the third floor was in fact divided into two
apartments—one occupied by McWebb and the other by
Garrison. Id. The officers stopped searching Garrison’s
apartment once the separate nature of the apartments became
apparent. Id. Garrison was charged with and convicted of drug
possession on the basis of the heroin found in his apartment. Id.
at 80.

¶14 The United States Supreme Court framed the question
before it as, ‚*W+hether that factual mistake invalidated a
warrant that undoubtedly would have been valid if it had
reflected a completely accurate understanding of the building’s
floor plan.‛ Id. at 85. The Court noted that the warrant’s
‚description of *the place to be searched+ was broader than
appropriate because it was based on the mistaken belief that
there was only one apartment on the third floor of the building
at 2036 Park Avenue.‛ Id. But ‚the discovery of facts
demonstrating that a valid warrant was unnecessarily broad
does not retroactively invalidate the warrant.‛ Id. Because the
officers could not have reasonably known of their factual
mistake at the time they applied for the warrant, the Court
concluded that the warrant was validly issued. Id. at 85–86.

¶15 Boyles contends that the warrant in this matter was
invalid because the investigating police officer should have
alerted the magistrate that the area to be searched included an
enclave over which Boyles exercised exclusive control and thus
entertained a reasonable expectation of privacy. See United States
v. Acosta, 965 F.2d 1248, 1252 (3d Cir. 1992) (‚*O+nly when the
defendant has the right to keep a place private and subject to his
exclusive control would reasonable expectations of privacy
attach.‛); cf. State v. Loya, 2001 UT App 3, ¶ 24, 18 P.3d 1116
(noting that a defendant may lose whatever reasonable
expectation of privacy he or she has regarding a hotel room
when he or she no longer exercises exclusive control of the
room). Boyles’s contention presupposes that the investigating
officer knew or believed that each of the three residents of the

20130578-CA 7 2015 UT App 185
 State v. Boyles

house rented separate rooms from the owner and maintained
exclusive control over their respective rooms, yet omitted that
information from the affidavit. But the record gives us no reason
to believe that the officer knew Boyles maintained exclusive
control over a particular bedroom or any bedroom at all. Nor
does Boyles point to any record evidence suggesting that the
officer had such knowledge when he swore the affidavit.

¶16 Instead, Boyles relies on the officer’s response to the
question, asked at trial, ‚*Did+ you know which bedroom was
*Fitts’s+ before you executed the warrant?‛ The officer answered
that he ‚had an idea of which one was [Fitts’s.+‛ Boyles assumes
from this that if the officer knew which bedroom belonged to
Fitts, the officer must also have known which bedroom belonged
to Boyles. Boyles’s reliance on this colloquy depends on the
uncertain assumptions that (1) if Fitts had a bedroom, Boyles
must have had one as well and (2) all the residents of the house
treated their respective rooms as areas over which they exercised
exclusive control. The officer’s trial testimony falls short of
supporting an inference that the officer knew, at least at the time
he sought the warrant, that Boyles maintained his bedroom as a
separate residence inside the house.

¶17 Boyles does not identify any other relevant information
known to the officer but omitted from the affidavit. As a result,
Boyles has not carried his burden of showing that the officer
knowingly misrepresented information in the affidavit so as to
render the resulting warrant invalid.6

6. Boyles may be arguing that the investigating officer should
have inferred that the three residents of the house each
maintained bedrooms as separate residences within it and that
the officer should therefore have included such an inference in
the affidavit. But all of the information from which that inference
could possibly be drawn was presented to the magistrate, and
(continued...)

20130578-CA 8 2015 UT App 185
 State v. Boyles

II. Officers’ Good Faith in Executing the Warrant

¶18 Boyles contends that the officers executing the search
warrant did not act in good faith.7 Specifically, he asserts that the

(