[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FILED
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
________________________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
NOVEMBER 9, 2007
No. 06-15186 THOMAS K. KAHN
________________________ CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 05-00126-CR-1-CB
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
BRIAN DEVON JACKSON, a.k.a. Brian Jones,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
_________________________
(November 9, 2007)
Before MARCUS and PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and HANCOCK,* District Judge.
PRYOR, Circuit Judge:
*
Honorable James H. Hancock, United States District Judge for the Northern District of
Alabama, sitting by designation.
This appeal presents the question whether the Constitution requires the
exclusion of physical evidence that was discovered on the basis of a defendant’s
voluntary statement elicited without the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona,
384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966). While he sat in the back of a police car,
Brian Devon Jackson admitted to his probation officer that the officer would find a
firearm in Jackson’s bedroom. Police officers recovered the firearm, and a grand
jury charged Jackson with firearm possession by a convicted felon. 18 U.S.C. §
922(g). After the district court denied Jackson’s motion to suppress the firearm,
Jackson entered a conditional plea of guilty. In the light of United States v. Patane,
542 U.S. 630, 124 S. Ct. 2620 (2004), we affirm Jackson’s conviction.
I. BACKGROUND
While on patrol in an unmarked car in Evergreen, Alabama, Police Chief
James Simpson observed Jackson and another man near the house of Jackson’s
mother. Jackson and Simpson knew each other well. When Simpson passed the
house, close enough for Jackson to recognize him, Jackson ran behind the house to
a utility shed. When Simpson backed up, Jackson moved to the back door of the
house.
Jackson was serving a sentence of probation for possession of marijuana and
was the subject of an unexecuted arrest warrant for his failure to appear for
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probation supervision. Evergreen police officers had also been looking for Jackson
for several days because they suspected that he had led police on a high-speed
chase.
Simpson exited his car and told Jackson that he was under arrest. Jackson
said that his grandfather had passed away, and Jackson said that he would not go to
jail. Jackson then entered the house and refused to leave. Simpson requested
assistance from other officers. Simpson stood on the back porch of the home until
other officers arrived and tried to persuade Jackson to leave the house. After
approximately 15 to 20 minutes, Jackson left the house, and officers placed
Jackson under arrest.
While Jackson was inside the house, a police officer called Jackson’s
probation officer, Jeff Jeter. The police officer asked Jeter to come to the scene in
the event that officers needed to enter the house to arrest Jackson. When Jeter
arrived, Jackson had already been arrested.
The terms of Jackson’s probation sentence required him to “submit to a
search of [his] person, home, vehicle, and any other property under [his] control by
the Probation Officer without a warrant.” While Jackson sat in the back of a patrol
car, Jeter told Jackson that he was going to search the house and asked, “Is there
anything I should know about in there?” Jackson responded that a firearm and
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another man were inside the house. Neither Jeter nor the officers provided any
Miranda warnings before Jackson answered Jeter’s question. Jeter and another
officer entered the house. A friend of Jackson’s mother directed officers to
Jackson’s bedroom. There the officers found a shotgun, two shotgun shells, and
Jackson’s driver’s license.
A grand jury indicted Jackson and charged him with firearm possession by a
convicted felon. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Jackson moved to suppress his statement to
Jeter and the firearm recovered from Jackson’s bedroom. The district court
granted Jackson’s motion to exclude the statement and denied Jackson’s motion to
exclude the firearm. Jackson entered a conditional guilty plea. See Fed. R. Crim.
P. 11(a)(2). He reserved the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress the
firearm. The district court sentenced Jackson to 37 months of imprisonment.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
“We review a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress de novo,
reviewing all evidence in the light most favorable to the party that prevailed in the
district court.” United States v. Yuknavich, 419 F.3d 1302, 1308 (11th Cir. 2005).
III. DISCUSSION
Because Jackson was serving a sentence of probation that required him to
submit to warrantless searches, the parties agree that police officers needed no
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more than reasonable suspicion to search Jackson’s home. See United States v.
Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 121, 122 S. Ct. 587, 592 (2001); Yuknavich, 419 F.3d at
1311. Jackson concedes that his statement established reasonable suspicion and
was voluntary, but he argues that, because he received no Miranda warnings, the
firearm discovered as a result of the search must be suppressed. We disagree.
Our resolution of this appeal is controlled by the decision of the Supreme
Court in United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630, 124 S. Ct. 2620 (2004). That
decision also involved a defendant arrested at his residence. An officer began to
inform Patane of his rights under Miranda, but Patane interrupted the officer and
said “that he knew his rights.” Id. at 635, 124 S. Ct. at 2625 (plurality opinion).
The officer then asked Patane about a firearm that the officer suspected Patane
illegally possessed. Patane replied that the firearm was in his bedroom and gave
the officer permission to retrieve it. Both the district and appellate courts held the
firearm inadmissible. Id. The Supreme Court reversed.
A fractured majority of five held that the firearm was admissible. The
plurality opinion for three justices recognized that the Miranda rule is a guard
“against the prosecutorial use of compelled statements as prohibited by the Fifth
Amendment.” Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 304, 105 S. Ct. 1285, 1290 (1985).
The plurality concluded that “[t]he Self-Incrimination Clause . . . is not implicated
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by the admission into evidence of the physical fruit of a voluntary statement. ”
Patane, 542 U.S. at 636, 124 S. Ct. at 2626 (plurality opinion).
A separate concurrence by two justices reached the same result for a
different and narrower reason. Those justices concluded that, in the light of its
purposes of promoting trustworthy evidence and deterring police misconduct,
Elstad, 470 U.S. at 308, 105 S. Ct. at 1293, the Miranda rule does not require
exclusion of the “physical fruits” of an unwarned but voluntary statement. Patane,
542 U.S. at 645, 124 S. Ct. at 2631 (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment).
Physical evidence is trustworthy, and the value of deterrence is outweighed by “the
important probative value of reliable physical evidence.” Id.
“When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining
the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, ‘the holding of the Court may be
viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments
on the narrowest grounds . . . .’” Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193, 97 S.
Ct. 990, 993 (1977) (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 169 n.15, 96 S. Ct.
2909, 2923 n.15 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.)). From that
perspective, the Patane plurality and concurrence agreed, at least, that Miranda
does not require the exclusion of physical evidence that is discovered on the basis
of a voluntary, although unwarned, statement. As several of our sister circuits have
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recognized, this narrow agreement is the holding of Patane. See, e.g., United
States v. Renken, 474 F.3d 984, 988 (7th Cir. 2007), cert. denied, No. 06-11673,
2007 WL 1647196 (U.S. Oct. 1, 2007); United States v. Phillips, 468 F.3d 1264,
1266 (10th Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 127 S. Ct. 1893 (2007); United States v.
Brathwaite, 458 F.3d 376, 382 n.7 (5th Cir. 2006); United States v. Nichols, 438
F.3d 437, 442 (4th Cir. 2006).
Jackson argues that Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 124 S. Ct. 2601
(2004), which was decided the same day as Patane, qualifies the holding of Patane,
but again we disagree. Seibert held inadmissible a statement obtained by
interrogation techniques calculated to undermine Miranda warnings. Seibert, 542
U.S. at 617, 124 S. Ct. at 2613 (plurality opinion). Patane held that no violation of
an obligation to warn that produces a voluntary statement is severe enough that the
deterrence value of suppression outweighs “the important probative value of
reliable physical evidence.” Patane, 542 U.S. at 645, 124 S. Ct. at 2631 (Kennedy,
J., concurring in the judgment).
Our understanding of the narrow agreement of the majority in Patane
resolves this appeal. Because Jackson’s firearm is physical evidence and he
concedes that his unwarned statement was voluntary, Patane allows the admission
of Jackson’s firearm. The district court was correct to deny Jackson’s motion to
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suppress the firearm.
IV. CONCLUSION
Jackson’s conviction is
AFFIRMED.
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