United States v. Clayton

In United States v. Clayton, —- F.4th —-, No. 23-30231 (5th Cir. Apr. 4, 2024), the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Clayton’s motion to suppress.

Clayton raised two arguments. First, he argued that officers conducted an unconstitutional warrantless search of his Mercedes after performing a traffic stop. When the officers had arrived at Clayton’s home, they had a warrant to search his home and any vehicles on the premises. Before they announced their presence, however, the officers watched Clayton drive away from the home, and they stopped his vehicle about a block away.

Second, Clayton argued that officers violated his right to remain silent by questioning him after he had asserted his right to remain silent. The district court rejected both arguments, and the Fifth Circuit agreed.

Ruling 1: The Fifth Circuit held that the search of Clayton’s Mercedes was acceptable because the police had developed probable cause that the Mercedes would contain drug evidence, and the automobile exception applied.

The Fifth Circuit first discussed Bailey v. United States, 568 U.S. 186, 202 (2013), which allows officers to detain people while they execute a search warrant on a building, but only if the people are found in the “immediate vicinity of the premises to be searched.” The Fifth Circuit noted that it had not yet decided on “a more specific definition of ‘immediate vicinity,’” which could have been relevant here, where Clayton was stopped about 250 yards away from his home.

Rather than resolve that question, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the suppression ruling on another basis: the automobile exception. As the court explained, under that exception, “a warrantless search of a readily mobile vehicle is permitted when law enforcement has probable cause to believe the vehicle contains contraband or evidence of a crime.” Here, the same facts that created probable cause to search Clayton’s home also established probable cause to search his vehicle.

Clayton argued that no officer saw him ever put drugs, money, or cell phones into the Mercedes, so the belief that it contained drug evidence was speculative. However, “viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government,” which had prevailed below, the Fifth Circuit held “that a reasonable person would have believed that evidence of drug trafficking would be present in Clayton’s Mercedes at the time the stop was effectuated.” So the district court did not err by denying Clayton’s motion to supress.

Ruling 2: The court also held that Clayton failed to prove that he made a “simple, unambiguous” statement that he wished to remain silent, so the district court’s “decision to deny Clayton’s motion to suppress was proper.” One officer testified that “Clayton indicated that he did not want to talk ‘through body language,’” rather than words, and the court deemed that insufficient to satisfy the requirement that a suspect’s invocation of the right to remain silent “must be unambiguous and unequivocal.” Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370, 380–82 (2010).