Court Cases

The Fantasy Island District Court ("District Court") accepted the guilty plea of defendant Johnny Bigg ("Bigg") to violations of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1) and (b)(1) (manufacture of five grams or more of methamphetamine) and the Child Pornography Act of 1996 ("CPPA"), 18 U.S.C. 2252(A)(a)(5)(B), (possession of child pornography). Bigg appealed his conviction on the grounds that the seizure by Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA") agents ("Agents") of evidence of such crimes violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment and that the CPPA at 18 U.S.C. 2252(A)(a)(5)(b) violates the First Amendment.

On November 19, 2000, Agents arrested Miles Church ("Church") in Puerta Vallarta for purchasing chemicals used in the illegal manufacture of a controlled substance, methamphetamine (Morrisey Affidavit ("MA") (MA.5)). For more than six weeks DEA agents had observed Church purchasing chemicals used in such manufacturing. Church told DEA agent Russ Morrisey ("Morrisey") that he used the chemicals to manufacture methamphetamine and that Bigg possessed at his home in Dream Cove equipment owned by Church which was used in such manufacturing (MA.5). In a phone call made by Church to Bigg, which DEA monitored, Bigg said he was then "bubbling out a reaction" (MA.6).

After driving to Dream Cove, sixty miles away, Morrisey and other Agents knocked on the front door of Bigg's residence where Morrisey identified himself as a law enforcement agent (MA.6). The Agents t

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gave notice of their intent to investigate by following the established 'knock and talk' procedure, which the Court in United States v. Jones, 2001 WL 50521, 3, said "the Federal courts have recognized as a reasonable investigative tool when officers seek to gain an occupant's consent to search or where [they] reasonably suspect criminal activity." If such an emergency exists, the means employed to gain entry, a battering ram in this case, are irrelevant. McDonald, supra at 772. The District Court found that three and a quarter hours passed between the time Church was first questioned and the entry. In United States v. Apple, 221 F.3d 1336, 2000 WL 924610, 3 (6th Cir. 2000), the Court concluded that "waiting to obtain a warrant could have caused undue danger or led to the destruction of cocaine." Courts have tended to give law enforcement officers more leeway when evidence of an on-going or dangerous crime is present than where the search was aimed merely at possession of illegal narcotics. Here the Agents were engaged in a race against time to drive the sixty miles to Biggs' residence and arrive before all evidence of the crime had been removed. It is unclear whether the Puerta Vallarta eviden

Category: Government - C