United States v. Cordova-Espinoza ( 2022 )


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  • Case: 21-50518     Document: 00516490662          Page: 1    Date Filed: 09/30/2022
    United States Court of Appeals
    for the Fifth Circuit
    United States Court of Appeals
    Fifth Circuit
    FILED
    September 30, 2022
    No. 21-50518                         Lyle W. Cayce
    Clerk
    United States of America,
    Plaintiff—Appellee,
    versus
    Santiago Cordova-Espinoza,
    Defendant—Appellant.
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Western District of Texas
    USDC No. 4:20-CR-330-1
    Before King, Duncan, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.
    Per Curiam:
    Santiago Cordova-Espinoza appeals the district court’s denial of a mo-
    tion to suppress evidence obtained by federal agents after a hotel manager
    opened the door to a room containing Cordova. The district court properly
    found that this search was a private search. As private searches do not impli-
    cate the Fourth Amendment, the district court correctly denied Cordova’s
    motion to suppress evidence obtained from the search in question. We there-
    fore AFFIRM.
    Case: 21-50518      Document: 00516490662          Page: 2   Date Filed: 09/30/2022
    No. 21-50518
    I.
    Santiago Cordova-Espinoza (“Cordova”), a Mexican citizen, entered
    the United States without authorization. He was found at the OYO Hotel in
    Alpine, Texas, when the hotel’s manager opened the door to Cordova’s
    room in front of Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) agents.
    Cordova was charged with illegal reentry under 
    8 U.S.C. Section 1326
    . He
    then moved to suppress the fruits of the hotel-room search, arguing that the
    hotel manager was acting as a Government agent and that the Government
    lacked a warrant that authorized the search. The district court held a
    suppression hearing and denied the motion. Cordova thereafter pleaded
    guilty to illegal reentry under 
    8 U.S.C. Section 1326
    , reserving his right to
    challenge the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress.
    The suppression hearing produced the following facts. Based on
    information from other sources reporting multiple undocumented
    immigrants gathering at the OYO Hotel, six Border Patrol agents went to the
    hotel. Two agents entered the OYO Hotel’s office and spoke to the desk
    attendant before ultimately speaking with the hotel’s owner and manager,
    Yogesh Patel. An agent explained to Patel why the agents were there and
    asked for details regarding Room 115, where it was believed the
    undocumented immigrants were residing. This agent did not ask Patel to
    open the door to Room 115, but Patel offered regardless. In response, the
    agent told Patel “no, [and] that [he] needed to go speak with [his] supervisor
    first.” The two agents then left the office and returned to the other agents in
    the parking lot outside of Room 115.
    Outside Room 115, the agents attempted to knock on the door four or
    five times, but the occupants did not open the door. Patel then approached
    an agent in the parking lot and asked him if the agents “wanted in the room.”
    This agent responded: “Well, we’ve attempted a knock and talk, but nobody
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    has answered. Outside of that, there is nothing we can do without a warrant.”
    The agent “explained to [Patel] that the occupants, whoever has rented the
    room, have a reasonable expectation of privacy from the government.” The
    agent was confident he had told Patel that he needed either consent or a
    warrant to open the door, but he was unsure whether he clarified that he
    needed the occupants’ consent or Patel’s consent. Then, according to the
    agent, “in the middle of this conversation . . . [Patel] just walked past me and
    basically left me standing there, opened the door [to Room 115], turned
    around, and walked away leaving the door wide open exposing . . . two
    individuals in the room.”
    Patel described his opening the door in some detail. He explained that
    he saw “that [the agents] were struggling. So [Patel had] the right to open
    [Patel’s] room; right. So [he] opened the 115 for them.” He said that the
    agents never asked him to open the door but did tell him that they may “go
    for the warrant. They would go before a judge,” which would be “a long
    process for [the agents] to open the room and break the door.” Patel also
    cited several reasons for opening the door. Principally, he said it was because
    he “saw that the officers were struggling” and wanted to help them. But he
    also noted that he was “concerned illegal activity was taking place” in the
    room and that he did not want the agents to break his door. When asked
    whether he told the agents that he planned to open the door, Patel ultimately
    testified that he had, though he could not recall which agent he told. No agent
    reported being told that Patel was going to open the door or asking Patel to
    open the door. And no agent reported encouraging Patel to open the door or
    compensating Patel for doing so.
    As Patel walked toward the door, an agent followed Patel at an
    approximately ten-foot distance but was unsure whether Patel intended to
    open the door or just knock on it. No agent attempted to stop Patel from
    acting while he walked toward the door. After Patel opened the door, several
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    agents observed two individuals, one of whom was Cordova, in the room.
    Upon approaching the entrance of the door and eventually entering the room,
    they also found pizza, water, soft drinks, and some wet clothes.
    Cordova moved to suppress evidence obtained from this search and
    argued that Patel was acting as a Government agent when pursuing this
    warrantless search. In determining whether Patel acted as an agent of the
    Government, the district court applied the test set out by the Ninth Circuit
    in United States v. Miller, 
    688 F.2d 652
     (9th Cir. 1982). 1 That test has two
    factors: “(1) whether the Government knew or acquiesced in the intrusive
    conduct; and (2) whether the private party intended to assist law
    enforcement efforts or to further his own ends.” United States v. Blocker, 
    104 F.3d 720
    , 725 (5th Cir. 1997). As to the first factor, the court concluded that
    the Government did not know about or acquiesce in the conduct because, per
    the agents’ testimony, Patel acted without warning, and the agents did not
    expect Patel to open the door. As to the second factor, the court concluded
    that Patel—despite stating that he wanted to assist the DHS agents—was
    acting to further his own ends as he wanted to prevent damage to his door
    and wanted to halt illegal activity at his hotel. Thus, the court denied the
    motion to suppress.
    Cordova timely appeals, arguing that the district court erred when it
    concluded that Patel was not acting as the Government’s agent when he
    opened the door.
    1
    The two factors used in the Miller test were first elucidated by the Ninth Circuit
    in United States v. Walther, 
    652 F.2d 788
     (9th Cir. 1981), but for present purposes, we will
    follow the convention of the parties and district court in referring to this as the Miller test.
    See Eugene L. Shapiro, Governmental Acquiescence in Private Party Searches: The State Action
    Inquiry and Lessons from the Federal Circuits, 104 KY. L.J. 287, 290 (2016) (explaining the
    Ninth Circuit approach).
    4
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    II.
    “On appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress we review the
    district court’s factual findings under the clearly erroneous standard and its
    conclusions of law de novo.” Blocker, 
    104 F.3d at 725
     (quoting United States
    v. Johnson, 
    16 F.3d 69
    , 71 (5th Cir. 1994)). We treat “the district court’s
    determination whether a person is acting as an agent for the Government as
    a factual finding.” 
    Id.
     Clear error exists only if, after viewing all the evidence,
    the court is “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been
    committed.” United States v. Charon, 
    442 F.3d 881
    , 891 (5th Cir. 2006)
    (quoting United States v. Harris, 
    434 F.3d 767
    , 773 (5th Cir. 2005)).
    The Fourth Amendment’s protection against the unreasonable search
    of a person’s home also protects guests staying in a hotel room. Stoner v.
    California, 
    376 U.S. 483
    , 490 (1964). Thus, the Government cannot engage
    in a warrantless search inside a guest’s hotel room, even with the hotel
    owner’s permission, unless an exception to the warrant requirement applies.
    
    Id.
     at 486–88. Evidence obtained in a wrongful search or seizure by a private
    party, however, does not violate a person’s rights under the Fourth
    Amendment. United States v. Jacobsen, 
    466 U.S. 109
    , 113 (1984). But, of
    course, the Government cannot use private individuals as agents to
    circumvent Fourth Amendment protections. See United States v. Mekjian,
    
    505 F.2d 1320
    , 1327 (5th Cir. 1975). Thus, the question is one of agency, or
    whether, when Patel opened the hotel door, he “must be regarded as having
    acted as an ‘instrument’ or agent of the state.” United States v. Bazan, 
    807 F.2d 1200
    , 1202 (5th Cir. 1986) (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 
    403 U.S. 443
    , 487 (1971)).
    The parties here dispute the proper test we should apply to decide
    whether Patel acted as an agent of the state. Cordova argues that this circuit
    has applied the two-factor Miller test in the past (including in Bazan) to
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    determine whether an individual was acting on behalf of the state. See, e.g.,
    Bazan, 
    807 F.2d at
    1202–04; Blocker, 
    104 F.3d at 725
    . In response, the
    Government argues that this circuit has not yet adopted a single test. Instead,
    the Government argues that we should consider multiple factors to
    determine whether a private party acted as an agent of the state. One
    expression of these factors also (confusingly) comes from Bazan, which, per
    the Government’s view, 2 created a separate, three-factor test later applied by
    this circuit.3 See, e.g., United States v. Dahlstrom, 
    180 F.3d 677
    , 682 (5th Cir.
    1999); United States v. Ramirez, 
    810 F.2d 1338
    , 1342 (5th Cir. 1987). These
    Bazan factors require us to find a private party was not a Government agent
    when: (1) the Government has offered no form of compensation to an
    informant; (2) the Government did not initiate the idea that the informant
    would conduct a search; and (3) the Government lacked specific knowledge
    that the informant intended a search. Bazan, 
    807 F.2d at 1204
    . The parties
    disagree as to whether we should apply the two factors from Miller or the
    three factors from Bazan. Caselaw from our circuit is also somewhat
    inconsistent on this question; we have applied both tests in the past but have
    not formally adopted one to the exclusion of the other. 4
    2
    It is unclear from the briefing whether the Government is necessarily suggesting
    we apply the three Bazan factors as a separate test here or merely as a guide to analyzing
    particularly salient factors under a more general totality-of-the-circumstances approach.
    Although we do not decide here which of the two approaches allegedly taken by the Bazan
    court is appropriate, we are almost certainly bound to one of these two approaches and thus
    decline to follow the Government’s possible suggestion that we determine Patel’s agency
    using a third totality-of-the-circumstances approach.
    3
    Cordova argues that this three-factor test is not a separate test. He argues that
    said factors were “drawn from the circumstances specific to Bazan’s case” and were “not
    meant to be a strict three-part test to be applied in all cases but rather examples of factors
    to consider.”
    4
    Compare United States v. Meals, 
    21 F.4th 903
    , 908 n.3 (5th Cir. 2021) (noting that
    we have not yet adopted a specific test), with Blocker, 
    104 F.3d at 725
     (noting that we have
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    We need not resolve this disagreement because we affirm the
    judgment of the district court under either of the tests suggested by the
    parties. We thus do not decide here whether the three factors in Bazan are a
    test separate from the two-factor Miller test; similarly, we decline to opine on
    which of these two suggested approaches should control in future cases in
    this circuit. Under either of the suggested approaches, the district court did
    not err in finding that Patel was acting as a private party, and not as an agent
    of the state, when he opened the hotel room door. There was thus no search
    or seizure by Government officials that implicates the Fourth Amendment.
    We initially consider the facts under the two-factor Miller test. The
    first factor requires us to consider whether the Government knew or
    acquiesced in the intrusive conduct. Miller, 
    688 F.2d at 657
    ; see also Bazan,
    
    807 F.2d at
    1202–03. Such knowledge or acquiescence arises when the
    Government is either a direct participant or indirect encourager. Miller, 
    688 F.2d at 657
    . The district court did not identify, and the record does not show,
    any evidence suggesting conduct by the Government that would support a
    finding of direct Government participation. We must thus consider whether
    the Government indirectly encouraged the search. 5 The district court found
    that the Government did not. We agree.
    “applied the test articulated by the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Miller”), and Ramirez,
    
    810 F.2d at 1342
     (applying the three factors from Bazan).
    5
    We identify four separate arguments Cordova makes in suggesting the agents here
    indirectly encouraged Patel. None changes the outcome of our Miller analysis. First, the
    persuasive incentivization allegedly present in Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n,
    
    489 U.S. 602
     (1989), is distinguishable from the instant case. In Skinner, railroads were
    acting as agents of the Government under federal rules authorizing railroads to administer
    blood and urine tests on employees involved in safety violations. 
    Id.
     at 609–12. But these
    rules preempted existing state laws and regulations covering similar subject matter and
    required employees to submit to tests or be withdrawn from covered service. 
    Id. at 615
    . The
    present case involves both less comprehensive actions by the Government and far less
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    Bazan’s analysis of this first Miller factor is instructive. In Bazan,
    Garza (a private party) entered and searched Bazan’s property. Bazan, 
    807 F.2d at 1202
    . Before he did so, Garza had twice spoken to the Drug
    Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) about suspicious activity on the
    premises, previously acted as a police informant, previously worked as a
    deputy sheriff, and was asked by a DEA agent generally to “conduct
    surveillance on [Bazan’s] ranch.” 
    Id. at 1203
    . Despite this degree of prior
    contact between the DEA agent and Garza, the Bazan court noted that the
    agent “had no reason to predict that Garza would enter the ranch, and he
    clearly did not request that Garza do so.” 
    Id.
     In other words, the agent “had
    no knowledge of what Garza would do or when he would act,” which was
    severe punishments for noncompliance, both of which indicate a far more limited and
    qualitatively different scope of Government action.
    Second, Cordova suggests that we should apply a constructive knowledge standard
    here such that a private party is acting as a state agent when the Government knew or should
    have known that the private party would conduct the search. As evidence, he cites Mekjian,
    
    505 F.2d at 1328
    . But we decline to read into the Miller factors an additional standard based
    on language from a case that did not specifically apply (and predates) Miller.
    Third, Cordova argues that, in not affirmatively acting to stop Patel, the agents
    acquiesced in Patel’s search. In the absence of supporting caselaw requiring such actions,
    we decline to impose into this circuit’s Miller analysis a new duty on the Government to
    affirmatively stop a search, particularly in a case where, like here, said search happened
    rapidly and without the Government’s prior knowledge.
    Finally, Cordova notes that an agent explained to Patel that hotel occupants “have
    a reasonable expectation of privacy from the government” and that the agents thus needed
    consent to open the door. Cordova seems to suggest that this explanation was an
    impermissible veiled attempt at hinting to Patel that he should open the door, but we find
    the district court’s characterization of this exchange as merely “informative” (i.e., not
    directive) to be plausible, supported by the record, and thus not clear error. Additionally,
    any possible discrepancy noted by Cordova between the record and the district court’s
    findings about who an agent said needed to give consent (i.e., the manager or the room’s
    occupants) to search is not relevant here because such a discrepancy does not ultimately
    change the informative nature of the conversation between the agent and Patel.
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    sufficient to find a lack of Government knowledge or acquiescence in Garza’s
    search. Id. at 1204.
    In the instant case, the district court correctly found that the
    Government had no prior knowledge of and no participatory role in Patel’s
    search. The agents here thus had even less knowledge and acquiescence than
    the agent in Bazan, who suggested generally to the neighbor that he conduct
    surveillance. Id. at 1203. By contrast, the district court found that “all agents
    credibly testified that they did not know Mr. Patel would open the door,” a
    finding supported by the testimony of agents that they were surprised to see
    Patel opening the door. 6 Additionally, the record shows that the agent told
    Patel not to open the door until the agent had heard from his supervisor. This
    testimony can also be fairly read as indicating a lack of Government
    acquiescence in the search. The district court thus correctly found that the
    Government did not affirmatively encourage Patel to open the door and thus
    did not acquiesce to Patel’s search. These findings are supported by the
    record and, given that the district court was in the best position to evaluate
    the credibility and context of witness statements, are not clearly erroneous.
    See Mekjian, 
    505 F.2d at 1328
     (“The meaning of the statements made [by a
    private party] with regard to promises to send information [to the
    Government] depend upon the context in which they were made and the
    credibility of witnesses. This appraisal was a role most appropriate for the
    trial judge.”). The Government thus did not have the necessary knowledge
    6
    Cordova notes that Patel mentioned to an agent that he would open the door,
    testimony that the district court also described in a footnote as “credible.” Although this
    testimony would seem to contradict the district court’s factual finding that the agents did
    not know Patel would open the door, one possible explanation is that Patel told this to the
    agent, who then told Patel that he would need to speak to his supervisor first about getting
    a warrant. The agent could have then been surprised when Patel opened the door before
    the agent could get a warrant. Given such a possibility, we cannot say that the district court
    clearly erred in finding that the agents did not know Patel would open the door.
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    or acquiescence in the instant case for this search to implicate the Fourth
    Amendment.
    The next factor under Miller is whether the private party intended to
    assist law enforcement efforts or to further his own ends. Miller, 
    688 F.2d at 657
    . Mixed motives—where a private party has both a personal motive and
    an intent to aid the Government—do not necessarily compel a finding of
    Government involvement in a search. See Bazan, 
    807 F.2d at 1204
    . The
    district court found that Patel was motivated at least partly by a desire to help
    himself. We agree.
    In Bazan, the court suggested that Garza (the private party) had a
    personal motive for conducting a search of the relevant property. The
    property had once belonged to the family of Garza’s wife, and the property
    owner suggested that Garza may have aided the authorities in their
    investigation out of a hope of regaining the property. 
    Id. at 1204
    . The Bazan
    court explained that such personal motives are especially likely to exist in
    instances where, as in the present case, the Government does not offer any
    compensation for the private party’s efforts in aiding a search. 
    Id.
    Here, Patel was similarly motivated, in part, by a private interest in
    protecting and maintaining his property. He was concerned that illegal
    activities were happening in his hotel and that the agents would break down
    his door, either of which is a reasonable—and, more to the point, personal—
    motivation for a hotel manager to have for opening a hotel room.
    Furthermore, an agent testified that he told Patel not to open the door until
    the agent had heard from his supervisor. The fact that Patel did so before the
    agent had heard back also suggests that Patel had an independent, personal
    motive in opening the door beyond just assisting the agents in their
    investigation. The district court thus did not clearly err in concluding that
    Patel’s private, personal interests in conducting the search precluded a
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    finding of state involvement. In sum, both prongs of the Miller test indicate
    that Patel was acting as a private party, not as an agent of the Government.
    We next consider the three-factor test from Bazan. As the Bazan court
    considered these factors in conjunction with its Miller analysis, our
    discussion of the Miller factors unsurprisingly weighs heavily in our Bazan
    analysis. First, we consider whether the Government offered any
    compensation to Patel to open the door. The district court found that it did
    not, and no record evidence indicates otherwise. Second, we consider
    whether the Government or the private party initiated the idea of conducting
    a search. This analysis tracks closely to the first Miller factor. As discussed,
    the record supports the district court’s finding that there was no insinuation
    from the Government that Patel open the door. Third, we consider whether
    the Government lacked specific knowledge that the informant intended a
    search. The district court credited testimony from agents asserting no prior
    knowledge of Patel’s opening the door. The record supports this finding.
    Thus, even applying the Bazan court’s three factors as a separate test yields
    the same result: Patel was acting as a private party, not a Government agent.
    Consequently, there was insufficient Government involvement in this case
    to constitute a state search implicating the Fourth Amendment. 7
    III.
    This circuit has taken various approaches in deciding whether a
    private party acts as a Government agent when conducting a search. In the
    7
    As we hold that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against warrantless
    searches is inapplicable to Patel’s search, we need not address Cordova’s arguments
    concerning the types of evidence properly excludable from a search violating the Fourth
    Amendment. Similarly, we do not credit Cordova’s argument that the agents participated
    in an illegal search by looking around after Patel opened the door. See Mekjian, 
    505 F.2d at 1328
     (finding no Fourth Amendment violation in Government accepting records from
    private individual after individual’s search was held to be purely private).
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    instant case, Patel did not act as an agent under any of these various
    approaches; as such, we decline to specify a single approach this court must
    use in future cases. Regardless of whether we look to the Miller test or the
    supposedly distinct Bazan factors, the district court did not clearly err in
    determining that Patel was not acting as an agent of the Government. As
    such, the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches is
    inapplicable here for lack of Government involvement in the search. The
    Government can thus properly use the evidence adduced by Patel’s opening
    the door, and Cordova’s motion to suppress such evidence was properly
    denied by the district court.
    For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM.
    12