United States v. Daughtery , 215 F. App'x 314 ( 2007 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 06-4586
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
CLEVE DAUGHTERY, JR.,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern
District of West Virginia, at Charleston. Joseph Robert Goodwin,
District Judge. (2:05-cr-00213-ALL)
Submitted: January 8, 2007 Decided: February 1, 2007
Before TRAXLER and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Troy N. Giatras, THE GIATRAS LAW FIRM, PLLC, Charleston, West
Virginia, for Appellant. Charles T. Miller, United States Attorney,
Joshua C. Hanks, Assistant United States Attorney, Charleston, West
Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Cleve Daughtery, Jr., appeals his conviction for one
count of cultivation of marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841.
The district court imposed the statutory maximum sentence of sixty
months’ imprisonment. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the
conviction and sentence.
Daughtery first contends that the district court abused
its discretion in allowing the government to impeach him with prior
statements that contradicted his testimony on direct examination.
He also contends that the district court erred in denying his
motion to suppress evidence of marijuana plants seized on his
property because the search warrant was not supported by probable
cause. We reject both of these claims.
On direct examination, Daughtery testified that he only
confessed that he owned the plants found on his property under the
threat of violence. But in his statements to the police, not only
did Daughtery admit that the plants were his, he also provided
detailed information about his extensive involvement for over a
decade in the purchase and sale of large quantities of marijuana.
These admissions substantially undermined Daughtery’s testimony.
Regardless of whether the admissions regarding drug activity would
have been admissible under the evidentiary rules in the
government’s case-in-chief, the evidence became admissible for
impeachment purposes once Daughtery took the stand and offered an
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explanation for his confession. See United States v. Williams, 986
F.2d 86, 89 (4th Cir. 1993). The district court’s evidentiary
ruling was well within its discretion.
We further conclude that the search warrant was supported
by probable cause. The Fourth Amendment requires that no search
warrant shall issue without probable cause. Probable cause means
that when assessing the totality of the circumstances, there is a
“fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be
found in a particular place.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238
(1983). We pay great deference to the district court’s findings of
probable cause in relation to warrants. Id. at 236. This court
reviews the legal determinations underlying the district court’s
denial of a motion to suppress de novo, and the factual findings
underlying the district court’s decision for clear error. United
States v. Hamlin, 319 F.3d 666, 671 (4th Cir. 2003). Moreover, our
review of the facts must be conducted in the light most favorable
to the government. Id.Daughtery’s argument rests on the faulty premise that the
search warrant was based solely on information provided by an
anonymous tip. Contrary to Daughtery’s assertion, however, police
officers testified both at trial and at the suppression hearing
that they drove past Daughtery’s residence and personally observed
marijuana plants from the road. In view of this evidence, we
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discern no error in the district court’s conclusion that the
warrant was supported by probable cause.
Accordingly, we affirm Daughtery’s conviction and
sentence. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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