In United States v. Evans, No. 17-15323 (May 6, 2020)
(Grant, Rosenbaum, Hull), the Court affirmed the defendant’s conviction and sentence.
The Court upheld the denial of a motion to suppress based
on the emergency-aid exception to the warrant requirement. The main issue was whether it was reasonable
for officers to believe that a dog whimpering inside the home could have been
mistaken for a person in distress. Under the totality of the circumstances, the Court concluded that they could, since the
officers responded to a 911 call reporting gunshots , the responding officers were
informed that the defendant had threatened to kill himself, and the defendant was
not cooperative. The officers were not
required to believe the defendant’s girlfriend, who told her the whimpering was
from a dog.
As for the sentence, the Court first rejected the argument
that an unloaded firearm could not trigger the enhancement in 2K2.1 for
possession of a semi-automatic firearm that is capable of accepting a large
capacity magazine. Second, although the defendant
argued that there was no evidence he possessed a firearm with an obliterated
serial number, the district court was entitled to rely at sentencing on an
officer’s contrary testimony and the firearm itself.
