United States of America v. Gregory Darnell Gillis

*The Honorable James S. Gwin, United States District Judge for the
Northern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.
1
RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206
ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2004 FED App. 0047P (6th Cir.)
File Name: 04a0047p.06
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
_________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
GREGORY DARNELL GILLIS,
Defendant-Appellant.
X
-
-
-
->
,
-
-
N
No. 02-5957
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville.
No. 01-00164—R. Leon Jordan, District Judge.
Argued: October 22, 2003
Decided and Filed: February 12, 2004
Before: BOGGS, Chief Judge; GIBBONS, Circuit Judge;
GWIN, District Judge.*
_________________
COUNSEL
ARGUED: Paula R. Voss, FEDERAL DEFENDER
SERVICES, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellant. J. Edgar
2 United States v. Gillis No. 02-5957
Schmutzer, ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY,
Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Paula R.
Voss, FEDERAL DEFENDER SERVICES, Knoxville,
Tennessee, for Appellant. J. Edgar Schmutzer, ASSISTANT
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Knoxville, Tennessee, for
Appellee.
_________________
OPINION
_________________
JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Defendant-
appellant Gregory Darnell Gillis appeals the district court’s
decision denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained as
the result of a warrantless search of a residence on
November 7, 2001. Police obtained consent to search from
Gillis’s girlfriend, Shaneska Williams, after she informed
them that she had seen Gillis and several others smoking
marijuana and cooking crack cocaine inside the house earlier
that morning. Police knew that Williams had maintained a
separate residence since June 2001, but she showed the
officers a copy of a lease for the house that had her name on
it, and she gave them detailed information about where drugs
were hidden on the premises. The search revealed a small
amount of marijuana inside the residence, small amounts of
crack cocaine and marijuana inside Gillis’s car, and 60 grams
of crack cocaine in a wrecked Nissan Maxima parked in the
driveway. The district court denied Gillis’s motion to
suppress, and Gillis later pled guilty to one count of
knowingly and intentionally possessing with intent to
distribute fifty grams or more of a mixture and substance that
contains cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)
and (b). For the following reasons, we affirm the judgment of
the district court.

-- 1 of 5 --

No. 02-5957 United States v. Gillis 3
I.
On November 7, 2001, Officers Kelly Tanner and Anthony
Barnes of the Knoxville Police Department responded to a
domestic disturbance call at 2108 Texas Avenue (“2108”).
Upon arrival, they spoke with Shaneska Williams, who told
them that she had gone to a house at 1500 Texas Avenue
(“1500”) earlier that morning. Williams told the officers she
had observed her boyfriend, Gregory Gillis, and several
others smoking marijuana inside the residence. According to
Williams, she had an argument with Gillis, and he pushed her
out of the house and locked the door. Williams claimed she
had another argument with Gillis back at 2108 later that same
morning. During this argument, Gillis purportedly took $60
from Williams’s coffee table and slapped her across the face.
When the officers arrived, Williams asked them to remove
Gillis from 1500, and she showed them a copy of the lease for
the residence that had her name on it. The officers refused
this request because Gillis’s name was on the lease as well,
although it turned out that he had been listed only as a
witness. At this point, Williams became angry, and she began
to tell the police about additional drug activity she had
observed recently at 1500. In particular, Williams told the
officers that she had seen Gillis cooking two pots of crack
cocaine that morning and that he was using the residence to
sell large quantities of marijuana, crack, and ecstasy.
The police responded by inquiring further into Williams’s
use and knowledge of the premises. She told the officers she
had left 1500 in June 2001 because Gillis had been physically
abusing her and because she felt the residence was unfit for
their baby. However, she also told the officers that she
continued to reside at both 1500 and 2108, and she gave the
officers detailed information about where Gillis had drugs
hidden on the property. According to Williams, Gillis kept
drugs hidden inside the kitchen cabinets, in a vanity area in
the bathroom, and inside two cars: a Caprice Classic, and a
wrecked Nissan Maxima that was parked in the driveway.
4 United States v. Gillis No. 02-5957
Williams also had keys to a set of interior wooden doors at
1500. Gillis had the locks changed on the exterior metal
doors, but Williams told the officers that these doors were
broken during a recent break-in and that she was able to gain
access to the residence through them if Gillis did not answer
the door. Williams gave the officers her consent to search the
premises at 1500.
Tanner and Barnes contacted Officer Gina Pierce with the
Organized Crime Unit, who subsequently briefed the officers
charged with conducting the search. These officers were told
of the locations on the property where Williams said Gillis
had been hiding drugs, and they were also told that there was
an outstanding warrant for a Gregory Gillis. This warrant was
actually for Gillis’s father, but at that time the police were not
aware that two Gregory Gillises lived in the community.
When the investigating team arrived at 1500, they observed
two people seated in a Caprice Classic parked in the
driveway. The car’s engine was still running. As Officer
Todd Gilreath approached the vehicle, he noticed the driver
bending down and reaching underneath the steering column.
Gilreath opened the driver’s side door and he immediately
detected the odor of marijuana. He recognized Gillis as the
man sitting in the driver’s seat and asked him to step out of
the vehicle. As he patted Gillis down, Gilreath noticed a
bulge in Gillis’s front pocket that turned out to be $1000.
Gilreath arrested Gillis because he thought there was an
outstanding warrant for his arrest at the time and because he
felt that Gillis had “obviously” been smoking marijuana.
After reading Gillis his rights, Gilreath asked for his
consent to search the Caprice. Gillis refused. Gilreath
opened the door to the vehicle anyway and shined his
flashlight on the floorboard in the area where he had noticed
Gillis reaching immediately before his arrest. He noticed a
plastic bag sticking out from underneath the steering column
and removed it. This bag contained 11.4 grams of crack

-- 2 of 5 --

No. 02-5957 United States v. Gillis 5
cocaine. Gilreath also discovered a small amount of
marijuana in the floorboard directly under the driver’s seat.
While Gilreath was conducting his search of the Caprice, a
group of additional officers also on the scene announced their
presence and entered the residence through the set of broken
metal doors Williams had told them about. Inside they
discovered a small amount of marijuana in a kitchen cabinet
and some postal scales. Outside the residence, Officer Walter
Ricketts with the K-9 unit informed Drug Enforcement
Administration Agent Stephen Ribolla that his dog had
“alerted” on the wrecked Nissan Maxima that was parked in
the driveway directly in front of the Caprice. At the
suppression hearing, several officers testified that the Maxima
was not capable of being driven. Ribolla testified that the
Maxima did not have an engine and that it may not have had
wheels. The windshield and several side windows were also
missing. The car was unlocked, and spare parts were piled
inside of it. Ribolla described the Maxima as a “shell of a
vehicle” and counsel for Gillis characterized it as a “storage
shed.” After Ricketts informed him of the canine alert,
Ribolla searched inside the Maxima and discovered two
grocery bags located underneath door panels that were lying
on the floor of the vehicle. The bags contained sixty grams of
crack cocaine and a digital scale.
While the search was still being conducted at 1500, Pierce
went to 2108 to speak with Williams and to obtain a written
statement memorializing her prior oral consent. In her
statement to police, Williams indicated that she also “live[d]
at 1500 Texas” and that she had given the police “verbal
consent to search the house for drugs.”
After the search, Gillis was taken to the police station. He
waived his Miranda rights and admitted to possessing the
marijuana and crack cocaine that were found inside the
Caprice, but he denied any knowledge of the drugs found
inside the house or in the Maxima. Gillis was charged in a
one-count indictment with knowingly and intentionally
6 United States v. Gillis No. 02-5957
possessing with intent to distribute fifty grams or more of a
mixture and substance that contains cocaine base in violation
of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) and (b).
Gillis filed a motion to suppress all of the evidence
obtained from the search of the premises at 1500 on the
grounds that the officers did not have probable cause to
conduct the search. In the investigation following Gillis’s
arrest, Williams denied that she ever gave consent to search
the premises at 1500 and said that she thought she was
consenting to a search of the premises at 2108 instead. At the
suppression hearing, Williams testified that Pierce threw
away her first written statement and told her that she had not
written it “appropriately.” According to Williams, her
original statement had described 1500 as her “baby’s father’s
house,” but Pierce told her to rewrite it and to emphasize that
1500 was her house and not Gillis’s. Williams also testified
that after she left the house in June, she took most of her
personal belongings with her to 2108, and that Gillis
thereafter paid the rent at 1500.
The district court overruled Gillis’s motion to suppress.
The court concluded that Williams had actual authority to
consent to the search of the premises at 1500 and that the
officers could reasonably conclude that the scope of her
consent extended to the Maxima because she told them that
Gillis kept drugs inside it. The court also found that even if
Williams did not have actual authority to consent to the
search, the officers reasonably believed that she had apparent
authority to consent because they had a copy of a lease that
had her name on it, they knew she sometimes stayed at 1500
with Gillis, and they knew that she had a set of keys to the
interior wooden doors. The court also rejected Gillis’s
argument that Gilreath did not have reasonable suspicion to
seize him while he was seated in the Caprice and concluded
that Gilreath’s subsequent search of that vehicle was a proper
search incident to arrest under New York v. Belton, 453 U.S.
454 (1981). On appeal, Gillis argues that the district court
erred in denying his motion to suppress because Williams did

-- 3 of 5 --

No. 02-5957 United States v. Gillis 7
not have actual or apparent authority to consent to a search of
the premises at 1500.
II.
In reviewing a district court’s denial of a motion to
suppress evidence, this court reviews the district court’s
findings of fact for clear error, and its legal conclusions de
novo. United States v. Harris, 192 F.3d 580, 584 (6th Cir.
1999).
The Fourth Amendment normally prohibits the warrantless
search of an individual’s home. United States v. Haddix, 239
F.3d 766, 767 (6th Cir. 2001). However, the prohibition does
not apply to situations in which voluntary consent has been
obtained, either from the individual whose property is
searched or from a third party who possesses common
authority over the premises. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S.
177, 181 (1990). Common authority is not to be implied from
a mere property interest that a third party has in the property,
but from “mutual use . . . by persons generally having joint
access or control for most purposes.” United States v.
Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 172 n.7 (1974). The burden of
establishing that a third party possesses common authority to
consent to a search rests with the state. Rodriguez, 497 U.S.
at 181. Even if a third party does not possess actual common
authority over the area that was searched, the Fourth
Amendment is not violated if the police relied in good faith
on a third party’s apparent authority to consent to the search.
Id. at 188-89. Apparent authority is judged by an objective
standard. Id. A search consented to by a third party without
actual authority over the premises is nonetheless valid if the
officers reasonably could conclude from the facts available
that the third party had authority to consent to the search. Id.
The district court concluded that Williams had actual
authority to consent because her name was on the lease. The
court also found that even if Williams did not have actual
authority, the officers could reasonably conclude that she had
8 United States v. Gillis No. 02-5957
1Gillis does not specifically challenge the search of the Cap rice in his
brief, but did so at oral argum ent in resp onse to a question from the p anel.
To the extent he argues that the search of the Caprice was unlawful
because the officers did not have actual or apparent authority to be on the
premises, we reject this argument. The police relied in good faith on
W illiams’s apparent authority to consent and were lawfully present at the
time of the search.
apparent authority to consent to the search. Because we agree
with the district court’s decision that Williams had apparent
authority, we need not consider whether she also possessed
actual authority. Gillis argues that it was not reasonable for
the officers to believe that “a single mother living in public
housing was maintaining a second residence on the side, even
though she had no keys, no way to let them in without Mr.
Gillis’s permission and no personal property remaining
there.” However, the police did not know that Gillis was
paying the rent for 1500 at the time of the search or that
Williams had no personal property remaining there,
particularly since they had not even been inside the residence
at 1500 yet. The officers did know that Williams had
provided them with detailed information about the premises,
including the locations where Gillis had drugs hidden on the
property. They also had statements from Williams that she
continued to reside at 1500 and that she had been at the
residence earlier that same morning. Under these
circumstances, the officers had enough information at the
time of the search to reasonably conclude that Williams had
apparent authority to consent.1
While the officers could reasonably conclude that Williams
had authority to consent to a search of the premises, that does
not mean that the scope of her consent necessarily extended
to the Maxima. See United States v. Block, 590 F.2d 535, 541
(4th Cir. 1978) (“[A]uthority to consent to [a] search of a
general area . . . cannot be thought automatically to extend to
the interiors of every discrete enclosed space capable of
search within the area.”). Guests and co-residents in a house
may have privacy interests in specific property which cannot

-- 4 of 5 --

No. 02-5957 United States v. Gillis 9
be waived by a third party’s consent to a general search of the
premises. See id. at 541-42.
Before we consider the scope of Williams’s consent,
however, we must determine whether Gillis had a legitimate
expectation of privacy in the contents of the Maxima. If
Gillis had no such expectation of privacy, then he lacks
standing to challenge the constitutionality of the search, and
the scope of Williams’s consent is irrelevant. See Rakas v.
Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978). In determining whether an
individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in a
particular area searched, this court considers (1) whether the
defendant exhibited an actual subjective expectation of
privacy, and (2) whether the defendant’s subjective
expectation of privacy is “one that society is prepared to
recognize as reasonable.” United States v. Knox, 839 F.2d
285, 293 (6th Cir. 1988) (quoting United States v. Tolbert,
692 F.2d 1041, 1044 (6th Cir. 1982)).
In this case, several officers testified to the dilapidated
conditions of the Maxima. The car was unlocked, and the
windshield and several side windows were missing. At least
one person other than Gillis knew that he was hiding drugs
inside of it. If, as Gillis contends, the Maxima was more like
a “storage shed” than like an actual automobile, Gillis took no
reasonable precautions to ensure that the contents of his
storage area remained private. Ribolla testified that anyone
walking down the street could have walked over to the
Maxima and reached inside of it for any purpose. Given the
conditions of the Maxima, we conclude that Gillis did not
have an expectation of privacy in its contents that society
would be prepared to recognize as reasonable. See United
States v. Grecni, 1991 WL 139703, at * 3 (6th Cir. July 30,
1991) (defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in
the contents of his vehicle when, in trying to elude police, he
left his car unlocked and unoccupied with the keys in the
ignition). He therefore cannot contest the admissibility of the
evidence obtained from the search of that vehicle.
10 United States v. Gillis No. 02-5957
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the
district court.

-- 5 of 5 --