United States of America v. William David Heselius

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
WILLIAM DAVID HESELIUS,
Defendant-Appellant.
No. 15-30304
D.C. No.
6:14-cr-00008-CCL-1
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Montana
Charles C. Lovell, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted December 6, 2016**
Seattle, Washington
Before: McKEOWN, TALLMAN, and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges.
William Heselius appeals his conviction following his conditional guilty
plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1). Prior to his plea, Heselius moved to suppress all evidence obtained in
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
FILED
DEC 8 2016
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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the March 25, 2014, search of his residence pursuant to a search warrant. Heselius
claimed that the warrant was invalid because it was dependent on information
gathered during an unconstitutional traffic stop. The district court referred the
motion to a United States magistrate judge. The magistrate found the stop
unconstitutional, but excised the tainted information from the stop and found the
remaining affidavit sufficient to justify issuance of the warrant. The district court
adopted the Findings and Recommendations of the United States Magistrate Judge
in full and denied Heselius’s motion. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291, and we vacate and remand.
As the government correctly concedes, a remand is necessary under Murray
v. United States, 487 U.S. 533 (1988). Murray requires the district court to
determine whether Detective Finnicum’s “decision to seek the warrant was
prompted by what [Deputy Sheriff Pandis] had seen during the [traffic stop], or if
information obtained during [the stop] was presented to the Magistrate and affected
his decision to issue the warrant.” 487 U.S. at 542 (footnote omitted) (citation
omitted). While Heselius does not challenge Murray’s second prong here, the
district court failed to make any factual findings with respect to whether the
unconstitutional traffic stop prompted the decision to seek a warrant. And without

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such a finding, the district court could not determine whether the “warranted search
was genuinely derived from a source independent of the unlawful [traffic stop].”
United States v. Holzman, 871 F.3d 1496, 1513 (9th Cir. 1989), abrogated on other
grounds by Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990).
VACATED AND REMANDED.

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