UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. DWAYNE SHECKLES - Articles

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. DWAYNE SHECKLES

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ARGUED and ON BRIEF: Kevin M. Schad, FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant.

Attorneys 2: ARGUED and ON BRIEF: L. Jay Gilbert, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee.

Judge(s): ROGERS, NALBANDIAN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Louisville

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. After a lengthy investigation, the federal government uncovered substantial evidence that Dwayne Sheckles was a Louisville distributor for a large drug-trafficking ring. Sheckles pleaded guilty but reserved the right to appeal the district court’s refusal to suppress much of this evidence. His appeal raises many Fourth Amendment questions. To name a few: What type of evidence creates probable cause to obtain a warrant for a phone’s location data after Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018)? Did a sufficient “nexus” exist between Sheckles’s drug dealing and two apartments to justify search warrants for the apartments? Did officers lawfully stop Sheckles’s vehicle after he left one of these apartments while they were in the process of seeking the warrants? And does a third party’s lack of apparent authority to consent to a search make a difference if officers learn after the search that the party had actual authority to consent? Ultimately, we find no Fourth Amendment violations and thus affirm.

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