United States of America v. Steven George Morgan

Miami, Florida criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with drug trafficking.



A jury convicted Steven Morgan of three drug-trafficking

crimes after finding that he had been running cocaine from the

Caribbean into South Florida. On appeal, Morgan advances five

grounds for reversing his conviction—chief among them whether

either the Fourth or Fifth Amendment required excluding the con-

tents of a cellphone that the government searched without a war-

rant. Morgan also challenges several evidentiary rulings. After

carefully considering the issues, and with the benefit of oral argu-

ment, we reject Morgan's contentions and affirm his conviction.



With his brother, Steven Morgan smuggled cocaine into

South Florida. According to the evidence at trial, their scheme

worked as follows: Morgan would ship jars of shaving gel to his

brother on the island of St. Maarten, in the Caribbean. Morgan's

brother would fit the jars with false bottoms, under which he'd

stash cocaine. The brother would then ship the drug-laden jars

back to various South Florida addresses, where Morgan would re-

trieve them.



The scheme began to unravel when a couple of diligent law-

enforcement dogs at a Puerto Rican airport alerted on three pack-

ages—each of which contained about two pounds of cocaine. In

an effort to identify the packages' intended recipients, law-

USCA11 Case: 23-1111423-11114 Opinion of the Court 3

enforcement agents set up a controlled delivery. After removing

the cocaine, the officers equipped the boxes with break-wire bea-

cons and then shipped them to their original destinations. After the

packages were left in front of a South Florida apartment, Morgan

and another man arrived, retrieved them, and went inside. The

beacon sounded about 15 minutes later, cueing the officers to burst

into the apartment.



Once inside, the officers saw Morgan standing near the back

porch. When they detained him, Morgan had a gun on him. As

particularly relevant here, the officers also found two cellphones

near Morgan: an iPhone and an LG. Having put Morgan in hand-

cuffs, Agent Christiana Feo asked him—without providing Miranda

warnings1—whether both phones were his. Morgan answered,

"yes.” Tr. of Supp. Hearing 32, Dkt. No. 115.



The officers then placed Morgan in their vehicle, where

Agent Mariana Gaviria read him his Miranda rights. Morgan re-

sponded by invoking his rights to silence and counsel. Not long

thereafter, Gaviria asked Morgan—again—if the two phones that

the agents had seized belonged to him. Morgan hesitated, saying

that he was "not sure.” Id. at 14. Gaviria told him that she "wasn't

trying to interrogate him or ask him any questions about the case”

and that she "just need[ed] to know if they belonged to him so that

[she] could make a note of who the property belonged to in case

[she] needed to return it.” Id. In reply, Morgan said that "only the

1 See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 478–79 (1966).



iPhone” was his. Id. He explained that he had earlier claimed own-

ership of both phones only due to his "shock because of the way

that [the agents] came into the apartment with the guns drawn”—

"but,” he reiterated, "only the iPhone was his.” Id.



After seizing both phones and the gun, the officers released

Morgan. A few days later, Morgan called one of the agents to re-

trieve his gun, but he never asked about the phones. Several weeks

after seizing it, the agents conducted a warrantless search of the LG

phone, which yielded evidence implicating Morgan in the drug-

running scheme—including text messages between him and his

brother and photos of shipping records and wire-transfer receipts.

That information also led the agents to subpoena and obtain addi-

tional evidence from DHL, FedEx, and Western Union.



About 18 months after the controlled delivery, Agent Gavi-

ria called Morgan to arrange a meeting because she wanted to "re-

turn some property to him.” Tr. of Supp. Hearing 19. Morgan

agreed to meet Gaviria and two other agents at a Homeland Secu-

rity Investigations office. Although the details of the exchange

aren't relevant to this appeal, the evidence from the suppression

hearing suggests that the agents urged Morgan to talk to them de-

spite his repeated attempts to invoke his Miranda rights. Morgan

eventually spoke to the agents for about two hours and, at the close

of the interrogation, was arrested based on a previously obtained

warrant.





A federal grand jury charged Morgan with (1) conspiring to

import 500 grams or more of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C.

§§ 952(a) and 963; (2) attempting to possess with intent to distribute

500 grams or more of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1);

and (3) possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking

crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). After a four-day

trial,2 the jury found Morgan guilty on all charges. The district

court sentenced Morgan to 72 months' imprisonment for the drug

offenses, to run concurrently, and to 60 months' imprisonment for

the gun crime, to run consecutively.

Affirmed