Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02860/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02860-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Gregory Sanford
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 14-2860 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

GREGORY SANFORD, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Central District of Illinois. 

No. 1:12-cr-10069-JES-JEH-1 — James E. Shadid, Chief Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED OCTOBER 6, 2015 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 25, 2015 

____________________ 

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and WILLIAMS, 

Circuit Judges. 

POSNER, Circuit Judge. Chicago is a major destination city 

for illegal drugs originating in Central and South America. 

Interstate 55, which runs from LaPlace, Louisiana, to Chicago, is part of the network of north-south and west-east 

highways used by drug dealers to deliver their illegal drugs 

to the Windy City. See, e.g., National Drug Intelligence CenCase: 14-2860 Document: 44 Filed: 11/25/2015 Pages: 12
2 No. 14-2860 

ter, National Drug Threat Assessment 2006, “Drug Transportation Corridors,” www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs

11/18862/transport.htm; Kathy Sweeney, “I-Team: I-55 Drug 

Busts,” Feb. 11, 2014, www.kfvs12.com/story/24695389/iteam-investigation-55-drug-busts (both visited Nov. 24, 

2015). Drug dealers also use Interstate 55 to transport drugs 

from Chicago to other cities, such as Peoria (southwest of 

Chicago)—as we’re about to see. 

Shortly after midnight on February 28, 2012, an Illinois 

state trooper stopped a car that he had clocked speeding 

southbound on I-55 between Chicago and Peoria at 83 miles 

per hour—18 miles per hour over the speed limit. The stop 

led to a search of the car and the seizure of 1.5 kilograms of 

cocaine found in the search. Gregory Sanford, one of two 

passengers in the car, was prosecuted in federal court for 

possessing and intending to sell the cocaine that had been 

found. He pleaded guilty after his motion to suppress the 

evidence of the cocaine was denied, and was sentenced to 15 

years in prison. But his plea was conditional, Fed. R. Crim. P. 

11(a)(2), and allowed him to appeal to challenge the legality 

of the search, as he has done. And since the conditional plea 

did not purport to affect his right to appeal the sentence, he 

has also appealed from the conditions of supervised release 

imposed by the district judge. 

The trooper who stopped the car for speeding quickly 

learned that it had been rented 12 hours earlier in Peoria but 

that neither the driver of the car nor either of its two passengers had rented it or was authorized by the rental contract to 

drive it. (Apparently Sanford’s brother had rented it.) The 

trooper asked each of the three occupants for identification, 

and having received it returned to his car to run a criminalCase: 14-2860 Document: 44 Filed: 11/25/2015 Pages: 12
No. 14-2860 3 

history check on each of them. The check revealed that Sanford and the other passenger were affiliated with the notorious Gangster Disciples street gang, that Sanford had a record of 19 arrests for a variety of offenses including drug offenses, and that the other passenger had a recent arrest for 

manufacturing cocaine. The trooper requested that a drugsniffing dog be fetched to check the stopped car for drugs. 

The dog arrived, alerted, and the troopers (a second had arrived 14 minutes after the stop, to provide backup, and had 

been joined 5 minutes later by a third trooper, who brought 

the drug-detection dog) opened the trunk of the car and 

found the cocaine. They gave the driver a speeding ticket 

and arrested all three occupants but later released them 

when they denied knowledge of the drugs. Sanford, however, was re-arrested two months later, was indicted, and 

pleaded guilty as we said to possession with intent to sell the 

cocaine found in the car. 

He contends that the search that revealed the cocaine was 

illegal because the car he was riding in had been stopped for 

speeding and therefore the driver should just have been given a speeding ticket and allowed to drive off. He insists that 

the trooper had no right to look up the driver’s criminal history on the police car’s computer, let alone the criminal histories of the passengers, for there was no reason to think 

them responsible for the driver’s having been speeding. The 

trooper acknowledged that he doesn’t usually search the 

criminal histories of drivers or passengers during stops for 

mere traffic violations, such as speeding. But he testified that 

his suspicions had been aroused by a combination of facts 

that he knew, or quickly learned when he stopped the car: 

drug couriers often use cars rented by third parties; I-55 is a 

known drug corridor; and the occupants were nervous and 

Case: 14-2860 Document: 44 Filed: 11/25/2015 Pages: 12
4 No. 14-2860 

evasive, reluctant to speak, and made poor eye contact (unlike, the trooper testified, most persons in a car stopped by 

police for a traffic violation). In addition, although to drive 

from Peoria and Chicago and back again takes about four 

hours, the travelers had spent very little time in Chicago—

enough time for a drug delivery or pickup, but not enough 

for a normal visit.

The trooper checked the occupants’ criminal histories on 

the computer in his car—a procedure permissible even 

without reasonable suspicion, see United States v. Bracamontes, 614 F.3d 813, 816 (8th Cir. 2010); United States v. Purcell, 236 F.3d 1274, 1278–79 (11th Cir. 2001); United States v. 

McRae, 81 F.3d 1528, 1535–36 n. 6 (10th Cir. 1996)—indeed a 

procedure in itself normally reasonable, as it takes little time 

and may reveal outstanding arrest warrants. After checking 

for criminal histories the trooper waited for the arrival of the 

dog that he’d requested be brought to check for the presence 

of illegal drugs. While waiting he obtained additional suspicious information from the driver. She claimed to have been 

visiting Sanford’s hospitalized grandmother, but also said 

that she and her passengers had left Peoria at 6 pm, which 

meant that the visit would have been late at night. And she 

couldn’t name the hospital. 

The total time from the initial stop of the car until the dog 

alerted for drugs was 26 or 27 minutes. 

The district judge denied Sanford’s motion to suppress 

the cocaine evidence mainly on two grounds: that as a passenger in the car rather than the owner, a renter, or the driver he had no standing to file such a motion, and that even if 

he had standing the delay had not made the search unlawful. In the judge’s words, 

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No. 14-2860 5 

I don’t see that there is standing to challenge the 

search of the car given that he [Sanford] was a passenger ... . Nothing in his name, no valid license to 

enter into the rental agreement, any indication other than his brother entered into the rental agreement. I don’t think really the officer had any reason 

to think that Mr. Sanford had an interest in the vehicle other than the fact that he was told that his 

brother rented the car. The rental agreement indicated that there was no authorization available to 

anybody else to drive the car. To the extent that his 

brother renting the car and giving it to the defendant caused some interest that may cause standing, I 

believe still that the combination of the matters, the 

facts as addressed by [the prosecutor], the speeding 

created the probable cause to stop the car, and then 

the—asking questions, the third-party rental information, gathering the information from that, the 

computer screen info, was not any kind of an unreasonable extension of the stop, and then finally, 

as the officer testified to something about the parties given his experience, the late at night, again the 

third-party rental information, and then the dog 

sniff, created probable cause for the search. So the 

motion would be respectfully denied.

We are mindful that the Supreme Court, in Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 139–140 (1978), said that it was better to 

ask whether a person asserting a Fourth Amendment right 

has a personal “interest” that the search infringed than 

whether he has “standing” to challenge the search. But the 

two formulas come to the same thing, and cases continue to 

discuss Fourth Amendment “standing.” See, e.g., Brendlin v. 

California, 551 U.S. 249, 259–60 (2007); United States v. Padilla, 

508 U.S. 77, 80–82 (1993); Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 101 

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6 No. 14-2860 

(1990) (concurring opinion); United States v. Wilbourn, 799 

F.3d 900, 908–10 (7th Cir. 2015); United States v. Walton, 763 

F.3d 655, 660–66 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. Miller, 799 

F.3d 1097, 1103, 1107 (D.C. Cir. 2015); United States v. Anguiano, 795 F.3d 873, 878 (8th Cir. 2015). There is no practical 

difference between the two usages. 

The Fourth Amendment entitles people “to be secure in 

their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The last three “theirs”—houses, 

papers, and effects—have been understood compendiously 

as “property” in a sense not limited to the enumerated terms 

interpreted literally, and not even requiring ownership. E.g., 

Rakas v. Illinois, supra, 439 U.S. at 141–43. More to the point, 

the Supreme Court has enlarged the scope of the Fourth 

Amendment to include the protection of privacy. See Minnesota v. Olson, supra, 495 U.S. at 98–100 (“a houseguest has a 

legitimate expectation of privacy in his host’s home” and 

therefore “can claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment”); United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 91–92 (1980) 

(“while property ownership is clearly a factor to be considered in determining whether an individual’s Fourth 

Amendment rights have been violated, property rights are 

neither the beginning nor the end of this Court’s inquiry” 

(citation omitted)). “[A] person can have a legally sufficient 

interest in a place other than his own home so that the 

Fourth Amendment protects him from unreasonable government intrusion into that place.” Rakas v. Illinois, supra, 439 

U.S. at 142. Yet even if you had no formal or informal property interest in the premises, you would still have grounds to 

resist a search or seizure of your person, or of personal 

property of yours that you might have with you in the room 

in which you’re staying (even if you’re a guest rather than 

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No. 14-2860 7 

an owner or tenant), or the car in which you’re riding. See, 

e.g., Brendlin v. California, supra, 551 U.S. at 251; Wyoming v. 

Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 303–07 (1999); Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 

U.S. 85, 91–92 (1979). 

Sanford, though he’d not rented the car that the police 

stopped, could be thought to have had a property interest in 

it as a kind of subtenant. Although he’d driven it earlier that 

day, he didn’t have a valid license–a situation that we said in 

United States v. Haywood, 324 F.3d 514, 515–16 (7th Cir. 2003), 

deprives a mere borrower of a rented car of standing to challenge a search of it. That decision, on which our subsequent 

decision in United States v. Walton, supra, 763 F.3d at 666, 

casts a shadow, may be due for reconsideration. It can be argued that if you rent a limousine, or it’s lent to you by a 

friend, you have a possessory interest in it even though 

you’re not expected to drive it—indeed, even if you not only 

don’t have a valid driver’s license but have never learned to 

drive. Sanford’s situation is analogous. He was a borrower 

of the car. 

For completeness we note the existence of a circuit split 

over whether an unauthorized rental-car driver has a legitimate expectation of privacy sufficient to establish standing 

to challenge a search. Most circuits have ruled that possessing a rental car without the rental company’s permission 

precludes standing. But two circuits disagree and this court 

has yet to take sides (as noted in United States v. Walton, supra, 763 F.3d at 662–63). Compare United States v. Kennedy, 

638 F.3d 159, 164–68 (3rd Cir. 2011); United States v. Wellons, 

32 F.3d 117, 118–19 (4th Cir. 1994); United States v. Boruff, 909 

F.2d 111, 117 (5th Cir. 1990); and United States v. Obregon, 748 

F.2d 1371, 1374–75 (10th Cir. 1984), with United States v. 

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8 No. 14-2860 

Thomas, 447 F.3d 1191, 1198–99 (9th Cir. 2006); and United 

States v. Best, 135 F.3d 1223, 1225 (8th Cir. 1998). The Sixth 

Circuit takes the position that an unauthorized rental-car 

driver may have standing in special circumstances, such as 

where he has a valid license, he arranged the rental, and his 

wife was listed as the authorized driver. United States v. 

Smith, 263 F.3d 571, 586–87 (6th Cir. 2001). 

We need not resolve Sanford’s standing as a borrower 

and passenger because even if he lacks standing to challenge 

the search on the basis of having a quasi-property right of 

some sort in the car, he has standing to challenge the seizure 

of his person (in the loose sense in which “seizure” is used in 

Fourth Amendment cases) when the car was stopped by the 

police. Therefore he has standing to challenge any search 

that resulted from his seizure if the seizure was unlawful. 

Brendlin v. California, supra, 551 U.S. at 256–59; United States 

v. Wilbourn, supra, 799 F.3d at 908–10; United States v. Bueno, 

703 F.3d 1053, 1055–62 and 1059 n. 3 (7th Cir. 2013), vacated 

in part on other grounds, Gonzalez-Zavala v. United States, 133 

S. Ct. 2830 (2013). Such a seizure, of driver and passengers 

alike, occurs every time police stop a car that has a passenger, but is lawful if there’s reason to think the driver is violating a traffic law, as in this case. 

Recently, however, the Supreme Court has held that such 

a seizure turns unlawful if it is prolonged in order to conduct a dog sniff (which requires bringing the dog to the scene of the stop, and therefore takes a while), without reasonable suspicion that there are illegal drugs secreted in the 

stopped vehicle. Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1609, 

1614–16 (2015). But there was reasonable suspicion in this 

case (in contrast, in Rodriguez the Supreme Court remanded 

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No. 14-2860 9 

for a determination of whether there had been reasonable 

suspicion), given the factors listed earlier in this opinion that 

had made the trooper suspicious. Cf. United States v. Finke, 

85 F.3d 1275, 1280–82 (7th Cir. 1996); United States v. Winters, 

782 F.3d 289, 298–303 (6th Cir. 2015); United States v. Davis, 

636 F.3d 1281, 1291–92 (10th Cir. 2011). Since the criminalhistory check was justified, Sanford is left only to argue that 

having finished the check the police dawdled in issuing the 

ticket, thereby gratuitously extending the time in which Sanford was trapped in the stopped car (“seized”). The trooper 

who had stopped the car spent several minutes chatting with 

a fellow trooper about sports and a euchre tournament while 

twice stating (then quickly correcting himself) that he wanted to wait for the dog to arrive before completing the writing 

of the ticket. The criminal histories that he uncovered in his 

computer search made a compelling case to wait for the 

dog—the trooper had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity at that point and so was justified in prolonging the stop 

for a reasonable time to confirm or dispel, with the dog’s assistance, his mounting suspicions. Only about eight more 

minutes elapsed before the dog arrived. That was not an unreasonable amount of time to prolong the stop. See United 

States v. Pettit, 785 F.3d 1374, 1378, 1383 (10th Cir. 2015) (reasonable suspicion justified the trooper in prolonging the stop 

by 15 minutes to wait for the arrival of the drug dog); United 

States v. Lyons, 486 F.3d 367, 372 (8th Cir. 2007) (a 31-minute 

wait for the drug dog to arrive was reasonable because there 

was reasonable suspicion that drugs would be found in the 

vehicle). 

There is a further wrinkle. The car-rental contract prohibited anyone from driving the car whom the contract didn’t 

authorize to drive it, and none of the three persons in the car 

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10 No. 14-2860 

was authorized. The trooper could therefore have called the 

rental agency, alerted it to the situation, and in all probability have been asked by the agency to impound the car, as in 

United States v. Wellons, supra, 32 F.3d at 118–19. The trooper 

didn’t do that (we’re not told why he didn’t), but the fact 

that he could have, with predictable results, further attenuates the defendant’s claim to have been unjustifiably seized. 

So Sanford’s conviction was proper, but he also challenges the conditions of supervised release that the district judge 

imposed. The government acknowledges that this part of his 

appeal has solid merit, and so agrees with Sanford that the 

case should be remanded with instructions that the judge 

reconsider the sentence he imposed, though just the conditions of supervised release and not the prison term.

There are three problems with the conditions of supervised release that the judge imposed. First, the written 

judgment contains thirteen so-called “standard” conditions 

of supervised release that the judge did not mention at the 

sentencing hearing. Those conditions must be stricken because only punishments stated orally, in open court, at sentencing are valid. United States v. Johnson, 765 F.3d 702, 711 

(7th Cir. 2014). Second, the judge did not attempt to justify 

the conditions that he did impose at the sentencing hearing, 

as required by United States v. Thompson, 777 F.3d 368, 373 

(7th Cir. 2015). And third, a number of the conditions listed 

in the written judgment suffer from a variety of infirmities 

identified in decisions such as Thompson and United States v. 

Kappes, 782 F.3d 828 (7th Cir. 2015), decisions rendered after 

Sanford had been sentenced. 

We need to consider whether the resentencing hearing 

that we’re ordering should be limited to conditions of suCase: 14-2860 Document: 44 Filed: 11/25/2015 Pages: 12
No. 14-2860 11 

pervised release, or whether the judge should be permitted 

to alter the prison sentence that he imposed. The second 

course generally is preferable, given the interplay between 

the two types of sentencing. See, e.g., id. at 867. Although 

conditions of supervised release take effect (as the name implies) only upon the defendant’s release from prison, realistically they are a form of custody, like parole, because they 

impose significant limitations on a person’s freedom. Consider for example the common condition of supervised release that requires the permission of the defendant’s probation officer to take a trip outside the federal judicial district 

in which the defendant lives. See 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b)(14); 

U.S.S.G. § 5D1.3(c)(1). 

The more severe the conditions of supervised release, the 

stronger the case for a lighter prison sentence; the less severe, the weaker that case. Sanford was given a prison sentence that, though long, was 82 months below the bottom of 

his guidelines range. So were the district judge on remand to 

lighten the conditions of supervised release that he imposed, 

which he has now to reexamine, he might wish to lengthen 

the prison sentence, as a kind of compensation. Conversely, 

were he to impose more severe (and this time valid) conditions of supervised release, he might wish to shorten Sanford’s prison sentence somewhat. But Sanford and the government had agreed to the 180-month prison term as part of 

his guilty plea, and the district judge’s acceptance of the plea 

agreement will bind the district judge on remand just as it 

does the parties. Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C); see also Advisory Committee Note, 1999 Amendments. “[O]nce the court 

has seen the presentence report and given its approval, it is 

not free to revisit the plea agreement simply because, for 

whatever reason, the defendant later comes back to the court 

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12 No. 14-2860 

for resentencing.” United States v. Ritsema, 89 F.3d 392, 401 

(7th Cir. 1996). A contrary rule would deprive plea agreements governed by Rule 11(c)(1)(C) of finality and indeed 

render them illusory by depriving both sides of the benefits 

they had anticipated from entering into such agreements. 

United States v. Ritsema, supra, 89 F.3d at 400–01; see also 

United States v. Ray, 598 F.3d 407, 408–11 (7th Cir. 2010);

United States v. Main, 579 F.3d 200, 202–04 (2d Cir. 2009); 

United States v. Olesen, 920 F.2d 538, 539–43 (8th Cir. 1990). 

Because the district judge accepted Sanford’s Rule 

11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement, the judge is bound by the agreement’s terms. And he can’t retract that acceptance even if 

our remand makes the judge regret having accepted it. United States v. Ritsema, supra, 89 F.3d at 401. In short he can revise the conditions of supervised release but he can’t alter 

the term of imprisonment. 

The judgment is therefore 

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.

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