Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02060/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02060-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Richard William Button
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FILED . Urutcd Scates Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

NOV 16 1990 

.&OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. 

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No. 90-2060 

RICHARD WILLIAM BUTTON, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

(D.C. No. 89-394JP-0l) 

(D. N.M.) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before MOORE, SETH, and TACHA, Circuit Judges. 

This appeal is from the district court's denial of a motion 

to suppress evidence seized as a result of the search of the 

automobile driven by defendant and stopped at an Immigration and 

Naturalization Service checkpoint near Hatch, New Mexico. 

Defendant appeals on the grounds that he was detained in violation 

of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and that 

the search of the vehicle was an illegal warrantless search. We 

affirm. 

Defendant was traveling north toward Truth or Consequences, 

New Mexico on an old highway, U.S. 85, when he encountered the 

Border Patrol checkpoint that had been in operation approximately 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-2060 Document: 010110051307 Date Filed: 11/16/1990 Page: 1 
six weeks. Appellant was stopped by the Border Patrol and 

questioned regarding his citizenship and the reason for his use of 

the old highway. The Border Patrolman then asked defendant to 

move to a secondary inspection area beside the roadway where 

defendant was required to wait until a canine unit arrived to 

search the vehicle. The canine alerted to the trunk of the 

vehicle. A law enforcement officer opened the trunk, which 

contained two boxes of marijuana. It is this evidence that 

defendant alleges should have been suppressed. 

Although defendant concedes that the initial stop at the 

Border Patrol checkpoint was a legitimate stop, he argues that the 

subsequent detention and search violated his Fourth Amendment 

rights. We disagree. 

In reviewing a denial of a motion to suppress, we must accept 

the trial court's findings of fact unless they are clearly 

erroneous. United States~ Cooper, 733 F.2d 1360, 1364 (10th 

Cir.), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1255 (1984). The evidence must be 

viewed in the light most favorable to the district court's 

findings. United States~ Obregon, 748 F.2d 1371, 1376 (10th 

Cir. 1984). 

The district court pointed to several articulable, objective 

facts upon which the Border Patrol officer relied when he required 

defendant to move to the secondary inspection point for detention 

after the initial questioning. Defendant was traveling on an old 

road at night in a vehicle that did not belong to him. The Border 

Patrol agent testified that the defendant was nervous, produced a 

New Mexico Construction Industries card instead of his driver's 

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Appellate Case: 90-2060 Document: 010110051307 Date Filed: 11/16/1990 Page: 2 
license, and was evasive and inconsistent with respect to his 

reasons for using the old road. We cannot say the district court 

was clearly erroneous in finding that the Border Patrol officer 

was justified in referring defendant to the secondary inspection 

location. See Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 563 (1976); United 

States~ Arango, No. 89-4084, slip op. at 12-13 (10th Cir. Aug. 

28, 1990); United States~ Johnson, 895 F.2d 693, 697-98 (10th 

Cir. 1990); United States~ Espinosa, 782 F.2d 888, 890-91 (10th 

Cir. 1986). 

Based on the officer's articulable suspicion, the canine unit 

was called. We cannot say that 30 to 40 minutes was an 

unreasonable time during which to subject defendant to detention 

for the purposes of a canine search. See United States~ Sharpe, 

470 U.S. 675, 686-87 (1985); United States~ Place, 462 U.S. 696, 

703 (1983). It is unrealistic to expect that a canine unit would 

be able to arrive at a remote location much more rapidly than 

occurred in this case. We have held that a canine sniff during an 

otherwise lawful detention is not a search within the meaning of 

the fourth amendment. United States~ Morales-Zamora, Nos. 89-

2172, 89-2244, slip op. at 7 (10th Cir. Sept. 6, 1990). After the 

dog alerted to the compartment in the pickup, the search by the 

officer was supported by probable cause. Id. at 13; United States 

~ Stone, 866 F.2d 359, 364 (10th Cir. 1989). The district court 

did not err in refusing to suppress the evidence. The order of 

the district court is AFFIRMED. 

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ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Deanell Reece Tacha 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 90-2060 Document: 010110051307 Date Filed: 11/16/1990 Page: 3