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Parties Involved:
William Aguilar
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FI LED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALSJnited Stares Coun of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

WILLIAM AGUILAR, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

P. ?R 2 5 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 89-1366 

(D.C. No. 89-CR-87) 

(D. Colorado) 

Before LOGAN and EBEL, Circuit Judges, and RUSSELL, District 

Judge.** 

Defendant William Aguilar appeals his conviction for attempt 

to manufacture methamphetamine, in violation of 21 u.s.c. 

§§ 841(a)(l) and 846 and 18 u.s.c. § 2, and carrying a firearm in 

relation to a drug trafficking offense, in violation of 18 u.s.c. 

§ 924(c). He argues that the district court erred in denying his 

motion to suppress, and that the evidence presented at trial was 

insufficient to show an attempt to manufacture methamphetamine. 

* 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. 

** The Honorable David L. Russell, United States District Judge 

for the Eastern, Northern and Western Districts of Oklahoma, sitting by designation. 

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We affirm. 

I 

Defendant argues that the district court should have suppressed evidence seized near Durango from a rental truck that he 

was driving and evidence seized from his wife a few weeks later. 

To determine this matter we consider separately the three traffic 

stops which together produced the evidence at issue. 

First, we must determine the validity of the stop and search 

at Cortez, because Officer Powell's observations there formed the 

basis for the Durango search. Defendant contends that the traffic 

stop at Cortez was pretextual. We do not agree. 

Under the objective reasonableness standard of United States 

v. Guzman, 864 F.2d 1512, 1517 (10th Cir. 1988), a stop is 

pretextual if "a reasonable officer would not have made the stop 

but for the existence of an impermissible purpose." United States 

v. Erwin, 875 F.2d 268, 272 (10th Cir. 1989). Although Officers 

Powell and Waterman disagreed about the exact location of the 

posted sign, both testified that they observed the truck traveling 

about ten miles per hour over the speed limit. 1 Defendant admitted to the officers that he was speeding. Police do regularly 

stop speeding vehicles, and defendant did not even question in the 

district court whether these officers routinely stopped cars that 

they observed exceeding the speed limit by ten miles per hour. 

Therefore, we cannot conclude that the officers did not have a 

1 The district court considered discrepancies in the officers' 

testimony about the exact speed of the truck and the posted speed 

limit, and determined that defendant was speeding. II R. 207. 

The finding is not clearly erroneous. 

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reasonable basis for stopping the truck. The officers' other motives, if any, are irrelevant. 

Powell's request for defendant's voluntary consent to look in 

the back of the truck was also permissible. We have held that, 

once an officer has issued a citation and returned the registration and driver's license, the interaction between officer and 

motorist becomes an ordinary consensual encounter. United States 

v. Werking, 915 F.2d 1404, 1409 (10th Cir. 1990). Accord 

States v. Deases, 918 F.2d 118, 122 (10th Cir. 1990). 

United 

In the 

absence of "an overbearing show of authority," the officer may 

question the motorist about the presence of drugs or guns or 

request a voluntary consent to search. Werking, 915 F.2d at 1409. 

The motorist may refuse to answer and is free to leave. Id. When 

the officers asked defendant for permission to look and go into 

the back of the truck, they had returned defendant's license and 

registration. II R. 18-19, 62-63. Defendant neither presents 

evidence of a coercive display of authority nor argues that the 

consent was given involuntarily. Moreover, Powell stopped his 

search when defendant withdrew his consent. 

Second, we hold that Sergeant Mitchell had probable cause to 

stop the truck and search it near Durango. Mitchell based his 

probable cause on observations made by Officers Powell and 

Waterman during the search at Cortez and on the sergeant's own 

experience and training. Powell had noticed a strong smell of 

ether and a double-necked, round-bottomed glass flask with some 

type of solid residue in it. Waterman had observed that defendant 

became more nervous the further Powell moved into the cargo area 

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of the truck. Powell reported the observations to the Colorado 

State Patrol's Office in Durango, and they were passed on to 

Mitchell, who had expertise in identifying methamphetamine labs 

that Powell did not. Mitchell concluded that defendant's truck 

contained a drug lab. 

In United States v. Lopez, 777 F.2d 543 (10th Cir. 1985), we 

held that the combination of observations of an ether-like odor 

emanating from a car, the unusual placement of speakers in the 

car, and the officer's training and experience with drug-related 

odors formed probable cause to search the car. Id. at 551. 

Moreover, it is well established that officers may pool information to establish probable cause. United States v. SalinasCalderon, 728 F.2d 1298, 1301-02 (10th Cir. 1984). Thus, the 

combination of Powell's observations of both the ether-like odor 

and flask with residue, Waterman's observation's of defendant's 

increasing nervousness, and Mitchell's background in identifying 

drug labs gave Mitchell probable cause to stop and search the 

truck for evidence of crime. We need not address any of the 

alternative bases for the search. 

Third, we hold that the stop of defendant's wife a few weeks 

later was valid and the evidence seized admissible. Trooper 

Godsey and Agent Taylor, using a radar, clocked the car in which 

she was a passenger and of which she had custody, as traveling 

between 72 and 76 miles per hour in a 55 mile-per-hour zone. They 

observed that the driver had to slam on the brakes and move to the 

left to avoid rear-ending another vehicle. Defendant does not 

argue that the car was not speeding. Even though the officers had 

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previously been looking for defendant's wife and the car, a 

reasonable officer would have stopped a car driving so dangerously. Under the objective Guzman test, 864 F.2d at 1517, the 

stop was not pretextual. 

Defendant's wife consented to speak to the officers. She 

also consented to the search of the trunk, where guns, drugs, and 

money were found. Defendant does not contest the voluntariness of 

his wife's consent to speak with the officers or to have them 

search her trunk. In addition, the list of nine chemicals used in 

making methamphetamine was discovered in defendant's wallet, which 

was in his wife's purse, during a valid inventory search after her 

arrest. Thus, all evidence in question on this appeal was seized 

lawfully, and the motion to suppress was properly denied. 

II 

Finally, we consider the sufficiency of the evidence to 

convict defendant of having aided and abetted an attempt to 

manufacture methamphetamine. In United States v. Monholland, 607 

F.2d 1311 (10th Cir. 1979), we stated, "It is essential that the 

defendant, with the intent of committing the particular crime, do 

some overt act adapted to, approximating, and which in the 

ordinary and likely course of things will result in, the commission of the particular crime." Id. at 1318. We have also held 

that the substantial step required to show attempt must strongly 

corroborate the firmness of the defendant's criminal intent. 

United States v. Savaiano, 843 F.2d 1280, 1296 (10th Cir. 1988). 

Defendant asserts that the evidence failed to establish an overt 

act that strongly corroborates criminal intent to assist in the 

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manufacture of methamphetamine. He asserts that he was engaged in 

a noncriminal chemical business. 

We believe that the circumstantial evidence is sufficient for 

a reasonable jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant 

was intentionally transporting a dismantled methamphetamine lab 

and the necessary chemicals, which would be used to manufacture 

methamphetamine. Defendant was the driver of a rental truck that 

contained the glassware and other equipment necessary for a drug 

lab and all but one of the chemicals required to make 

methamphetamine. Defendant admitted that the contents of the 

truck cargo area were his. Defendant also carried in his wallet a 

list of nine chemicals used in making methamphetamine. Two loaded 

guns were found in the truck that defendant was driving, which 

tends to corroborate the finding of a criminal purpose. 

Two sets of evidence, in particular, might lead a reasonable 

jury to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was attempting to assist in the manufacture of methamphetamine. First, 

traces of methamphetamine were found in some of the glassware in 

the truck, revealing that the equipment which defendant was 

transporting had already been used to manufacture the drug. VI R. 

200; VII R. 317-21. Second, defendant made several admissions to 

Agents Taylor and Reed while being transported to Denver. He said 

that he knew he was in trouble "since you seized that 

methamphetamine, laboratory out of my truck .... " VI R. 212; 

see also III R. 287. He also admitted that he had received a book 

of chemical customers who were methamphetamine manufacturers and 

that he knew the location of 200 pounds of methamphetamine. VI R. 

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213, 215; III R. 287-88. He told the officers that he was going 

to Denver to pick up the chemicals noted on his list so that he 

could make "an additional 200 pounds of methamphetamine." VI R. 

216. The government's evidence, if believed by the jury, is sufficient to establish defendant's overt actions, which corroborate 

his criminal intent to help manufacture methamphetamine. 

AFFIRMED. 

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Entered for the Court 

James K. Logan 

Circuit Judge 

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