Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-02057/USCOURTS-ca10-89-02057-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Quinton Dandre Scales
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FI LED 

Unircd Stutes Courr of Appeals . TC'n~h Cfr:cit 

M.LW 1 '~ 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECK.ER 

Clerk 

v. 

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) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

No. 89-2057 

QUINTON DANDRE SCALES, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of New Mexico 

(D.C. No. CR-88-394) 

Ann Steinmetz, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Albuquerque, New 

Mexico, for Defendant-Appellant. 

David N. Williams, Assistant United States Attorney (William L. 

Lutz, United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Albuquerque, 

New Mexico, for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Before SEYMOUR and MCWILLIAMS Circuit Judges, and BRIMMER,* 

District Judge. 

SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge. 

*The Honorable Clarence A. Brimmer, Chief Judge, United States 

District Court for the District of Wyoming, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 89-2057 Document: 010110296349 Date Filed: 05/14/1990 Page: 1
Quinton Dandre Scales was convicted after a jury trial in 

federal district court of possession with intent to distribute 

more than 500 grams of cocaine in violation of 21 u.s.c. § 

84l(a)(l) (1988), and 21 U.S.C. § 84l(b)(l)(B) (1988). On appeal, 

Scales challenges the district court's denial of his motion to 

suppress evidence of cocaine found in his suitcase and statements 

made in connection with the seizure of this physical evidence. 

Scales argues that the seizure of his suitcase without a warrant 

or without probable cause and exigent circumstances violated the 

Fourth Amendment. Because we agree, we reverse the judgment of 

the district court. 

I • 

The seizure of Scales' luggage occurred on August 30, 1988. 

On that day, two special agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency 

(DEA), Kevin Small and Tim Brown, boarded an Amtrak train in 

Albuquerque, New Mexico to probe for narcotics-related activity. 1 

The DEA agents spotted Scales, noticed that he was shaking and 

looking around the coach car, and eventually went up to him to ask 

him some questions. 2 One of these questions was whether Scales 

1 This practice was not unusual: because of intelligence 

reports that transportation of drugs was becoming more common on 

Amtrak trains, these two DEA agents entered trains some fifteen 

days per month. 

2 Scales testified at the suppression hearing that he was the 

only young black person in his car, and that he was the only 

person Small and Brown talked to there. Rec., vol. II, at 82. 

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was carrying any narcotics, and Scales answered that he was not. 

DEA Special Agent Small testified that he then requested and 

received Scales' consent to search his small duffel bag. 

When Small found nothing of interest in that bag, he asked 

about a larger suitcase on the rack above Scales' head. Scales 

admitted that the suitcase was his, took it down, fumbled around 

nervously for the key, asked if the agents had a search warrant 

(they told him they did not), and then opened it up. In the 

suitcase there were two shoe-box sized packages and one larger 

package covered by plain brown wrapping paper and sealed with 

shiny brown tape. Such paper and tape, commonly available in 

stores, is often used by narcotics dealers to conceal the scent of 

the drugs or the contents of the box. See rec., vol. III, at 13; 

58-59. Scales told the DEA agents that the boxes contained china 

for his mother, but Special Agent Small's suspicions were aroused 

by the light weight of the packages and the fact that nothing 

inside rattled when he shook it. Scales refused to allow Small to 

open the boxes, however. Small testified at the suppression 

hearing that he inquired whether Scales had ever been arrested for 

a narcotics violation, arid that Scales told him he had only been 

arrested for a gun charge and for a robbery charge. Because the 

DEA agents felt they lacked probable cause to search the luggage 

or to arrest Scales, see id. at 49, they took no further action 

and left the traln. 

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The DEA ~gents then drove to their Albuquerque office to 

check into Scales' criminal record and discovered that he had been 

arrested and sentenced in 1984 for possession of a controlled 

substance. With this information, the DEA agents decided to drive 

some 120 miles to the train's next stop, Las Vegas, New Mexico, 

and reboard it there. They reached Las Vegas at 4:15 p.m., fortyfive minutes before the train. They got on the train when it 

arrived, told Scales they were taking his luggage, and handed him 

a receipt. They tried to disembark, but were unable to do so 

because the train had already begun moving. Small testified that 

he determined from Amtrak employees that it would be impossible to 

halt the train before its next scheduled stop. During a 

subsequent conversation with an Amtrak employee, Small learned 

that some problems with the plumbing had developed shortly after 

the train left Albuquerque, and that some Amtrak workers had 

discovered in a bathroom trash can two empty shoeboxes, newspaper, 

coffee grounds, 3 and brown wrapping paper with tape. 4 

3 One agent testified that coffee grounds are used by narcotics 

traffickers to disguise the odor of drugs from dogs trained to 

alert to such substances. Rec., vol. IV, at 43-44. 

4 According to testimony by Small, disputed by Scales, the DEA 

agent then confronted Scales and got him to admit to flushing some 

"brown colorey powder" contained in the two boxes down the toilet. 

Compare rec., vol. III, at 22-23 with rec., vol. II, at 58-59. 

Small did not refer to this "admission'' or to anything being 

flushed down the toilet in the DEA report he filed, rec., vol. 

III, at 77-79, nor in the affidavit he prepared for the search 

warrant, id. at 79, nor in his grand jury testimony, rec., vol. V, 

at 20-22.--Scales also allegedly stated that the third box was "'a 

decoy box to throw off the dogs.'" Rec., vol. III, at 23. 

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The DEA agents left the train with the suitcase and the empty 

boxes at the next stop, Raton, New Mexico. They did not arrest 

Scales at that time because, as Small stated, "I couldn't arrest 

him for anything because ... he hadn't made a violation of the 

law 'cause I don't know what's in that bag." Id. at 25. Small 

and Brown got a ride from Raton to their car in Las Vegas from 

some New Mexico State Police officers, and then drove to the state 

penitentiary in Santa Fe. There they put the suitcase before the 

dog-sniffing team of "Junior" and ''Decoy," and the dogs separately 

signaled that the bag contained a substance they had been trained 

to detect. 5 The dogs alerted to the suitcase between 11:30 p.m. 

and 12 midnight, some six and one-half to seven hours after the 

DEA agents had seized it. 

After the positive reaction of the drug-sniffing dogs, the 

DEA agents drove back to Albuquerque, went with an affidavit the 

next evening to a United States Magistrate, and received a search 

warrant. Upon opening up the package inside the suitcase, the 

agents disqovered approximately 2,109 grams of cocaine. 

Scales filed a motion to suppress the physical evidence 

seized and all of his statements made on August 30, 1988. The 

district court, in making its ruling, initially noted that the DEA 

agents had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and therefore 

5 These dogs are trained to ''alert," or signal, to narcotics, 

green money, and explosives. 

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could detain the luggage briefly for further investigation. But 

the court went on to observe that 

"the actions of the o.fficers in removing the luggage 

from the train and taking it to the •.. [penitentiary 

for] a dog 'sniff' is troubling because of the length of 

the detention and the possibility of less intrusive 

alternatives." 

Rec., vol. I, doc. 16, at 2. The court decided, however, that it 

"need not reach the issue of the possible illegality of this 

procedure" because it held that the good faith exception of United 

States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), applied to ratify the agents' 

behavior. Rec., vol. I, doc. 16, at 2. The court also held that 

the alerting of the dogs to the luggage gave the DEA agents the 

requisite probable cause for a search warrant. 

II. 

The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule, as set out 

in Leon, provides that where police officers act in reasonable 

reliance on a search warrant, issued by a detached and neutral 

magistrate but ultimately found to be defective, the evidence so 

obtained should not be excluded. 468 U.S. at 922. The rationale 

for this rule addresses the deterrent effect the exclusionary rule 

has both on judges and magistrates, and on law enforcement 

officers. The Court observed that "the exclusionary rule is 

designed to deter police misconduct rather than to punish the 

errors of judges and magistrates." Id. at 916. The Court also 

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concluded that there is no evidence suggesting that judges and 

magistrates are inclined to evade the Fourth Amendment, and that 

it could "discern no basis ••• for believing that exclusion of 

evidence seized pursuant to a warrant will have a significant 

deterrent effect on the issuing judge or magistrate." Id. 

Finally, Leon reasoned that where an officer has acted in good 

faith pursuant to a warrant, "there is [in most cases] no police 

illegality and thus nothing to deter • Penalizing the 

officer for the magistrate's error, rather than his [or her] own, 

cannot logically contribute to the deterrence of Fourth Amendment 

violations." Id. at 920-21. 

The specific holding of Leon does not apply to the facts of 

this case, nor is the rationale behind it present here. When the 

DEA agents seized the suitcase and held it for more than twentyfour hours before obtaining a search warrant, they were not acting 

pursuant to a warrant subsequently deemed invalid. The "illegality" which arguably existed here was not a function of the 

agents' good faith reliance on a presumptively valid warrant. 

Moreover, the search of the suitcase after the search warrant was 

issued does not prevent us from evaluating the agents' behavior 

prior to that time. 

As the Ninth Circuit has observed, the "Supreme Court has 

applied the so-called 'good faith' exception to the exclusionary 

rule only to searches conducted in good faith reliance on a 

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warrant or a statute later declared to be unconstitutional." 

United States v. Winsor, 846 F.2d 1569, 1579 (9th Cir. 1988) (en 

bane) (citation omitted). See also 1 w. LaFave, Search and 

Seizure§ i.3(g), at 78 (2d ed. 1987) ("The reasoning which was 

critical to the [decision in Leon] especially that in 

with-warrant cases there is no need to deter the magistrate and 

usually no need to discourage th~ executing officer from relying 

upon the magistrate's judgment and actions -- does not carry over 

to the without warrant situation."). We too decline to extend the 

holding of Leon to cases in which the good faith of the officer 

cannot be presumptively established by the existence of a search 

warrant valid on its face. Because the DEA agents were not acting 

in reliance on a search warrant when they seized the luggage and 

held it for more than twenty-four hours, Leon does not ratify 

their actions. We therefore must analyze those actions according 

to the dictates of Fourth Amendment law. 

III. 

Absent a search warrant or probable cause and exigent 

circumstances, law enforcement authorities with reasonable 

suspicion that a piece of luggage contains narcotics may "detain 

the luggage briefly to investigate the circumstances that aroused 

[the] suspicion, provided that the investigative detention is 

properly limited in scope." Unites States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 

706 (1983) (emphasis added). 

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In Place, the Supreme Court held that subjecting luggage to a 

"canine sniff" does not "constitute a 'search' within the meaning 

of the Fourth Amendment" because both the manner of obtaining 

information and the information actually obtained are so limited. 

Id. at 707; see also United States v. Goldstein, 635 F.2d 356, 361 

(5th Cir.), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 962 (1981). The taking of the 

defendant's luggage to subject it to the canine sniff in Place 

did, however, amount to a seizure governed by the Fourth 

Amendment. See 462 U.S. at 707-09. The Court therefore analyzed 

the seizure under the brief investigative detention standard. 6 

Place involved the seizure of a suspect's luggage when he 

arrived from Miami at La Guardia Airport in New York. Two DEA 

agents took Place's bags, told him they were taking them to a 

6 This standard for luggage is comparable to the Place Court's 

interpretation of the standard governing investigative stops of a 

person. See United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 702 (1983) 

(police may make a forcible stop of a person if there is 

reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot), 

interpreting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). The Court applied 

Terry because it reasoned that 

"in the case of detention of luggage within the 

traveler's immediate possession, the police conduct 

intrudes on both the suspect's possessory interest in 

his luggage as well as his liberty interest in 

proceeding with his itinerary •••• [S]uch a seizure 

can effectively restrain the person since he is 

subjected to the possible disruption of his travel plans 

in order to remain with his luggage or to arrange for 

its return." · 

Place, 462 U.S. at 708. 

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federal judge to try to get a search warrant, handed him a slip 

with the phone number of one of the agents when he declined to 

accompany them, and then drove the bags to Kennedy Airport to 

subject the bags to a sniff test by a dog trained in narcotics 

detection. The Court listed two factors relevant to its 

assessment of whether the DEA agents' conduct exceeded the 

permissible length of a brief investigative detention. First, 

"the brevity of the invasion of the individual's Fourth Amendment 

interests is an important factor in determining whether the 

seizure is so minimally intrusive as to be justifiable on 

reasonable suspicion." Id. at 709. Second, a court must consider 

how diligently the police pursued their investigation. Id. 

In Place, the suspect's luggage was seized for ninety minutes 

before the dog sniff established probable cause. The Court held 

that the length of time alone precluded a determination that the 

seizure was reasonable without probable cause. Id.; see also 

United States v. Cagle, 849 F.2d 924, 927 (5th Cir. 1988) (ninety 

minute detention, along with the availability of less intrusive 

investigatory techniques, rendered seizure sufficiently 

intrusive); Moya v. United States, 761 F.2d 322, 327 (7th Cir. 

1984) (three hour seizure of shoulder bag unreasonable); United 

States v. Puglisi, 723 F.2d 779, 790-91 (11th Cir. 1984) (140 

minute detention of luggage rendered the seizure unreasonable, 

especially since less intrusive alternatives existed). The seven 

hour delay in the present case clearly goes beyond the "breviti'' 

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required for a Place seizure. 7 Moreover, in examining whether the 

DEA agents "could have minimized the intrusion on [Scales'] Fourth 

Amendment interests," Place, 462 U.S. at 709, we note that 

unexplored alternatives to the course of action did exist. For 

example, the DEA agents did not telephone the dogs' handler to 

inquire whether the dogs could be brought to the train station. 8 

7 The Government cites to two cases, Segura v. United States, 

468 U.S. 796 (1984), and United States v. Van Leeuwen, 397 U.S. 

249 (1970), in which the duration of a seizure far exceeded the 

length of time here. Segura and Van Leeuwen are inapposite to 

this case. In Segura, the police seized the contents of an 

apartment for 19 hours before obtaining a warrant, but their 

seizure was based upon probable cause, not reasonable suspicion as 

in Place and here. Segura, 468 U.S. at 813 n.8. In Van Leeuwen, 

the item seized for 26~1/2 hours before a warrant was obtained was 

a package, not the personal luggage of a traveler, and therefore 

did not give rise to the possessory and liberty interests 

underlying Place. See note 6, supra. 

8 Even though the standard procedure of DEA agents is to bring 

the drug-sniffing dogs to the airport or train station being 

surveilled, see rec., vol. III at 101-02; vol. IV, at 26-27, the 

DEA agents here did not attempt to have dogs made available either 

in Albuquerque or Las Vegas: 

"Q: Could you have called the Canine Unit while you 

were on the train in Albuquerque? 

A: We could've probably tried, yes. 

Q: No attempt was made to contact them before the 

piece of luggage was taken off the train in Las 

Vegas; is that true? 

A: That's true. 11 · 

Id.; see also rec., vol. V, at 26-27. 

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In addition, as in Place, the intrusion here "was exacerbated 

by the failure of the agents to accurately inform [Scales] of the 

place to which they were transporting the luggage, of the length 

of time he might be dispossessed, and of what arrangements would 

be made for return of the luggage if the investigation dispelled 

the suspicion." Id. at 710. All Agent Small did was to give 

Scales a receipt which contained Agent Small's name, agency, phone 

number, the date, Quinton Scales' name, and the case number. See 

rec., vol. III, at 18; vol. IV, at 39. We conclude under Place 

that the seizure of Scales' suitcase exceeded the DEA agents' 

narrow authority to detain the suitcase briefly for investigative 

purposes. 

IV. 

The district court found after a suppression hearing that the 

DEA agents "acquired probable cause ••• when the dogs 'alerted' 

to the luggage." Rec., vol. I, doc. 16, at 2. The Government now 

contends for the first time that although the agents may only have 

had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity when they initially 

seized Scales' suitcase, their discovery of the two empty boxes in 

the bathroom trash can and Scales' admission that he flushed the 

contents down the toilet created probable cause at that time to 

seize the luggage. Not only did the Government not make this 

argument below, it argued to the district court that the dog sniff 

established probable cause, and it agreed with the court that the 

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facts prior to the dog sniff gave rise only to a reasonable 

suspicion of criminal activity. See rec., vol. II, at 38-39. 

Furthermore, as we have already noted, Agent Small referred 

neither to the items flushed down the toilet, nor to Scales' 

alleged "admission" in either the DEA report, the search warrant 

affidavit, or his grand jury testimony. The district court made 

no findings to support a conclusion of probable cause prior to the 

drug dogs' alerting on the luggage. Because the Government did 

not raise below whether probable cause existed at the earlier 

time, it is precluded from arguing that issue here. See United 

States v. Maez, 872 F.2d 1444, 1452-53 (10th Cir. 1989) 

(Government lost right to assert on appeal the existence of 

exigent circumstances by failing to argue the issue below}. 

We conclude that the district court erred in denying Scales' 

motion to suppress. The judgment of conviction is VACATED and the 

case is REMANDED to the district court for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion. 

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