UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 12-4425

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

HOPE LANITA JACKSON-FORSYTHE,

Defendant - Appellant.

No. 12-4430

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

EDWARDO MANUELL FORSYTHE,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern 

District of West Virginia, at Huntington. Robert C. Chambers, 

District Judge. (3:11-cr-00202-2; 3:11-cr-00202-1)

Submitted: November 20, 2012 Decided: November 29, 2012

Before WILKINSON, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.
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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Louie T. Price, HOLROYD & YOST, Charleston, West Virginia; John 

A. Proctor, PROCTOR LAW OFFICES, PLLC, Huntington, West 

Virginia, for Appellants. R. Booth Goodwin, II, United States 

Attorney, R. Gregory McVey, Assistant United States Attorney, 

Huntington, West Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Hope Lanita Jackson-Forsythe (“Hope”) and Edwardo 

Manuell Forsythe appeal their convictions, entered pursuant to 

their conditional guilty pleas to an indictment charging them 

each with one count of possession with intent to distribute 

oxycodone and oxymorphone, and aiding and abetting each other in 

that offense, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (2006) and 

18 U.S.C. § 2 (2006). On appeal, Appellants challenge the 

district court’s denial of their joint motion to suppress 

evidence obtained from their vehicle and their hotel room. 

Finding no error, we affirm.

In considering the district court’s denial of a motion 

to suppress, “[w]e review the district court’s legal 

determinations de novo and its factual determinations for clear 

error.” United States v. Kelly, 592 F.3d 586, 589 (4th Cir. 

2010). When the district court has denied a suppression motion, 

“we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

government.” Id. “We particularly defer to a district court’s 

credibility determinations, for it is the role of the district 

court to observe witnesses and weigh their credibility during a 

pre-trial motion to suppress.” United States v. Abu Ali, 528 

F.3d 210, 232 (4th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks 

omitted).
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Appellants first challenge the traffic stop and 

evidence seized during the subsequent search of their vehicle. 

Consistent with the Fourth Amendment, a police officer may 

conduct a brief investigatory stop “when the officer has a 

reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is 

afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000) (citing 

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)). Reasonable suspicion 

requires an officer to have “a particularized and objective 

basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing” based on “the totality of 

the circumstances.” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 

(2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). Officers may “draw 

on their own experience and specialized training to make 

inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information 

available to them that might well elude an untrained person.” 

Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). With the above 

standards in mind, and upon review of the record, we conclude 

that the totality of the circumstances demonstrates that the 

officers had reasonable suspicion to believe that a drug 

transaction had occurred in Appellants’ vehicle, justifying the 

traffic stop. 

Turning to the vehicle search and seizure of evidence, 

Appellants contend that the warrantless search of Hope’s purse, 

which was inside the vehicle, and her subsequent non-Mirandized 

questioning ran afoul of the Constitution. Appellants ignore 
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that “[t]here is a well-established exception to [the warrant] 

requirement . . . for automobile searches. Under this 

exception, ‘[i]f a car is readily mobile and probable cause 

exists to believe it contains contraband, the Fourth Amendment 

. . . permits police to search the vehicle without more.’” 

Kelly, 592 F.3d at 589 (quoting Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 

938, 940 (1996) (citation omitted)). Moreover, “it is well 

settled that a positive alert from a drug detection dog, in and 

of itself, provides probable cause to search a vehicle.”1

 United 

States v. Branch, 537 F.3d 328, 340 n.2 (4th Cir. 2008) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, once the canine 

positively alerted to the presence of drugs in the vehicle, 

officers had probable cause to search the passenger compartment, 

including Hope’s purse. See Kelly, 592 F.3d at 589-90 (“[O]nce 

police have probable cause, they may search ‘every part of the 

vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the 

search.’”) (quoting United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 825 

(1982) (citation omitted)).

Appellants next contend that the police violated 

Hope’s Miranda2 rights by questioning her following the vehicle 

 1 Appellants do not challenge the canine sniff of the 

vehicle, nor do they dispute that the canine positively 

indicated the presence of drugs in the vehicle.

2 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
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search. “[T]he Miranda safeguards come into play whenever a 

person in custody is subjected to either express questioning or 

its functional equivalent,” which includes “any words or actions 

on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant 

to arrest and custody) that the police should know are 

reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the 

suspect.” Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 301 (1980) 

(footnote omitted). We conclude that the detective’s simple 

inquiry as to whether Appellants were staying at a particular 

hotel cannot be construed as “reasonably likely to elicit an 

incriminating response.” Thus, we conclude that Hope’s

statement was not elicited in violation of her Miranda rights. 

Finally, Appellants challenge the search of their 

hotel room and the seizure of evidence found therein. 

Appellants’ “fruit of the poisonous tree” argument is meritless 

in light of our resolution of their challenges to the vehicle 

search and seizure and Hope’s questioning. Appellants’ second 

argument, that police illegally searched their hotel room and 

seized items prior to issuance of the search warrant, also is 

meritless. 

Warrantless searches “‘are per se unreasonable under 

the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically 

established and well-delineated exceptions.’” United States v. 

Bush, 404 F.3d 263, 275 (4th Cir. 2005) (quoting Mincey v. 
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Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 390 (1978)). The independent source 

doctrine and the inevitable discovery doctrine are two distinct 

exceptions to the exclusionary rule.3 See Nix v. Williams, 467 

U.S. 431, 443-44 (1984) (discussing doctrines). The inevitable 

discovery doctrine allows admission of evidence “[i]f the 

prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence 

that the information ultimately or inevitably would have been 

discovered by lawful means.” Id. at 444. Even if police 

illegally searched Appellants’ hotel room and seized evidence 

prior to the issuance of the search warrant, the district court 

properly found that the evidence inevitably would have been 

lawfully discovered and seized during execution of the search 

warrant, which Appellants concede was valid. Thus, this claim 

is meritless.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgments. 

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before 

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

 3 While the district court discuss both doctrines, it is 

apparent that the court relied on the inevitable discovery 

doctrine to find that the hotel room evidence was admissible. 

Thus, we need not consider the applicability of the independent 

source doctrine.