UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 12-4191

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

TIMOTHY M. WILSON,

Defendant - Appellant.

No. 12-4205

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

LUIS R. AHORRIO, JR., a/k/a Luis R. Ahorrio,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District 

of Maryland, at Baltimore. William D. Quarles, Jr., District 

Judge. (1:10-cr-00488-WDQ-1; 1:10-cr-00488-WDQ-2)

Argued: October 31, 2013 Decided: November 26, 2013

Before WILKINSON, DUNCAN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.
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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ARGUED: Susan Amelia Hensler, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC 

DEFENDER, Baltimore, Maryland; Michael Daniel Montemarano, 

MICHAEL D. MONTEMARANO, PA, Columbia, Maryland, for Appellants. 

Joshua L. Kaul, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Baltimore, 

Maryland, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: James Wyda, Federal Public 

Defender, Martin Bahl, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, 

Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant Timothy M. Wilson. Rod J. 

Rosenstein, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES 

ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Timothy Wilson and Luis Ahorrio were tried and convicted of 

possession with the intent to distribute, and conspiracy to 

distribute 280 grams or more of cocaine base. Their indictment 

and eventual conviction stemmed from a routine traffic stop 

during which a narcotics detection dog alerted to the presence 

of contraband in their vehicle. Wilson and Ahorrio appeal their 

convictions arguing, among other things, that the district court 

erred in denying their motions to suppress evidence obtained in 

the ensuing search of their car. For the reasons that follow, 

we affirm.

I.

A.

On July 23, 2010, Ahorrio drove from his home in Queens, 

New York to meet Wilson at his home in southern New Jersey.

From there, they rode south in a rented Toyota Corolla.

As they travelled through Worcester County, Maryland, they 

passed Corporal Howard Kennard of the Maryland State Police, who 

was monitoring traffic on that stretch of U.S. Route 113. Cpl. 

Kennard--accompanied by Trooper First Class Dana Orndorff and 

Camo, a narcotics detection dog--stopped Wilson and Ahorrio

after observing their vehicle exceeding the speed limit and 

following another vehicle too closely.
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Cpl. Kennard approached the vehicle and began the usual 

traffic-stop formalities. In the process, Cpl. Kennard observed 

that Wilson and Ahorrio both appeared nervous and that the 

driver of the car, Ahorrio, was not listed on the vehicle’s 

rental agreement.

Trooper Orndorff subsequently approached the car and began 

conversing with Ahorrio while Cpl. Kennard spoke with Wilson.

Both men stated that they were traveling to watch drag races, 

but they gave different geographic destinations: Wilson 

indicated that they were traveling to North Carolina while 

Ahorrio said they were driving to Georgia.

Cpl. Kennard then asked Ahorrio for permission to conduct a 

canine scan of the vehicle. Ahorrio replied that the officers 

would need to ask Wilson. Trooper Orndorff then instructed 

Wilson to exit the vehicle, retrieved Camo, and began the scan, 

concluding when Camo alerted at the front driver’s-side door. 

Trooper Orndorff then informed Cpl. Kennard of the alert and 

rewarded Camo with a toy on the side of the road.

Cpl. Kennard then began to search the vehicle, where he 

ultimately found clear Ziploc bags containing 327.9 grams of a 

substance containing cocaine base. Those small bags were 

contained within a larger white plastic bag, concealed within a 

brown paper Burger King bag, and hidden beneath the front 

passenger-side seat. The outer Burger King bag also contained a 
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receipt bearing the address of a Burger King located less than a 

half mile from Ahorrio’s residence in Queens. Cpl. Kennard then 

ordered Ahorrio and Wilson to the ground and arrested them.

B.

Ahorrio and Wilson were charged in a single indictment with 

conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to 

distribute 280 grams or more of cocaine base in violation of 21 

U.S.C. § § 841 & 846. Both defendants moved to suppress the 

evidence found during the search of their vehicle. Wilson 

argued, in particular, that Camo’s alert was so unreliable that 

it could not have given the officers probable cause to believe 

that narcotics were actually present in the car.

The government provided records of Camo’s 81 prior field 

scans, as well as information about his training and 

certification. While the results of his training and evaluation 

exercises indicated that Camo was highly reliable--he falsely 

alerted in training only once--his field records told a 

different story. Of the 81 field scans Camo had performed, he

had alerted in all but four. But of the 77 scans where Camo 

alerted, in only 24 did officers actually locate any narcotics.

The government argued that in the 53 cases where Camo 

alerted but no narcotics were found, the odor of drugs may 

nonetheless have lingered in the car. Moreover, the government 

argued that in twenty of those cases there was direct evidence 
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that drugs or drug users had recently been present in the car. 

The district court adopted these conclusions and held that 

Camo’s training and certification were sufficient to establish 

his reliability. It therefore denied Wilson’s and Ahorrio’s 

motions to suppress.

The case then proceeded to trial, at the conclusion of 

which Wilson and Ahorrio were convicted on both counts. They 

were each sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.

II.

In considering a district court’s denial of a motion to 

suppress, we review its legal conclusions de novo and its 

factual determinations for clear error. United States v. Smith, 

395 F.3d 516, 519 (4th Cir. 2005). In doing so, we consider the 

evidence in the light most favorable to the government. United 

States v. Hamlin, 319 F.3d 666, 671 (4th Cir. 2003). We may 

affirm the district court’s decision on any ground supported by 

the record, not just the ground upon which it actually reached 

its decision. Smith, 395 F.3d at 519.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial of the 

motions to suppress on the ground that the officers are entitled 

to the good faith exception to the suppression remedy. We 

therefore need not decide whether Camo’s alerts were, in fact, 
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sufficiently reliable to give the officers probable cause to 

search the vehicle.

At the time of the search, we had indicated that a 

narcotics detection dog was per se reliable if it had completed 

an adequate training program and obtained the appropriate 

certifications. Addressing this issue in an unpublished 

opinion, we stated that evidence of the dog’s “training and 

certification was enough by itself to establish [his] 

reliability so that his positive alerts for controlled 

substances established probable cause.” United States v. Koon 

Chung Wu, 217 F. App'x 240, 245 (4th Cir. 2007) (unpublished)

(per curiam).

“For exclusion to be appropriate, the deterrence benefits 

of suppression must outweigh its heavy costs.” Davis v. United 

States, 131 S. Ct. 2419, 2427 (2011). “[W]hen the police act 

with an objectively reasonable good-faith belief that their 

conduct is lawful . . . the deterrence rationale loses much of 

its force and exclusion cannot pay its way.” Id. at 2427-28 

(internal citations and quotations omitted). In Davis, the 

Supreme Court thus concluded that the exclusionary rule does not 

apply “when the police conduct a search in objectively 

reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent.” Id. at 

2434. We believe the same reasoning applies when officers act 

in objectively reasonable reliance on our unpublished circuit 
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precedent. This is so because “[e]xcluding evidence in such 

cases deters no police misconduct and imposes substantial social 

costs.” Id.

Our opinion in Wu would reasonably have led Cpl. Kennard 

and Trooper Orndorff to believe that their search of Wilson and 

Ahorrio’s vehicle was legal. Wu indicated that Camo’s alert 

provided probable cause for the search because his training and 

certification established his reliability regardless of his 

actual field performance.

The Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Florida v. 

Harris, 133 S. Ct. 1050 (2013), makes clear that a more nuanced 

analysis is required, but it was decided well after the search 

at issue in this case. Harris reiterates the longstanding 

principle that we avoid “rigid rules, bright-line tests, and 

mechanistic inquiries” for probable cause. Id. at 1055. 

Accordingly, when a dog’s reliability is challenged, its 

performance in the field “may sometimes be relevant” alongside 

training and certification records in the totality of the 

circumstances. Id. at 1057. But because Harris was not the 

controlling law at the time of the search in question, it can 

have no bearing on whether the officers believed, in good faith, 
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that their conduct was lawful. The district court therefore did 

not err in denying appellants’ motions to suppress.*

III.

For the foregoing reasons, Wilson’s and Ahorrio’s 

convictions and sentences are

AFFIRMED.

 * We have also considered the other arguments raised by 

appellants and find them to be without merit.