United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit

No. 21-1365

UNITED STATES,

Appellee,

v.

SEBASTIAN BATISTA, a/k/a Jonathan,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. Douglas P. Woodlock, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Barron, Chief Judge,

Lynch and Thompson, Circuit Judges.

Robert L. Sheketoff, with whom Sheketoff & O'Brien was 

on brief, for appellant.

Randall E. Kromm, Assistant United States Attorney, with 

whom Rachael S. Rollins, United States Attorney, was on brief, for 

appellee.

April 25, 2022
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LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Sebastian Batista appeals from 

his conviction of possession with intent to distribute 40 grams or 

more of fentanyl. He contends that the district court erroneously 

denied his motion to suppress evidence seized during a stop and

warrantless search of his vehicle. We find that the stop and 

search were lawful because law enforcement had probable cause to 

believe Batista was committing a crime when they stopped his

vehicle and affirm. 

I.

On February 28, 2019, law enforcement, including Special 

Agents James Cryan and Tyler McNally from the Drug Enforcement 

Administration ("DEA") and Detective Jason Ferranti of the Waltham 

Police Department, arrested a target in their fentanyl trafficking 

investigation. Prior to his arrest, the target had sold over 150 

grams of fentanyl to undercover law enforcement. The target agreed 

to become a cooperating witness ("CW") and to identify his drug 

supplier. The CW referred to his supplier as "Jonathan" and had 

a telephone number to contact him.

That evening, the CW placed two recorded calls to his 

supplier at Special Agent Cryan's direction, and Special Agent 

Cryan monitored the CW's side of the conversation in real time. 

In the first call, at 6:28 pm, the CW asked "Jonathan" to supply 

him 200 grams of fentanyl and "Jonathan" responded by asking where 

the fentanyl he had given the CW the day before was, to which the 
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CW replied that it was sold. The CW called "Jonathan" again at 

6:41 pm, and "Jonathan" asked, "That guy [presumably, the buyer of 

the previous day’s fentanyl], he's a good guy?" and the CW replied, 

"Yeah, he's a good guy and he wants more, so I told him, yeah." 

"Jonathan" agreed to sell the CW the requested fentanyl. He and 

the CW agreed to meet "there," which the CW took to mean their 

usual meeting place on Pine Vale Road in Waltham. The CW told 

Special Agent Cryan that his supplier would expect to see the white 

van owned by the CW's drug trafficking partner at the meeting 

location.

The meeting place was a low-traffic residential 

neighborhood street near the CW's residence. The CW rode in a law 

enforcement vehicle with Special Agent Cryan and Detective 

Ferranti to a predetermined location away from the meeting place. 

At 8:19 pm, Special Agent Cryan directed the CW to place a recorded 

call to his supplier to request an estimated time for the drug 

deal. When "Jonathan" picked up, he said he was on his way and 

would be there in 25 minutes. Special Agent Cryan, Detective 

Ferranti, and the CW drove their car to a side street with a view 

of the meeting place and parked.

Other law enforcement officers drove the white van which 

was known to "Jonathan" as belonging to the CW's drug trafficking 

partner to the meeting place. At around 9:00 pm, the officers 

were driving the white van on Hardy Pond Road in the direction of 
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Trapelo Road, and a black Jeep Cherokee passed them going in the 

opposite direction. "Jonathan" then called the CW and they both 

confirmed they were at the meeting place.1 "Jonathan," apparently 

believing the CW was in the white van, called again and told the 

CW that the white van was being followed and hung up abruptly. 

Other officers observed the Jeep make a U-turn and speed off in 

the direction of Trapelo Road shortly thereafter.

Law enforcement stopped the Jeep at the intersection of 

Pine Vale Road and Trapelo Road. With their guns drawn, two 

officers approached the Jeep and ordered the driver, later 

identified as Batista, out of the car. A short while later, 

Special Agent Cryan, driving the car the CW was in, pulled up 

within a few feet of Batista, and the CW said, "that's him," to 

which the agent replied, "Who?", and the CW responded, "that's 

Jonathan." Special Agent Cryan reported the identification by 

radio to all of the officers onsite.

Law enforcement searched the Jeep, recovering 200 grams 

of fentanyl in a compartment under the driver's seat.

In their affidavits, Detective Ferranti and Special 

Agent McNally attested that the vehicle was searched after the CW 

identified Batista. The prosecution provided discovery to 

Batista's defense counsel concerning statements made by the CW, 

1 This call was not recorded because of its short duration.
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including that "when he made his identification of the defendant 

as his drug supplier on the night of the defendant's arrest, the 

law enforcement officers were already searching the defendant's 

vehicle." From this, Batista contends that the officers may have 

searched the Jeep before the CW identified him, and that the 

government did not sufficiently establish that the identification 

took place before the search. For reasons explained below, our 

holding does not rest on the timing of the identification.

II.

Batista was indicted on one count of possession with 

intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl on June 12, 2019. 

On November 5, 2019, Batista filed a motion to suppress the 

evidence obtained as a result of the February 28 stop and search. 

Later that month, he obtained new counsel. On January 14, 2020, 

he filed a second motion to suppress the fruits of the February 28

stop and search. He argued that the stop where he was pulled over 

and ordered out of the car was a de facto arrest, for which law 

enforcement would have needed probable cause. He also moved for 

an evidentiary hearing. In an attached affidavit, Batista attested

that he was ordered from his vehicle at gunpoint after being pulled 

over, that an officer told him that his license plate was not 

valid, and that he heard one officer tell another that he thought 

they had pulled over the wrong person. The district court heard 
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argument on these motions on March 27 and April 2, 2020 but did 

not hold an evidentiary hearing. 

The district court denied Batista's motions to suppress 

in a memorandum and order on July 9, 2020. It first concluded 

that there were no inconsistencies between the government's 

version of events and Batista's, though Batista alleged additional 

facts. Of the additional facts Batista alleged, the district court 

concluded only the contention that he had overheard an officer say 

they might have stopped the wrong person was "potentially 

material."

The district court found that the stop of the Jeep was 

not a de facto arrest but a Terry stop, which requires law 

enforcement to have only a reasonable suspicion, and law 

enforcement had at that point "at least" a reasonable suspicion

that Batista was dealing drugs. The district court then found the 

search of the car was appropriate under several exceptions to the 

warrant requirement: the automobile exception, because there was 

probable cause to believe there was contraband in the car; as a 

search incident to arrest, because law enforcement had probable 

cause to believe that the car contained drugs; and under the 

doctrine of inevitable discovery, because, even if law enforcement 

lacked probable cause to believe the car contained contraband, the 

drugs would have eventually been discovered when the car was towed 

incident to Batista's arrest.
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At a bench trial on November 4, 2020, Batista was found 

guilty, and he was subsequently sentenced to 63 months' 

imprisonment. This appeal followed.

III.

For a district court's denial of a suppression motion, 

we review legal conclusions de novo and factual findings for clear 

error. See United States v. Brown, 621 F.3d 48, 55 (1st Cir. 

2010). "[T]he decision of whether to conduct an evidentiary 

hearing is left to the sound discretion of the district court. On 

appeal, our review is for an abuse of that discretion." Id. at 57

(citation omitted). The denial of a motion to suppress may be 

affirmed for any reason apparent from the record. See United 

States v. Maldonado-Peña, 4 F.4th 1, 22 (1st Cir. 2021). 

Batista makes two arguments. First, he argues that the 

district court abused its discretion in failing to hold an 

evidentiary hearing on his motion to suppress. This is because,

he contends, among other reasons, he did not have personal 

knowledge of material facts that law enforcement relied on in order 

to justify the stop. He argues that as a result of this lack of 

personal knowledge he cannot make the requisite threshold showing

for an evidentiary hearing that material facts are in dispute, 

which, if resolved in his favor would entitle him to relief. See

United States v. Cintron, 724 F.3d 32, 36 (1st Cir. 2013). Most 

importantly, he argues, he does not have personal knowledge of 
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when the CW identified him, and whether it occurred before or after 

the police searched the vehicle. Second, Batista argues that even 

if an evidentiary hearing is not warranted, the district court 

erred in denying the motion to suppress because the record shows 

that Batista was de facto placed under arrest without probable 

cause.

This case, however, does not turn on these arguments. 

As Batista conceded at oral argument, if there was probable cause 

for law enforcement to believe he was committing a crime when he 

was pulled over, there was no error in denying the motion to 

suppress.

"'[P]robable cause is a fluid concept -- turning on the 

assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts', and 

as such 'must be evaluated in light of the totality of 

circumstances.'" United States v. Martinez-Molina, 64 F.3d 719, 

726 (1st Cir. 1995) (first quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 

213, 232 (1983), and then quoting United States v. TorresMaldonado, 14 F.3d 95, 105 (1st Cir. 1994)). To establish probable 

cause, the government "need only show that at the time of the 

arrest, the facts and circumstances known to the arresting officers 

were sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing that the 

defendant had committed or was committing an offense." Id.

The government asserts that the officers had probable 

cause when they stopped Batista's vehicle. Batista emphasizes 
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that the district court only found that there was a reasonable 

suspicion for the stop and argues that the circumstances 

surrounding the stop did not add up to probable cause, particularly 

because the officers did not have information beforehand about 

what vehicle Batista would be driving.

The officers here had reason to credit the CW's 

statements about his dealings with Batista. As we recognized in 

United States v. Vongkaysone, when an informant "ha[s] been caught 

dealing in drugs, it [is] to his advantage to produce accurate 

information to the police so as to qualify for the leniency he 

[seeks]." 434 F.3d 68, 74 (1st Cir. 2006). In this case, the CW 

had been arrested in a fentanyl trafficking investigation and 

agreed to cooperate. An informant's credibility is further 

bolstered when the informant incriminates himself, see id. (citing 

United States v. Principe, 499 F.2d 1135, 1137 (1st Cir. 1974)), 

as the CW here did in revealing his history of purchasing drugs 

for resale from Batista.

The CW's recorded calls with Batista evidenced a history 

of prior drug dealing. In the first call, Batista asked the CW 

where the fentanyl he had given him the previous day had gone. 

Batista and the CW were able to arrange a meeting for a drug sale 

by referring to the meeting place simply as "there," suggesting 

prior communication and meetings. In the calls from the meeting 

place, Batista apparently recognized the white van, which the CW 
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said his supplier knew belonged to the CW's drug trafficking 

partner. These factors gave law enforcement ample reason to 

believe that the CW was on the phone with his supplier and that 

the drug deal would transpire as the CW told them it would. See

id. (noting that recorded phone calls "between [the informant] and 

an individual who appeared to recognize him and eventually agreed 

to sell him drugs [at a specified time and place] . . . . strongly 

supported the belief that [the informant] was indeed in touch with 

[his supplier] and that the arranged drug deal was as 

represented."). It was apparent from the content of the recorded 

calls that Batista believed that he was supplying drugs to the CW 

so that the CW could resell them, and that he had supplied drugs 

to the CW in the past for this purpose.

Batista's presence at the meeting place identified by 

the CW around the time that the drug deal was set to take place 

also gave the officers reason to think that he was there to sell 

drugs to the CW. In United States v. Garcia, this court found 

that probable cause was established in part because an informant 

"told officers that his source was roughly ten minutes away, and 

then roughly ten minutes later the [defendant's vehicle] pulled in 

front of the house." 982 F.3d 844, 846 (1st Cir. 2020). The 

meeting place in Waltham was a low-traffic residential 

neighborhood, and the meeting took place at around 9:00 pm, so it 

was unlikely that the Jeep was in the area for an unrelated reason. 
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Moreover, Batista called the CW to say that he was in the area 

when he passed the white van that the CW said his supplier would 

recognize as belonging to the CW's drug trafficking partner. 

It is true that nothing in the record suggests that law 

enforcement knew what kind of car Batista would drive to the 

meeting place. Cf. Garcia, 982 F.3d at 845 (noting that the 

informant "told law enforcement that the supplier had on occasion 

used a Dodge truck or silver truck to deliver drugs."). But law 

enforcement had many reasons to believe that the drug supplier the 

CW spoke to in the recorded phone calls was the man in the Jeep. 

In addition to the Jeep's presence at the low-traffic meeting place 

at the appointed time, the supplier called the CW to say that he 

was in the area right after the Jeep passed the white van, then 

called the CW again to tell him that the white van was being 

followed, at which point the Jeep made a U-turn and sped away from 

the scene. 

In sum, law enforcement had probable cause to believe 

that Batista was in possession of drugs with an intent to sell 

them to the CW when they pulled him over on February 28. The 

totality of the circumstances -- including the CW's apparent 

history of dealings with his supplier, the recorded phone calls

arranging the drug deal, Batista's presence at the meeting place, 

and the way that the Jeep's movements lined up with the supplier's

phone calls to the CW during the would-be drug deal -- would give 
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a reasonable officer probable cause to believe that the driver of 

the Jeep was the drug supplier, and that he possessed fentanyl 

that he intended to sell to the CW for resale.

We need not consider whether Batista was placed under de 

facto arrest when he was ordered out of the vehicle, as the 

officers had probable cause to believe he was committing a crime 

at that point, so, if it was an arrest, it was a lawful one. See

United States v. Raspberry, 882 F.3d 241, 246-47 (1st Cir. 2018)

("Probable cause is a prerequisite not only for a formal arrest 

but also for a de facto arrest."). Similarly, because there was 

probable cause in the record to believe there were drugs in 

Batista's car at the time of the stop whether or not the CW 

identified him before the search took place, no evidentiary hearing 

was necessary.

IV.

The judgment of conviction is affirmed.