1 The Honorable James M. Moody, United St ates District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas. 

## United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________ No. 07-2927

___________ United States of America, *
* Plaintiff - Appellee, * * Appeal from the United States v. * District Court for the Eastern * District of Arkansas. Christopher Shields, *
* Defendant - Appellant. *

___________ Submitted: March 11, 2008 Filed: March 27, 2008

___________ Before WOLLMAN, BOWMAN, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

___________ MELLOY, Circuit Judge. Appellant Christopher Shields entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of possession of cocaine base (cr ack cocaine) with intention to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841. Appellant reserved the right to appeal a ruling by the district court 1 denying a motion to suppress approximately 4. 25 grams of crack cocaine that officers found in his truck. He now raises that issue on appeal and also appeals his sentence.-2- Deputy United States Marshals in LittleRock had an arrest warrant for Appellant’s fugitive brother, Brian Shie lds. Brian Shields was suspected of trafficking crack cocaine and conspiring to assassinate a United States Attorney and a United States Magistrate Judge. The de puties also suspected Appellant, Christopher Shields, was assisting Brian Shields in tr afficking crack cocaine and evading arrest. The deputies believed that Brian Shields was present in Little Rock and driving a tan or champagne Chevrolet truck.

Already armed with this information and the arrest warrant for Brian Shields, the deputies received a tip that Brian Shie lds and a passenger were presently driving a tan Chevrolet truck. The deputies locat ed the truck and pulled it over. After stopping the truck, one deputy approached from the front and another approached from the rear. The deputy who approached fro m the front asked the driver to exit the vehicle. Appellant exited from the drive r’s seat, and the deputy recognized Appellant as Christopher Shields, and not as Brian Sh ields, the person for whom they had the arrest warrant. The deputy knew from pr ior information that Appellant had a suspended driver’s license. The deputy patted down Appellant and placed him in handcuffs.

At about the same time that Appellant exited the vehicle, the deputy who approached from the rear arrived at the driv er’s side of the truc k cab. He looked into the truck through the open door and saw rock s of crack cocaine resting, unconcealed, on a dashboard cupholder. The deputy later testified that hecould have seen the crack through the window even if the door had been cl osed. It was later determined that the rocks were about 4.25 grams of crack cocai ne. Brian Shields was not a passenger in the truck, but a woman and a child were riding with Appellant.

Appellant argued below and argues on appeal that the deputies violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures when they handcuffed him and looked into his truck after realiz ing that he was not Brian-3- Shields. We disagree. Th e deputies were attempting to execute a valid arrest warrant for Brian Shields, which jus tified the stop of the truck. The valid stop placed officers in close proximity to the truck, from which location they could s ee the crack in plain view. Horton v. California , 496 U.S. 128, 130 (1990); United States v. Gillon , 348 F.3d 755, 759 (8th Cir. 2003) (approving warr antless seizure of bags of cocaine in plain view during valid traffic stop). Appe llant does not dispute that the crack cocaine was in plain view. It was the stop itself rather than the detention that created the opportunity for the second deputy to see th e contraband. None of our precedent regarding vehicle stops and searches prevents an officer from looking into a vehicle through windows or open doors as a routine step at the initiation of a valid traffic stop.

Further, deputies knew Appe llant did not have a validdriver’s license. This fact, coupled with the deputy’s recogniti on of Appellant, might well have supported an arrest or a detention pending the arriva l of state officers. Finally, the deputies suspected Appellant of assisting his brother and expected to find Brian Shields in the truck. In these circumstances, it was reas onable for the deputies to detain Appellant for security purposes while ensuring that the brother, a dangerous fugitive, was not present in the vehicle. For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of Appellant’s motion to suppress.

Regarding sentencing, the district c ourt imposed a sentence of 37 months’ imprisonment employing the then-current vers ion of the Guidelines that contained a 100:1 crack-to-powder ratio in the drug quantity tables. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2D1.1(c) (2006). Th is sentence was at the bottom of a 37-46 month advisory Guidelines range. At se ntencing, Appellant argued that the court should calculate the advisory Guidelines sentence based on proposed amendments to the Guidelines. The districtcourt elected not to do so. Subsequently, the Sentencing Commission adopted the proposed amendm ents, reducing the disparity between Guidelines offense levels for trafficking in different forms of cocaine and making-4- those amendments retroactive. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c) (2007) (incorporating amendments effective November 1, 2007).

Appellant argues on appeal that we s hould remand his case for resentencing so that he may enjoy the benefit of the am ended Guidelines provisions. The government consents that a remand is appropriate. A ccordingly, we remand to allow the district court to consider resentencing Appella nt, using the amended Guidelines. We emphasize, however, that we are remanding only to allow the district court to consider a lower sentence under the amended guidelines, an ability the district court already has as a result of the decision to make the amendment retroactive. It is still up to the district court to decide if it wishes to exer cise its discretion to resentence, and if so, the extent of any reduction.

We affirm Appellant’s c onviction but remand for cons ideration of resentencing in accordance with this opinion.

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