[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-10489

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

RICHARD H. SMITH, 

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Alabama

D.C. Docket No. 2:19-cr-00122-RAH-JTA-1

____________________

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Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and HULL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

After a jury trial, Richard Smith appeals the district court’s 

denial of his motion to suppress evidence (cocaine and a gun)

seized from his person during a traffic stop conducted as part of a 

larger investigation into a drug trafficking organization.

After careful review and based on the totality of the 

circumstances, we conclude that the officer had sufficient evidence 

supporting a reasonable suspicion that Smith was transporting 

drugs to a dealer in the area, warranting the extension of the traffic 

stop and detention of Smith. We thus affirm the district court’s 

denial of Smith’s motion to suppress.

I. FACTS 

A federal grand jury charged Smith and two codefendants, 

Mellissa Stacy Ann Smith and Ronnie White, in a superseding 

indictment.1 Smith was charged with (1) conspiracy to distribute 

and possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute, in 

violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 (Count 1); (2) possession of a controlled 

substance with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 841(a)(1) (Count 2); (3) possession of a firearm during and in 

relation to a drug trafficking crime, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 924(c)(1)(A)(i) (Count 3); (4) conspiracy to launder money, in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) and (h) (Count 4); and 

1 Neither of Smith’s codefendants is a party to this appeal.

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(5) use of a communication facility to further the conspiracy, in 

violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b) (Count 9). 

On May 15, 2020, Smith moved to suppress the cocaine and 

gun found on Smith’s person during a traffic stop.

On June 17, 2020, a magistrate judge held a hearing on the 

motion to suppress. We recount the facts from (1) the testimony 

and wiretap evidence presented at the motion-to-suppress hearing

and (2) the dashboard camera video from the traffic stop.

A. Evidence from the Suppression Hearing and Dashboard 

Camera 

This was not a routine traffic stop. Rather, it was a 

coordinated drug interdiction operation.

In 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”)

began investigating Ronnie White for his involvement in a drug 

trafficking organization in Montgomery, Alabama. As part of that 

investigation, the DEA task force obtained three 30-day orders

authorizing the interception of wire and electronic 

communications on White’s telephone. After monitoring calls and 

conducting surveillance for weeks, agents suspected Defendant 

Smith was supplying cocaine to White regularly. 

On December 16, 2017, agents listened to two intercepted 

calls between Smith and White. In the first call, White told Smith, 

“I’m looking ugly boy . . . I need ya. . . . I said I need it!” Smith 

replied, “I know, I know, I know. See you soon this afternoon 

when I get back in.” In the second call, Smith told White, “I’ll hook 

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you up in the morning alright?” After hearing that call, agents

believed Smith planned to deliver narcotics to White at White’s 

home in Montgomery the next day.

On December 17, 2017, agents heard two more intercepted 

calls between Smith and White. In the first call, White informed 

Smith that he was “at the crib” and Smith responded that he had 

“like two stops to make then” he would “come holla at [White].” 

In the second call, Smith asked White, “You got the credit?” and 

White responded, “Yea.” Smith replied, “I’m on my way.”

In anticipation of the meeting between Smith and White, 

agents conducted surveillance at the homes of Smith and White, as 

well as locations in between, to locate Smith’s vehicle. Agents 

agreed that if Smith’s vehicle was located, Lieutenant Scott Dunn 

of the Montgomery Police Department would conduct a traffic 

stop of Smith.

Lieutenant Dunn had participated in the DEA investigation

by monitoring intercepted calls. Indeed, Lieutenant Dunn was in 

the DEA’s “wire room” when the first December 17th call was

intercepted. Lieutenant Dunn left the wire room and parked on a 

road in east Montgomery to await Smith’s vehicle. Although the 

planned traffic stop was part of the DEA’s drug trafficking 

investigation, Lieutenant Dunn testified that he was instructed to 

establish independent probable cause for a traffic stop of Smith.2

2 Lieutenant Dunn explained that the DEA task force asked him to get 

independent probable cause to stop Smith’s vehicle in case they had to charge 

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At approximately 2:42 p.m., Lieutenant Dunn spotted Smith 

traveling toward White’s residence. Consistent with his 

instructions, Lieutenant Dunn stopped Smith’s car for both

suspected drug trafficking and a window tint violation.

According to Lieutenant Dunn, Smith was overly friendly

but appeared extremely nervous. Lieutenant Dunn noted that, 

based on his training and experience, people who displayed

extreme friendliness during traffic stops often had drugs on them. 

Lieutenant Dunn also observed that Smith was shaking and 

breathing very fast, his neck veins were extended, his heart was 

beating in his throat, and Smith got more nervous as time passed.

Lieutenant Dunn told Smith that he was going to write him 

a warning for the tint violation and asked him to come to 

Lieutenant Dunn’s car. When Smith exited his car, Lieutenant 

Dunn asked if he had any weapons. Smith replied that he had a 

gun on his person and had a license for it. Lieutenant Dunn took 

the gun and conducted a quick pat-down for weapons. During that 

pat-down, Lieutenant Dunn found a cell phone. Lieutenant Dunn 

placed the cell phone and gun in Smith’s car. Lieutenant Dunn 

then asked Smith to sit in the police car while Lieutenant Dunn 

typed up the warning.

As he prepared the window tint warning, Lieutenant Dunn 

made general conversation with Smith. Lieutenant Dunn testified 

Smith in state court because the wire case targeting White was sealed at the 

time.

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that during traffic stops he would engage people in conversation 

“to try to alleviate some of [their] nervousness” so “[t]hat way [he] 

can rule out people that are involved in criminal activity versus 

people who are just committing traffic violations.” Lieutenant 

Dunn observed that Smith did not become less nervous from the 

general conversation or after being told he was only receiving a 

warning. Lieutenant Dunn also noticed the smell of chemicals that 

typically emit from cocaine. 

Lieutenant Dunn then asked Smith where he lived, and 

Smith provided his address in Wetumpka. Lieutenant Dunn then 

asked what Smith was doing in the Montgomery area. Smith said

he was on his way home from a local movie theater, although he 

had not seen a movie. That statement struck Lieutenant Dunn as 

odd because he did not “know too many people that go to the 

theater and not watch a movie.” Lieutenant Dunn also observed 

that Smith was traveling in the direction of White’s house. 

After Lieutenant Dunn issued the warning, he held Smith 

for additional questioning. At the hearing, Lieutenant Dunn 

explained that Smith was not free to leave at that time because of 

(1) the intercepted calls indicating that Smith would be delivering 

drugs to White, (2) Smith’s driving toward White’s home, 

(3) Smith’s behavior during the stop (e.g., overly friendly, nervous, 

breathing rapidly, visibly shaking, noticeable neck veins, dubious 

answers to simple questions), and (4) the smell of cocaine. 

Lieutenant Dunn asked Smith if his car contained any dead 

bodies, marijuana, or heroin. Smith said no. Then Lieutenant 

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Dunn asked if he had any cocaine. In response, Smith laughed 

nervously, said no, licked his lips, and swallowed “real hard.” 

Lieutenant Dunn believe that Smith became more nervous when 

asked about cocaine based on his change in demeanor.

Lieutenant Dunn asked if he could search Smith’s car. Smith 

asked if he needed to call an attorney. Lieutenant Dunn responded 

that he was going to have a dog smell around the car, and if the dog 

did not smell anything, Smith would be free to go, but if the dog 

smelled something, Lieutenant Dunn would search the car.

Lieutenant Dunn called a K-9 unit. Because it was a Sunday, 

the K-9 unit (Corporal Payton D. Williams and his drug-trained 

canine, Sadie) arrived 37 minutes later. Sadie alerted for the 

presence of narcotics near the driver’s door.3

Lieutenant Dunn searched Smith’s car for about an hour but 

did not find any drugs. Based on the intercepted phone 

conversations with White, Lieutenant Dunn suspected that the car 

had a hidden compartment for storing drugs. Because it was 

raining and the car was on the road near White’s house, Lieutenant 

3 Corporal Williams testified that Sadie “gave a positive indication on the 

vehicle.” Corporal Williams explained that Sadie is trained to be “passive,” so 

when she sits, that means she has smelled narcotics. He also explained that 

Sadie would alert if (1) “narcotics have been in th[e] vehicle or [(2)] someone 

has touched narcotics and [then] touched that [door] handle with residual 

odor.”

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Dunn decided to move the car to a safer location to search it

“better.”

In preparation for transporting Smith and his vehicle, 

Lieutenant Dunn conducted a second, more thorough pat-down 

search of Smith for safety. Lieutenant Dunn asked Smith if he had 

anything on his person and instructed Smith to put his hands up 

and spread his legs. According to Lieutenant Dunn, he gave these 

instructions because Smith seemed to be protecting his coat from 

Lieutenant Dunn’s hands. Noticing that Smith’s evasive 

movements caused the scent of cocaine to leave his body, 

Lieutenant Dunn suspected the cocaine was on Smith’s body.4 

Lieutenant Dunn found the cocaine inside the left breast pocket of 

Smith’s coat, and Smith was arrested. 

B. Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation 

Following the suppression hearing, the magistrate judge 

issued a report and recommendation (“R&R”), recommending that 

Smith’s motion to suppress be denied.

The magistrate judge concluded that the traffic stop was not 

unlawfully prolonged because Lieutenant Dunn had reasonable 

suspicion to investigate drug trafficking based on the totality of the 

4 Lieutenant Dunn testified that the “various chemicals that are used to process 

cocaine emit[] a very distinct odor.” In addition, Officer Thompson testified 

that he was familiar with the odor of cocaine and that the chemicals used to 

process cocaine cause the cocaine to emit “a very distinct and pungent 

chemical smell that is very, very noticeable.”

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circumstances, including the investigation, the wiretaps, Smith’s 

nervous attitude and behavior, the odor of chemicals used to 

prepare cocaine, and the canine alert. The magistrate judge 

specifically “credit[ed] Lieutenant Dunn’s testimony that he 

‘periodically’ smelled the odor of chemicals relating to cocaine.”

The magistrate judge also concluded that the second search 

of Smith’s person was lawful. Specifically, the magistrate judge 

found that (1) the second search was reasonable because the first 

search was a cursory pat down of Smith’s lower body and a more 

thorough second pat down was needed to ensure safety; and 

(2) Lieutenant Dunn had probable cause to believe that searching 

Smith would yield evidence of a crime because of the cocaine odor, 

the K-9 alert on the car, fruitless search of the car, intercepted 

communications, travel of Smith near White’s residence, and 

questionable responses from Smith regarding his travel plans.5 

Smith objected to the R&R.

C. District Court’s Order 

On February 24, 2021, the district court overruled Smith’s 

objections, adopted the magistrate judge’s R&R, and denied 

Smith’s motion to suppress. The district court found, inter alia,

that (1) the traffic stop was not unlawfully prolonged, (2) the record 

supported the magistrate judge’s finding that the totality of the 

5 At one point, the R&R mistakenly refers to the defendant as Richard White, 

using his co-defendant’s last name, but we know from context that the 

magistrate judge meant defendant Richard Smith.

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circumstances justified the extension of the stop, and (3) the record 

supported the magistrate judge’s acceptance of Lieutenant Dunn’s 

testimony about Smith’s behavior and the smell of cocaine.

D. Jury Trial and Sentence 

Following the court’s ruling, Smith proceeded to trial. A

jury found Smith guilty on Counts 1, 2, 3, and 9 and not guilty on 

Count 4. The district court sentenced Smith to 145 months’ 

imprisonment followed by 3 years of supervised release. 

Smith appeals the district court’s denial of his pretrial 

motion to suppress.6 

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW 

A district court’s ruling on a motion to suppress presents 

mixed questions of law and fact. United States v. Ransfer, 749 F.3d 

914, 921 (11th Cir. 2014). We review the district court’s factual 

determinations for clear error and the application of the law to 

those facts de novo. Id.

III. DISCUSSION 

As an initial matter, while Smith challenged the lawfulness 

of the second pat-down of his person in the lower court, he 

abandoned any challenge to the district court’s ruling on that issue 

by failing to adequately brief it on appeal.7 Additionally, Smith 

6 On appeal, Smith raises no issues as to his trial or sentence.

7 Smith does not provide any law or analysis on the issue of whether the 

second pat-down was proper and only refers to it in passing in his argument 

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now concedes that the initial traffic stop was valid. Thus, we need 

only address the district court’s determination that the traffic stop 

was not unlawfully prolonged.

Once an officer makes a traffic stop, he does not have 

unfettered authority to detain a person indefinitely, and instead, 

the detention is “limited in scope and duration.” Florida v. Royer, 

460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S. Ct. 1319, 1326 (1983). 

To prolong a stop, an officer “must have a reasonable, 

articulable suspicion based on objective facts that the person has 

engaged in, or is about to engage in, criminal activity.” United 

States v. Lindsey, 482 F.3d 1285, 1290 (11th Cir. 2007) (quotation 

marks omitted). An officer unlawfully prolongs a traffic stop when 

he, “without reasonable suspicion, diverts from the stop’s purpose 

and adds time to the stop in order to investigate other crimes.” 

United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 884 (11th Cir.) (en banc), 

cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 95 (2022). When “each answer to the 

[officer’s] investigative questions fail[s] to allay his concerns, the 

[officer’s] reasonable suspicion [is] bolstered, thus justifying” the 

continued detention of the defendant. United States v. Hernandez, 

418 F.3d 1206, 1211 (11th Cir. 2005).

section. See United States v. Corbett, 921 F.3d 1032, 1043 (11th Cir. 2019) 

(explaining that an appellant abandons a claim on appeal when he “raises it in 

a perfunctory manner without supporting arguments and authority” and 

when he “makes only passing references to it that are background to other 

arguments or are buried within other arguments, or both” (quotation marks 

omitted)). Therefore, Smith has abandoned the issue.

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In determining whether reasonable suspicion exists, courts 

must review the “totality of the circumstances of each case to 

[decide] whether the detaining officer ha[d] a particularized and 

objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing.” United States v. 

Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S. Ct. 744, 747 (2002) (quotation 

marks omitted).

Here, the district court did not err in determining the traffic 

stop was not unlawfully prolonged.

First, Smith argues that he was “detained for over two hours 

for a suspected window tint violation.” That is factually incorrect. 

According to the evidence presented at the suppression hearing, 

Lieutenant Dunn’s purpose in conducting the traffic stop was 

twofold: He sought to investigate (1) a possible window tint 

violation and (2) whether Smith was delivering narcotics to White. 

It was this latter purpose that extended Smith’s detention after 

Lieutenant Dunn had issued Smith a warning for the window tint 

violation.

We conclude Lieutenant Dunn had ample reasonable 

suspicion to extend Smith’s detention to investigate whether Smith 

was engaged in drug trafficking based on the totality of the 

circumstances: (1) the intercepted calls indicating Smith would be 

delivering drugs to White that day, (2) Smith’s behavior during the 

stop (e.g., overly friendly, nervous, breathing rapidly, visibly 

shaking, noticeable neck veins, dubious answers to simple 

questions), (3) Smith’s traveling toward White’s home, (4) the 

smell of cocaine, and (5) the canine drug alert.

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Smith argues that the stop became unlawful once 

Lieutenant Dunn’s first pat-down and subsequent search of Smith’s 

car turned up no drugs. Smith contends that at that point the smell 

of cocaine was insufficient to support reasonable suspicion because 

(1) cocaine has no odor and (2) the chemical odor Lieutenant Dunn 

claimed to have smelled is not distinctive of an illegal substance. 

But, as noted above, Lieutenant Dunn’s reasonable suspicion was 

not based on the smell of cocaine alone. In addition to the smell of 

cocaine, Lieutenant Dunn’s other information and observations—

the intercepted calls indicating Smith would be delivering drugs to 

White, Smith’s traveling toward White’s home, Smith’s nervous 

behavior during the traffic stop, and the canine drug alert—all gave 

rise to ample reasonable suspicion that cocaine was hidden in 

Smith’s car. Therefore, Smith’s continued detention so that 

Lieutenant Dunn could move Smith’s car and safely conduct a 

better search was justified.

Smith contends officers cannot rely on the smell of cocaine 

to support reasonable suspicion because it does not have a 

distinctive odor. However, we have regularly considered an 

officer’s testimony about the smell of cocaine in a variety of 

contexts. See United States v. Coronel, 750 F.2d 1482, 1488 (11th

Cir. 1985) (the smell of cocaine “was discernible”); United States v. 

Rackley, 742 F.2d 1266, 1268 (11th Cir. 1984) (special agent 

“noticed a strong acidic smell which he recognized to be the smell 

of cocaine”). Here, Lieutenant Dunn and Officer Thompson both 

testified that the chemicals used to process cocaine emit a very 

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distinct odor.8 More importantly, the smell of cocaine was only

one of many observations that gave rise to reasonable suspicion.

IV. CONCLUSION 

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of 

Smith’s motion to suppress.

AFFIRMED. 

8 To the extent that Smith challenges the credibility determination as to 

Lieutenant Dunn’s testimony that he could smell cocaine, Smith has not 

shown that the officer’s testimony, which was corroborated by another officer 

who smelled cocaine on Smith’s clothing, was incredible as a matter of law. 

See United States v. Ramirez-Chilel, 289 F.3d 744, 749 (11th Cir. 2002) 

(“Credibility determinations are typically the province of the fact finder 

because the fact finder personally observes the testimony and is thus in a better 

position than a reviewing court to assess the credibility of witnesses. . . . In 

other words, we must accept the evidence unless it is contrary to the laws of 

nature, or is so inconsistent or improbable on its face that no reasonable fact 

finder could accept it.” (cleaned up)).

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