Opinion ID: 2825259
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Events Leading to Arrest

Text: On November 18, 2004, police narcotics investigator Michael Webster went to a motel parking lot to meet a confidential informant with a lead on a person distributing controlled substances. Officer Webster had hoped to get enough information to justify a stop of the suspected man’s vehicle or otherwise to secure his arrest. After hearing about this suspicious man, Officer Webster asked the informant to point out the vehicle the man was using. During their conversation, Officer Webster saw that man leave a motel room and walk toward the vehicle. The man was Carter. At that point, Officer Webster asked the informant to call Carter and say that he wanted to buy cocaine “teeners,” onesixteenth ounce quantities of cocaine. The informant complied, and Officer Webster made sure he could hear what the informant was saying and could observe Carter’s actions in response to the informant’s requests. He saw Carter pick up his phone when the informant called, and when the informant hung up, so did Carter. Shortly after the conversation ended, Carter drove away. Officer Webster then enlisted an Officer Starks to follow and stop Carter. Carter refused to stop. This prompted a car chase—involving Officer Starks and later Officer Webster— 4 No. 13-3312 that ended only when Carter stopped his car and ran into the Wisconsin River near a dam. Officers Webster and Starks pursued Carter on foot. They saw from a distance that Carter was holding a large plastic bag that they thought contained a mixture of powder and crack cocaine. Officer Webster estimated that the bag was about the size of a 14-inch softball and could have contained in excess of two ounces of the powdery substance. Officers Webster and Starks caught up with Carter in the river and arrested him there. Before they reached him, other officers on top of a nearby dam saw Carter pull small packets of a white, powdery substance out of his pockets, tear the packets open with his teeth, and dump the bags and their contents into the water. When the officers reached Carter, the bag they had seen previously was now empty, and Carter had a white, powdery substance around his mouth. At one point, Carter indicated he had ingested all of the substance, but he later said he had not swallowed any of it. Officer Webster also observed a fair amount of white residue floating on the water. Officer Starks testified that his narcoticsdetection dog indicated for the presence of an odor of an illegal substance in the water near Carter. Beyond seeing traces of the powder, Officer Webster also recovered from the river twelve “baggie corners,” a type of bag smaller than the larger bag they previously saw Carter holding. In the officer’s experience, people packaging controlled substances often make little bags like these by placing the substance in the corner of a sandwich bag, tying it off, and cutting away the excess bag material. Officer Webster testified that all of these smaller baggies would have fit easily within the larger bag he had seen earlier. No. 13-3312 5 After Carter disposed of the substance in the river, the police were unable to recover much of it for testing. They were not able to test the baggies or powdery residue in the river, but they did test one rock found in the river and other rocks found in Carter’s car. Both samples contained cocaine. The total weight of recovered cocaine was just 0.2 grams.