Opinion ID: 2810259
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gary’s Arrest

Text: Gary first argues that the district court erred in finding that there was probable cause for his arrest following a traffic stop. The relevant facts are not in dispute. We review de novo questions of law presented by a district court’s decision on a motion to suppress. United States v. Nicksion, 628 F.3d 368, 376 (7th Cir. 2010). Gary was seized by two officers following a traffic stop of a car in which Gary was a passenger. The officers stopped the car because a narcotics detective gave them the license plate number and told them to make a stop if they observed any violations. During the stop, the officers discovered heroin on the driver of the car during a frisk for weapons. Gary was also patted down. One of the officers making the traffic stop spoke with Gary’s parole officer, who asked to see Gary. The police officer at the scene then handcuffed Gary and searched him—turning up two cell phones, one black and one blue. Gary was placed in the back of the squad car and transported to the police station. The arresting officer admitted that the sole reason he seized Gary was to bring him to speak with his parole officer at the police station. The government concedes that this seizure of Gary amounted to an arrest. Gary argues that the police did not have probable cause to seize him for two reasons. First, the arresting officer admitted that the sole reason he was seized was to bring him to speak with his parole officer. Second, he argues, his mere presence in the car with a driver who was observed selling drugs was not enough to find probable cause. 4 No. 13-1788 The district court was correct to find that this seizure was a lawful arrest. The district court rightly dismissed Gary’s argument that the arrest lacked probable cause because the arresting officer stated that he seized Gary to bring him to speak with his parole officer. As the district court recognized, the arresting officer’s subjective justification is irrelevant as long as there was objective probable cause for the arrest. United States v. Mosby, 541 F.3d 764, 768 (7th Cir. 2008), citing Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 812–13 (1996). Evaluating objectively the facts and circumstances known to the police at the time of the arrest, we agree there was probable cause to believe that Gary was committing a crime. The facts supporting probable cause came from events earlier that day when narcotics detectives were investigating the Hollis Daniels drug-trafficking organization. The officers who pulled over the car had no personal knowledge of that investigation. They stopped the vehicle at the direction of a narcotics detective. But knowledge of the investigation can be imputed to the arresting officers through the collective knowledge doctrine, under which the court will consider the information known to the officers collectively to determine if there was probable cause for the arrest. See United States v. Nafzger, 974 F.2d 906, 912–13 (7th Cir. 1992) (officer who was told the defendant was a suspect could rely on collective knowledge of investigative team to supply facts supporting reasonable suspicion for stop); United States v. Randall, 947 F.2d 1314, 1319 (1991) (“The police who actually make the arrest need not personally know all the facts that constitute probable cause if they reasonably are acting at the direction of another officer or police agency. In that case, the arrest is proper so long as the knowledge of the officer directing the arrest, or the collective knowledge of the agency he works No. 13-1788 5 for, is sufficient to constitute probable cause.”), quoting United States v. Valencia, 913 F.2d 378, 382–83 (7th Cir. 1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). The morning of Gary’s arrest, a narcotics detective working undercover called a phone number known as the Hollis Daniels drug line to order heroin. The person who answered the phone told the detective to go to the area of Bruce Street and Ridge Avenue. The detective rode a bicycle to that location and saw a blue Buick pull up with two men inside. The driver motioned to him to come over. The detective handed the driver $200 and said he needed “twenty,” meaning twenty ten-dollar bags of heroin. The driver made no effort to conceal his words from Gary, the passenger, who was talking intermittently on a cell phone. The driver gave the detective two ten-dollar bags of heroin and motioned him to follow the car around the corner. The detective followed, but the Buick drove away. The detective was in contact with other officers conducting surveillance and relayed a description of the blue Buick. The detective called the drug line again after the Buick drove away. The person who answered said that there were “undercovers” around and told the detective to go to the area of Main Street and John Street. The detective went to that location but no one was there to meet him. The detective kept calling the drug line but the person who answered kept putting him off, saying for example “we were out of town or we were here, we were there.” At one point, the person told the detective that “we’re getting our stuff together,” meaning they were preparing an order of heroin. These facts support a finding of probable cause. Gary was a passenger sitting right next to the driver when the 6 No. 13-1788 driver sold the detective heroin without any attempt to conceal the transaction. In such close quarters, it was reasonable to infer that Gary and the driver were probably engaged in a common enterprise. The police here relied on more than the “mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity.” Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 91 (1979), citing Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 62–63 (1968). A passenger in a car “will often be engaged in a common enterprise with the driver, and have the same interest in concealing the fruits or evidence of their wrongdoing.” Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 373 (2003) (finding probable cause for the arrest of the front-seat passenger in a car with drugs and cash hidden throughout the passenger compartment), quoting Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 304–05 (1999) (internal quotation marks omitted). This is particularly true when the driver is engaged in drug dealing, “an enterprise to which a dealer would be unlikely to admit an innocent person with the potential to furnish evidence against him.” Id. Given the reasonable inference that Gary was engaged in a common and unlawful enterprise with the driver, he was not arrested due to his mere presence in the car. Cf. United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 593 (1948) (no probable cause to arrest passenger due solely to presence in a car with another person independently suspected of a crime). In contrast to Di Re, where the passenger would not necessarily have known about the illegal nature of the contraband the driver was selling (counterfeit ration coupons) and had not been present when the driver sold the contraband, the illegality of the driver’s conduct here was apparent. The sale of heroin is unmistakably illegal, and Gary was very close by when the No. 13-1788 7 driver sold heroin to an undercover agent. It is hard to imagine that the driver would have made no attempt to hide this from Gary unless he was involved in the drug-dealing enterprise. In addition, the person who answered the drug line repeatedly used the pronoun “we,” implying that one or more other persons were involved. That provided an additional indication that Gary could be the person answering the drug line when he was seen talking on the phone in the passenger seat while the driver sold the heroin. There could have been innocent explanations for Gary’s phone use, of course, but the inference of the criminal activity was reasonable for purposes of probable cause. See United States v. Funches, 327 F.3d 582, 587 (7th Cir. 2003) (finding probable cause where “the inference of illegal conduct by trained and experienced officers is at least as probable as any innocent inference”). The district court correctly denied Gary’s motion to quash the arrest.