Opinion ID: 150460
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Juan Jose Hidalgo

Text: Hidalgo presents six issues for review: (1) whether the district court erred in placing on Hidalgo the burden of proof in his motion to suppress evidence obtained from an Illinois traffic stop on October 12, 2006; (2) whether Hidalgo was illegally detained during the Illinois traffic stop; (3) whether the district court erred in failing to instruct the jury not to consider Carrillo’s prior bad act in determining Hidalgo’s guilt; (4) whether sufficient evidence supported the jury’s verdict that Hidalgo conspired to transmit money with the intent to promote drug trafficking; (5) whether sufficient evidence supported the findings that Hidalgo knew of the conspiracy’s unlawful objective and joined the conspiracy; and (6) whether the district court erred at sentencing. We address each in turn. 1. Whether the district court erroneously placed the burden on Hidalgo concerning his motion to suppress. In considering Hidalgo’s motion to suppress evidence obtained during an October 12, 2006, stop of a tractor–trailer that he was driving, the district court 2 The district court acquitted Carrillo of conspiring to possess marijuana and attempting to perform an act of violence in furtherance of drug trafficking. 3 The district court also required supervised release following incarceration and imposed special assessments and fines on each defendant. 3 Case: 08-51161 Document: 00511169784 Page: 4 Date Filed: 07/12/2010 Nos. 08-51161, 08-51162, 08-51191 stated that “[t]he proponent of a motion to suppress evidence bears the burden of proving . . . that the challenged evidence was obtained in violation of the Constitution.” Given this statement, Hidalgo argues that the district court erroneously placed the burden of proof on him to show that the Illinois traffic stop was unconstitutional. This argument is meritless. “A defendant normally bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the challenged search or seizure was unconstitutional.” United States v. Waldrop, 404 F.3d 365, 368 (5th Cir. 2005) (citing United States v. Guerrero–Barajas, 240 F.3d 428, 432 (5th Cir. 2001)). However, “[w]hen the government searches or seizes a defendant without a warrant, the government bears the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the search or seizure was constitutional.” Guerrero–Barajas, 240 F.3d at 432. “Therefore, in the instant case, since [the officer] conducted an investigatory stop without a warrant, the government bears the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the investigatory stop was constitutional.” Id. Here, the district court made the above-referenced statement as part of its outline of “legal standards” in its ruling on the motion to suppress. Reading this section completely, and not taking an isolated statement out of context, the district court properly stated that “warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable” and that “[a]ny evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible” before conducting an in-depth Fourth Amendment analysis of the traffic stop and subsequent search. Then, in the balance of its ruling, the district court undertook a reasoned Fourth Amendment analysis that reveals that the burden was not placed on Hidalgo. As such, we find no error on this issue. 2. Whether Hidalgo was illegally detained during the Illinois traffic stop. 4 Case: 08-51161 Document: 00511169784 Page: 5 Date Filed: 07/12/2010 Nos. 08-51161, 08-51162, 08-51191 Hidalgo next argues that the Illinois state trooper illegally extended the October 12, 2006, traffic stop in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights so as to require suppression of the evidence obtained at that stop. We disagree. Because the stop of the Hidalgo’s truck was justified, we must ask “whether the officer’s subsequent actions after he legitimately stopped the [tractor–trailer] were reasonably related to the circumstances that justified the stop, or to dispelling his reasonable suspicion developed during the stop.” United States v. Brigham, 382 F.3d 500, 507 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc). “Reasonableness requires a balancing of the public interest with an individual’s right to be free from arbitrary intrusions by law enforcement.” Id. “Reasonable suspicion exists when the detaining officer can point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the search and seizure.” United States v. Grant, 349 F.3d 192, 196 (5th Cir. 2003) (alterations and quotation marks omitted). Here, the Illinois trooper testified that “when he concluded the traffic stop, he suspected th[at Hidalgo and Romero] were transporting drugs and, based on this suspicion, continued to question [Hidalgo],” basing his suspicion on a number of factors. While these observations may seem innocuous individually, the court “must allow law enforcement officers to draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that might well elude an untrained person.” Brigham, 382 F.3d at 507 (quotation marks omitted). Further, while Hidalgo and Romero were detained in order to complete the vehicle safety inspection and issue the warning ticket—the initial reason for making the stop—the trooper appropriately questioned them. See id. at 508 (“[W]e reject any notion that a police officer’s questioning, even on a subject unrelated to the purpose of a routine traffic stop, is itself a Fourth Amendment violation.” (emphasis and quotation marks omitted)). During this questioning, 5 Case: 08-51161 Document: 00511169784 Page: 6 Date Filed: 07/12/2010 Nos. 08-51161, 08-51162, 08-51191 the trooper’s suspicions were further raised by a number of observations. These observations indicate that the trooper had reasonable suspicion to continue the detention. See id. at 507 (“Reasonableness, measured in objective terms by examining the totality of the circumstances, eschews bright-line rules, instead emphasizing the fact-specific nature of the inquiry.” (alterations and quotation marks omitted)). We find no error in the district court’s ruling on Hidalgo’s motion to suppress. 3. Whether the district court erred in failing to instruct the jury not to consider Carrillo’s prior bad act in determining Hidalgo’s guilt. At trial, testimony was presented about a “shoot-out” in Shreveport, Louisiana, for which Carrillo had been arrested in 2005. Hidalgo argues that the district court “should have instructed the jury that the prior bad act against [Carrillo] should only be considered against [Carrillo].” Hidalgo failed to raise this issue below and acknowledges that the court should review for plain error. To show plain error, Hidalgo must show a forfeited error that is clear or obvious and that affects his substantial rights. See Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. —, 129 S. Ct. 1423, 1429 (2009). If such a showing is made, the court has the discretion to correct the error only if it seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id. Here, the jury was given multiple instructions to separately consider the crimes, conspiracies, and acts charged against each individual defendant. The jury is presumed to follow the charges it is given. See United States v. Harper, 527 F.3d 396, 402 (5th Cir. 2008). Further, we have recently considered identical jury charges and concluded that they protected against undue prejudice in a similar situation. See United States v. Garcia, 567 F.3d 721, 728–29 (5th Cir. 2009). Accordingly, we find no plain error on this issue. See also United States v. Cortinas, 142 F.3d 242, 248 (5th Cir. 1998) (finding no plain error in failure to give further limiting instructions regarding co-conspirator conduct). 6 Case: 08-51161 Document: 00511169784 Page: 7 Date Filed: 07/12/2010 Nos. 08-51161, 08-51162, 08-51191 4. Whether sufficient evidence supported the jury’s verdict that Hidalgo conspired to transmit money with the intent to promote drug trafficking. We also reject Hidalgo’s claim that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict on the conspiracy to transport money in furtherance of drug trafficking charge. Hidalgo admits that testimony presented at trial indicates that he conspired to transmit money and drugs as part of the conspiracy; however, he attacks the credibility and reliability of this testimony. Hidalgo’s attacks on the witnesses’ credibility are unpersuasive at this stage. The sufficiency of the evidence standard gives “full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979); accord United States v. Casillas, 20 F.3d 600, 602 (5th Cir. 1994) (“The jury is solely responsible for determining the weight and credibility of the evidence; this court will not substitute its own determination of credibility for that of the jury.”). In short, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, see United States v. Valdez, 453 F.3d 252, 256 (5th Cir. 2006), a rational jury could have credited the testimony that implicated Hidalgo on this charge. We thus find no error on this issue. 5. Whether sufficient evidence supported the findings that Hidalgo knew of the conspiracy’s unlawful objective and joined the conspiracy. Hidalgo also challenges whether there was sufficient evidence to determine that he knew of the conspiracy’s objectives and joined the conspiracy, again casting aspersions on the consistency and accuracy of the trial testimony presented. After reviewing the testimony presented at trial, we conclude that there was sufficient evidence presented at trial to support the jury’s findings. Accordingly, we discern no error on this issue. 6. Whether the District Court Erred at Sentencing. 7 Case: 08-51161 Document: 00511169784 Page: 8 Date Filed: 07/12/2010 Nos. 08-51161, 08-51162, 08-51191 Hidalgo also challenges the length of his sentence of imprisonment, arguing that it was disproportionate to the crime he committed and larger than the sentences received by cooperating co-conspirators who played a larger role in the conspiracy. We find no merit in these arguments. On Hidalgo’s comparison with his co-conspirators, “[i]t is well settled that an appellant cannot challenge his sentence based solely on the lesser sentence given to his co-defendants.” United States v. McKinney, 53 F.3d 664, 678 (5th Cir. 1995). But beyond this, Hidalgo has not shown that his sentence was unreasonable. Hidalgo does not argue that the Guidelines punishment range was improperly calculated. The district court departed from this Guidelines range, finding it excessive, and imposed a sentence below the Guidelines range. We do not find this sentence unreasonable. See United States v. Carey, 589 F.3d 187, 196 (5th Cir. 2009) (“In this circuit, a sentence within the Guidelines range is presumed reasonable on appeal.” (quotation marks omitted)). Hidalgo has not shown any error in sentencing.4