Opinion ID: 2775033
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Holt’s Motions to Suppress Currency Evidence

Text: On appeal, defendants Holt, Barbary, and Lewis argue that the district court erred in denying Holt’s motion to suppress the currency seized during the 2007 and 2010 traffic stops because the police officers unreasonably prolonged the stops for longer than necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stops. They contend that, during both traffic stops, the police officer extended the stop to allow time for the canine unit to arrive. The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable search and seizure. A routine traffic stop is a limited form of seizure that is more analogous to an investigative detention than a custodial arrest, and so we analyze the legality of such stops under the standard articulated in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968). United States v. Purcell, 236 F.3d 1274, 1277 (11th Cir. 2001). “Under Terry, an officer’s actions during a traffic stop must be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 33 Case: 13-10453 Date Filed: 01/30/2015 Page: 34 of 67 Moreover, “the duration of the traffic stop must be limited to the time necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Generally, a traffic stop may not last any longer than necessary to process the traffic violation. Id. However, “[a]n officer may . . . prolong a traffic stop in special circumstances.” United States v. Boyce, 351 F.3d 1102, 1106 (11th Cir. 2003). In particular, an officer may prolong a traffic stop to investigate the driver’s license and the vehicle registration, including by requesting a computer check, or while waiting for the results of a criminal history check that is part of the officer’s routine traffic investigation. Id. However, such activities must not prolong the traffic stop beyond a reasonable amount of time under the circumstances of the stop. See Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1279. Although we measure the reasonableness of a stop’s duration under the totality of the circumstances, such that “[r]igid time limitations and bright-line rules are generally inappropriate,” we have approved traffic stops lasting, for example, 14 minutes and 50 minutes. Id. (collecting cases). Additionally, an officer may prolong a traffic stop if he has “articulable suspicion of other illegal activity.” Id. at 1277. Once an officer develops reasonable suspicion, he has a duty to investigate more. United States v. Hernandez, 418 F.3d 1206, 1211 (11th Cir. 2005). “A variety of factors may 34 Case: 13-10453 Date Filed: 01/30/2015 Page: 35 of 67 contribute to the formation of an objectively reasonable suspicion of illegal activity,” including “inconsistent statements about destination,” United States v. Pruitt, 174 F.3d 1215, 1220 (11th Cir. 1999), and “shaking and acting extremely nervous.” United States v. Harris, 928 F.2d 1113, 1117 (11th Cir. 1991) (internal quotation marks omitted). As to the use of drug dogs during traffic stops, the Supreme Court has held that “the use of a well-trained narcotics-detection dog—one that does not expose noncontraband items that otherwise would remain hidden from public view— during a lawful traffic stop, generally does not implicate legitimate privacy interests.” Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 409, 125 S. Ct. 834, 838 (2005) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Thus, during the course of a lawful traffic stop, an officer does not need any level of suspicion of criminal activity either to request a canine unit or to conduct a canine sniff. See United States v. Steed, 548 F.3d 961, 974-75 n.10 (11th Cir. 2008). Here, we find no error in the district court’s denial of Holt’s motions to suppress evidence seized during the June 2007 and January 2010 traffic stops. The record clearly supports the district court’s findings that, prior to the arrival of the canine units, neither traffic stop exceeded an ordinary traffic stop in duration or 35 Case: 13-10453 Date Filed: 01/30/2015 Page: 36 of 67 scope. See Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1277-80.14 In particular, we cannot say as to either stop that an unreasonable length of time elapsed before the deployment of the drug dog—27 minutes in the June 2007 traffic stop, and only a few minutes in the January 2010 stop. See id. at 1279. Moreover, uncontroverted testimony established that the canine units arrived while the officers still were conducting routine records checks and preparing the traffic citations. Therefore, the use of the canines to sniff the exterior of the vehicles during the course of lawful traffic stops did not offend the Fourth Amendment. See Steed, 548 F.3d at 974-75 n.10. In addition, as the district court found, Deputy Fernandez and Detective Kirkby had reasonable, articulable suspicions that Holt was engaging in the illegal transportation of narcotics or currency by the time the canine units arrived. Specifically, as to the June 2007 traffic stop, Deputy Fernandez credibly testified that, prior to the arrival of the canine unit, Holt was nervous, breathing heavily, had to catch his breath, was sweating profusely, failed to maintain eye contact, and had shaking hands; that Holt did not answer his questions concerning where Holt was coming from and going to; that he recognized Holt from his time working in a 14 We note as a preliminary matter that it is unclear whether Holt even had standing to challenge the January 2010 search of the vehicle that he did not own. See United States v. Lee, 586 F.3d 859, 864-65 (11th Cir. 2009) (“We have held that a passenger in a private car, . . . who has no possessory interest in the automobile, does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the interior of the automobile because he does not have the right to exclude others from the car.” (quotation and alteration omitted)). In any event, we need not decide this issue because we find no error in the district court’s other grounds for denying Holt’s motion to suppress this search. 36 Case: 13-10453 Date Filed: 01/30/2015 Page: 37 of 67 narcotics unit; and that Holt was pacing, opening and closing his fist, and agitated while waiting for Deputy Fernandez to complete the traffic stop paperwork. As to the January 2010 traffic stop, Detective Kirkby credibly testified that, before the arrival of the canine unit, neither Holt nor his passenger, Mitchell, made eye contact; Holt’s hands were shaking; Holt whispered something to Mitchell before exiting the SUV; Holt offered only short, vague answers to Detective Kirkby’s questions; and Holt and Mitchell provided inconsistent statements about their recent travel. Therefore, as to each traffic stop, when the officer developed reasonable, articulable suspicion of other illegal activity, he permissibly could, and indeed had a duty to, investigate further. See Hernandez, 418 F.3d at 1211; Purcell, 236 F.3d at 1279-80. B. Barbary’s and Lewis’s Motions to Suppress Wiretap Evidence On appeal, defendants Barbary and Lewis contend that the district court should have granted their motion to suppress wiretap evidence because the government failed to demonstrate “necessity” for the wiretap under the federal wiretapping statutes. We conclude, however, that Barbary and Lewis waived the right to challenge the denial of this motion to suppress, as they failed to object to 37 Case: 13-10453 Date Filed: 01/30/2015 Page: 38 of 67 the magistrate’s R&R recommending denial of the motion to suppress. See United States v. Schultz, 565 F.3d 1353, 1360-62 (11th Cir. 2009). 15 C. Lewis’s Motion to Suppress Evidence from GPS Tracker Defendants Barbary and Lewis next argue that the district court should have granted Lewis’s motion to suppress evidence obtained via the warrantless installation of a GPS tracker on her car for 8 days. As the government points out, this argument is foreclosed by recent circuit precedent in United States v. Smith, 741 F.3d 1211 (11th Cir. 2013), cert. denied, No. 13-10424, 2014 WL 2558149 (U.S. Dec. 1, 2014), and United States v. Ransfer, 749 F.3d 914 (11th Cir. 2014). As background, in United States v. Michael, the former Fifth Circuit held that the installation of an electronic tracking device on a vehicle parked in a public place and tracking of the vehicle’s movements on public roads did not violate the Fourth Amendment when officers had reasonable suspicion to initiate surveillance of the vehicle. 645 F.2d 252, 258 (5th Cir. 1981) (“Monitoring the beeper while the agents had reasonable suspicion to believe Michael was conspiring to manufacture MDA did not violate his fourth amendment rights.”). 16 15 Even assuming that Barbary and Lewis did not waive the issue, we conclude, after briefing and oral argument, that the district court did not err in denying the motion to suppress wiretap evidence. 16 This Court adopted as binding precedent all Fifth Circuit decisions prior to October 1, 1981. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc). 38 Case: 13-10453 Date Filed: 01/30/2015 Page: 39 of 67 Later, in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. __, 132 S. Ct. 945 (2012)— decided after the officers’ 2011 installation of a GPS tracker on Lewis’s car in this case—the Supreme Court held that installing a GPS tracker on a vehicle and tracking the vehicle’s movement for 28 days was a search under the Fourth Amendment. Id. at __, 132 S. Ct. at 949. Although the Supreme Court concluded that such GPS searches implicate the Fourth Amendment, it had “no occasion to consider” whether a warrantless GPS search might ever be reasonable. Id. at __, 132 S. Ct. at 954. Subsequently, in Smith, Defendant Erick Smith argued under Jones that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence seized from his home pursuant to a warrant that was partially supported by information obtained, pre-Jones, from warrantless GPS surveillance. 741 F.3d at 1215, 1219-20. The officers in Smith’s case twice had conducted warrantless searches that, under Jones, implicated Fourth Amendment interests when they installed GPS trackers on Smith’s vehicles. Id. at 1221. Nevertheless, this Court held that, even if Jones would have rendered the warrantless searches unreasonable, the officers’ goodfaith reliance upon Michael rendered exclusion inappropriate because, at the time of the GPS searches, Michael was binding precedent that clearly dictated the constitutionality of warrantless GPS surveillance. Id.; see also United States v. Ransfer, 749 F.3d 914, 921-25 (11th Cir. 2014) (holding that a police officer’s pre- 39 Case: 13-10453 Date Filed: 01/30/2015 Page: 40 of 67 Jones, 2011 warrantless placement of a GPS tracker on a car supported by reasonable suspicion was justified based on a good-faith reliance on Michael). In this case, prior to the Supreme Court’s 2012 Jones decision and in reasonable reliance upon this Court’s Michael decision, the officers installed the GPS tracker on Lewis’s car when they had at least reasonable suspicion to believe that she was engaged in criminal activity. Specifically, multiple intercepted phone calls and text messages between Barbary and Lewis, prior to the installation of the GPS tracker on Lewis’s car, led federal agents to believe that Lewis was conspiring with Barbary to further the goals of a drug-trafficking organization. Indeed, Lewis and Barbary do not argue that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to install the GPS tracker. Accordingly, we conclude based on Smith and Ransfer that, even if Jones rendered the warrantless GPS search unreasonable here, the district court properly applied the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule and did not err in denying Lewis’s motion to suppress.