Opinion ID: 198347
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Tennessee Automobile Stop

Text: 29 On November 13, 1995, Patrolman Andy Boyd of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office stopped a Black Ford Thunderbird for speeding on a highway in Memphis, Tennessee. Owens was a passenger in that car. Boyd asked the driver, Devone Robinson, for his driver's license, and Robinson responded that he did not have his license with him. Boyd then asked Robinson to step out of the Thunderbird and into the patrol car so that he could do a license check. Robinson complied. 30 Next, Boyd separately questioned Robinson and Owens, and received conflicting responses from both men. For instance, when Boyd asked Robinson where he was from, Robinson responded that he lived in North Carolina, even though he had earlier stated that he was from Massachusetts and Virginia. In response to Boyd's request for Owens's name, Owens responded Robert. Robinson, however, stated that his passenger was named Jay. The two also gave conflicting accounts of who owned the car. Robinson first stated that it belonged to Jay, then later stated that it belonged to Jay's friend. Owens, meanwhile, provided police with a vehicle registration showing the owner to be Kenneth Allen, whom Owens identified as his brother-in-law. 31 These contradicting statements having raised his suspicions, Boyd requested assistance, and Sergeant Mark Kellerhall arrived shortly on the scene. The officers then called for a drug dog, which had to be transported from the airport at the other side of the city. They also initiated a vehicle registration check, criminal history checks, and a National Crime Information Center (NCIC) check to determine whether the car was stolen. 32 About fourteen minutes into the stop, 5 Robinson admitted that his Virginia driver's license had been suspended, a fact that the police radio channel confirmed five minutes later. Boyd then arrested Robinson for driving without a license. Normal procedure for the Shelby County Sheriff's Office dictates that when the driver-owner of a car is arrested, he is asked to sign a form authorizing the car's release to a passenger. In this case, however, the registered owner was not present, and the police continued to receive conflicting responses from the driver and the passenger regarding ownership of the car. After his arrest, Robinson changed his earlier position and stated, while pointing to Owens, that the car belonged to Kenny. Under these circumstances, the officers elected to await the results of the vehicle registration check and other inquiries to determine whether Owens had actual authority to drive the car. They did so even after a computer check revealed that the license provided by Owens, alias Davis, was valid. 33 About 29 minutes into the stop, the officers received the results of the criminal history checks, which indicated that Robinson had a cocaine possession charge, and that the registered owner, Kenneth Allen, had two cocaine trafficking charges and an armed robbery charge. The officers also received the results of the NCIC check, indicating that the vehicle had not been reported stolen. Boyd nonetheless waited for the results of the vehicle registration check rather than permit Owens to drive away because he believed that stolen cars did not always appear on the NCIC database. 34 About 49-50 minutes into the stop, while the officers were still waiting for the results of the vehicle registration check, the canine unit arrived. The police had the drug dog, Torque, conduct a sniff test on the outside of the vehicle. Torque alerted to the car, indicating the presence of drugs. The officers thereupon searched the car and found, in a secret compartment, a loaded .40 caliber Ruger, a .380 Cobray Uzi, ammunition for the Uzi, over $16,000 in cash, and several address and ledger books. The police seized all the objects in the compartment. The government introduced this evidence at trial. Subsequent clinical tests on the car revealed no drugs and no drug residue. 35 Owens moved to suppress the evidence seized in this search, arguing: (1) the length of the investigative stop made the stop an unlawful detention; (2) the drug dog was unreliable, so the officers lacked probable cause to search the car for contraband; and (3) even if the search was, at bottom, lawful, the officers exceeded its scope in seizing the address books and ledgers. 36 The district court denied Owens's motion. The court found that Officer Boyd had properly stopped the Thunderbird for speeding and arrested Robinson for driving without a license. The court also ruled that the officers were justified in detaining the Thunderbird during the time they investigated whether Owens had actual authority to drive the car. In evaluating the propriety of the dog sniff, the court reasoned that exposing the outside of the car to a dog sniff did not implicate the Fourth Amendment, and once the dog alerted to the car, the officers had probable cause to search the interior. Rejecting Owens's argument that the officers exceeded the lawful scope of their search, the court held that the search was appropriate as to all items seized from the secret compartment.
37 Owens contends that the district court erred in denying his motion, and renews on appeal the arguments presented in his motion to suppress. Again, we disagree with Owens's contentions. 38
39 In evaluating the propriety of the Tennessee stop, we apply a two-prong test. First, we must determine whether the officer[s'] actions were justified at [their] inception, and if so, whether the actions undertaken by the officer[s] following the stop were reasonably responsive to the circumstances justifying the stop in the first place as augmented by information gleaned by the officer[s] during the stop. United States v. Sowers, 136 F.3d 24, 27 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 119 S.Ct. 105, 142 L.Ed.2d 84 (1998). 40 Owens does not challenge the initial automobile stop for speeding as invalid under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). See Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984) ([T]he usual traffic stop is more analogous to a so called 'Terry stop' ... than to a formal arrest.). Rather, he contends that the fifty-minute detention was too long in duration to be justified as an investigative stop. Thus, his argument hinges on whether the length of the detention converted the otherwise valid investigative stop into a de facto arrest for which probable cause was lacking. 41 The reasonableness inquiry is almost always fact specific. See United States v. Zapata, 18 F.3d 971, 975 (1st Cir.1994) (noting that [t]here is no scientifically precise formula that enables courts to distinguish between valid investigatory stops and de facto arrests). The Supreme Court has directed courts making this inquiry to examine 42 whether the police diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly, during which time it was necessary to detain the defendant. A court making this assessment should take care to consider whether the police are acting in a swiftly developing situation, and in such cases the court should not indulge in unrealistic second-guessing. 43 United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 686, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985) (citations omitted). 44 The fifty-minute detention was indeed a lengthy one, and in other circumstances would perhaps weigh in favor of finding a de facto arrest. A long duration, however, does not by itself transform an otherwise valid stop into an arrest. See McCarthy, 77 F.3d at 530 (stating that there is no talismanic time beyond which any stop initially justified on the basis of Terry becomes an unreasonable seizure under the [F]ourth [A]mendment) (citation omitted). Here, the period of detention was justified. The officers necessarily spent the first twenty minutes trying to ascertain whether Robinson had a valid driver's license, which he did not. It was only after arresting Robinson that the officers faced the problem of whether to permit Owens to drive a car that he did not own. Moreover, events unfolded in such a manner as to raise the officers' suspicions regarding Owens's authority to drive the car: Robinson and Owens gave conflicting stories about who owned the car and Owens was evasive and avoided eye-contact during police questioning. 45 In responding to the circumstances, the officers diligently pursued a means of investigation that would dispel their suspicions. They initiated a number of computer checks on the car and its occupants and reasonably awaited the results. Cf. United States v. Morales-Zamora, 914 F.2d 200, 203 (10th Cir.1990) (holding that detention of defendants' vehicles was reasonable during time that officers completed inspections of defendants' documents); United States v. Walker, 933 F.2d 812, 816 n. 2 (10th Cir.1991) (suggesting in dicta that length of detention would have been reasonable if police were waiting for results of an NCIC, license, or registration inquiry). 46 Under these particular facts, the detention was not a de facto arrest and the district court's finding that the officers responded reasonably to the circumstances as they developed is supported by the evidence. 47
48 The existence of probable cause based on an alert by a drug dog depends upon the dog's reliability. See United States v. Race, 529 F.2d 12, 14 (1st Cir.1976). During the suppression hearing, Owens and the government introduced conflicting evidence regarding Torque's reliability. Owens offered the testimony of Dr. Dan Craig, an expert on animal behavior, who, after reviewing records of Torque's failure to pass two certification tests as well as his training and performance, concluded that Torque was not reliable in vehicle searches. 49 The government introduced the testimony of Mark Robertson, the training supervisor for the Shelby County Sheriff's drug interdiction team, who offered explanations for Torque's failure in the certification tests. Robertson claimed responsibility for Torque's first failure, stating that he had prematurely entered the then newly trained dog in a national test against top dogs. He attributed Torque's second failure to handler error. He also emphasized that Torque was certified at the time of the Tennessee stop. In the end, Robertson testified that Torque was an extremely reliable dog, and that Torque and his handler were among the best. Torque's handler, Carrole Owen, also testified for the government, and opined that Torque's reliability was excellent. The district court ultimately credited the government's testimony and determined that Torque was sufficiently reliable to support a finding of probable cause. With due deference to the district court's greater ability to gauge the demeanor and credibility of the witnesses, we cannot say that the court's finding was clearly erroneous. 50
51 Finally, Owens asserts that even if the police officers had probable cause to search the car, they wrongly seized address books and notebooks, which were outside the scope of the plain view doctrine because their incriminating nature was not immediately apparent. 52 Owens's arguments are misplaced: officers who have probable cause to search a car for contraband are not limited in the scope of their search by the plain view doctrine. See United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 800, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982). Rather, [i]f probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the search. Id. at 825, 102 S.Ct. 2157. 53 Here, the officers had probable cause to believe that the automobile contained drugs and evidence of drug trafficking. The address books and notebooks were concealed in a secret compartment, together with a large amount of cash, two guns, and ostensibly a residue of drugs. Under these circumstances, the police had probable cause to believe that the address books and notebooks were evidence of drug trafficking and thus properly seized them.