Opinion ID: 3063172
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fuentes’s Suppression Motion

Text: Fuentes argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence relating to his cell phone, which was discovered in the search incident to his arrest. Specifically, he argues that there was no probable cause to arrest him, and the subsequent search was thus unlawful. “Because rulings on motions to suppress involve mixed questions of fact and law, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error, and its application of the law to the facts de novo. Further, when considering a ruling on a motion to suppress, all facts are construed in the light most favorable to the prevailing party below.” United States v. Bervaldi, 226 F.3d 1256, 1262 (11th Cir. 2000) (citation omitted). “Probable cause to arrest exists when law enforcement officials have facts and circumstances within their knowledge sufficient to warrant a reasonable belief that the suspect had committed or was committing a crime.” United States v. Floyd, 281 F.3d 1346, 1348 (11th Cir. 2002) (citation and quotation omitted); see also Skop v. City of Atlanta, 485 F.3d 1130, 1137 (11th Cir. 2007) (“This probable cause standard is practical and non-technical, applied in a specific factual context and evaluated using the totality of the circumstances.”) (citation omitted). Where probable cause exists for an arrest, evidence obtained during a search incident to 4 arrest is admissible. Floyd, 281 F.3d at 1348. Moreover, “when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile.” New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 2864, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981). Accord Arizona v. Gant, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 1719, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009) (reaffirming Belton as applied to facts such as these). The district court did not err in denying Fuentes’s motion to suppress, because probable cause existed for his arrest, and his cell phone was seized in a proper search incident to his arrest. Before Fuentes was arrested, officers had obtained significant information about the drug conspiracy and his role in it. For example, Martinez had informed Ruiz (the cooperating source) that his cocaine suppliers – the “Brujeros,” or “Santeros” – were located in Miami, on 13th Street, near 82nd Avenue (later established as codefendant Flores’s apartment). When Ruiz refused to consummate the drug transaction at the residence, Martinez called his suppliers, and a nearby shopping center was established as the alternative location. Just prior to scheduled transaction, Martinez was observed going to Flores’s apartment at 8020 Southwest 13th Street, and departing with a green box, accompanied by Fuentes, Flores, and Reyes. Fuentes and Flores followed Reyes and Martinez to the agreed transaction point in a van, and parked nearby to conduct 5 counter-surveillance of the transaction. Incident to his arrest, a cell phone was taken from Fuentes’s hand. Under these facts, we find that the district court correctly ruled that probable cause existed to arrest Fuentes, and that his cell phone was admissible as having been discovered in a proper search incident to his arrest. II. Admission of Evidence Relating to Fuentes’s Cell Phone In an argument related to his suppression motion, Fuentes claims that the district court erred in admitting into evidence testimony that his first name, (“Barbaro”), and the number of the cell phone seized from him upon his arrest, appeared in the “contacts” list of the cell phone seized from codefendant Martinez. Fuentes argues that this testimony, permitted over his objection at trial, was inadmissible hearsay. We review a district court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion, and may overturn findings of fact only if clearly erroneous. United States v. Flores, 572 F.3d 1254, 1263 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, Nos. 09-6730, 09-6821, and 09-6912 (S.Ct. Nov. 9, 2009). Finally, we apply a harmless error standard to erroneous evidentiary rulings. United States v. Henderson, 409 F.3d 1293, 1300 (11th Cir. 2005) (“When a trial judge has erroneously admitted evidence in a criminal prosecution, we ask whether the error had a substantial influence on the 6 outcome of a case or left grave doubt as to whether [it] affected the outcome of a case.”) (citations and quotation omitted). We have previously held that evidence offered for the limited purpose of linking coconspirators is not hearsay. United States v. Mazyak, 650 F.2d 788, 792 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981) (“The government offered the letter for the limited purpose of linking the appellants with the vessel and with one another. The use of the letter for this limited purpose was not hearsay. The letter was not introduced to prove the truth of the matter asserted; rather it was introduced as circumstantial proof that the appellants were associated with each other and the boat.”). Fuentes fails to demonstrate clear error in the district court’s admission of testimony regarding Martinez’s cell phone and the contact list therein containing Fuentes’s first name and the number to the cell phone that he was using. The evidence was admitted for the same reasons as the in Mayzak: to show the relationship between the co-conspirators. Even if the district court erred in admitting this evidence under either Mazyak or Rule 801(d)(2)(E), any error was harmless. In light of the other evidence introduced to establish Fuentes’s participation in the drug conspiracy, including the surveillance evidence, the cell phone call records – which were admitted without objection – and Fuentes’s presence in Flores’s apartment immediately prior to the drug transaction, where 7 nearly a kilogram of cocaine and drug paraphernalia were in plain view, the admission of the phone contact information was harmless error, if error. See Henderson, 409 F.3d at 1300-01.