Court Opinion

ID: 9465841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:57:15.4982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:23.991178
License: Public Domain

McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. If I were writing the majority opinion, I would write as follows:
Jimmy Dorman Coker was charged by indictment with unlawfully possessing marijuana with an intent to distribute it in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Defense counsel filed a motion to suppress certain evidence taken from Coker’s person and the pick-up truck in which Coker was riding at the time he was arrested. After an eviden-tiary hearing the trial court granted the motion to suppress on the ground that there was a lack of probable cause for Coker’s arrest. Specifically, the trial court suppressed the use at trial of “the hunting vest, pistol, shotgun shells, sleeping bag, block of wood wrapped in nylon, vegetable matter [claimed by the Government to be marijuana found in the hunting vest], matters taken by reason of the arrest.” The trial court later refused to reconsider the matter, and the present appeal is pursuant to the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3731. In our view, the trial court erred in granting the motion to suppress, and we therefore reverse.
At the evidentiary hearing on the motion to suppress, the Government conceded that Coker was arrested without a warrant, and proceeded to put on evidence to establish that there was probable cause for the arrest of Coker. The Government called four witnesses who testified concerning the events leading up to Coker’s arrest. Three witnesses were then called as defense witness*953es. However, we do not regard their testimony as creating a factual dispute on any critical issue. We accordingly reject the suggestion that this is an instance where the trial court disbelieved the Government’s witnesses, and chose to give credence to defense witnesses. It is clear to us that the trial court was of the view that the Government’s own evidence did not establish probable cause to arrest Coker. We disagree with this conclusion.
Two citizen informants, acting individually and not jointly, informed local authorities that Coker was growing and harvesting marijuana in a field located in a remote and barely accessible area within the Hugo Game Reserve in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma. The personal reliability of both informants was conceded, though their information was based on what they had been told by others. Supplied with this information, the local authorities located the field of marijuana in the precise area described by each of the informants. A surveillance of the field was arranged, and Coker appeared on the scene, not once, but several times during the course of the evening.
We deem it unnecessary to here set out all of the surrounding facts and circumstances surrounding Coker’s arrest. Mention should be made of the fact that a second report from one of the informants was to the effect that Coker knew he was then being watched, and that he was determined to harvest his crop and would kill anyone who tried to prevent him from so doing. Coker was initially “detained” the morning after the surveillance, and shortly thereafter was placed under arrest, again in the general vicinity of the marijuana field. At the time Coker was stopped, he was observed to be wet from the waist down * and to be covered with “stickers and seeds.” Also, at the time he was stopped, Coker was a passenger in his pick-up truck, which was being driven by his wife. When Coker first saw the patrol vehicle, he tried to slump down in the pick-up and “hide” himself. In short, our reading of the record convinces us that the trial court, on the basis of the record then before it, erred in granting the motion to suppress.
On appeal defense counsel asserts that “[t]his appeal presents a single issue: At the time of his arrest were the officers looking for him [Coker] or were they just cruising the country roads looking for people acting suspicious?” (Emphasis added.) We will accept counsel’s framing of the issue here to be resolved, and simply state that the record most certainly does not show that at the time of Coker’s arrest the authorities were just looking for any person who was acting suspiciously. To the contrary, the record clearly shows that they were “looking” for Coker, and that their “looking,” and arrest, were based on probable cause.
Counsel suggests that Coker was in reality arrested when he was first stopped by the police, and not some thirty minutes later when he was formally placed under arrest by narcotic officers who were called in. In our view of the matter, it makes little difference as to when the arrest technically occurred, as there was probable cause in any event. Certainly the initial stopping was lawful, as well-founded suspicion justifies an officer’s brief detention of a citizen for limited inquiry. Stone v. Patterson, 468 F.2d 558 (10th Cir. 1972) and United States v. Sanchez, 450 F.2d 525 (10th Cir. 1971). And, in our view, that which developed immediately thereafter ripened quickly into probable cause for an arrest. The ensuing search was incident to this lawful arrest, and, therefore, the motion to suppress should have been denied.
By our disposition of the present matter we are not indicating the ultimate outcome of the trial. Whether the Government can convince the trier of the facts beyond a reasonable doubt that Coker is guilty of the crime charged remains to be seen. We are merely holding that the trial court erred in granting the motion to suppress.
The order granting the motion to suppress is vacated and the cause remanded for further proceedings consonant with this opinion.
*954The foregoing sets forth my views on this matter, and it is on this basis that I dissent.

There was a river traversing the field of marijuana here in question.