Court Opinion

ID: 9397212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-24 19:01:32.907361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:22.325900
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-13791    Document: 50-1      Date Filed: 05/24/2023   Page: 1 of 10

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 21-13791
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        DANIEL GUTIERREZ,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 4:21-cr-00011-AW-MAF-1
                           ____________________
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        2                       Opinion of the Court                  21-13791

        Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and LUCK and MARCUS, Cir-
        cuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
                Daniel Gutierrez appeals his conviction for methampheta-
        mine and fentanyl possession on three grounds: that evidence
        against him was unconstitutionally seized during a prolonged traf-
        fic stop, that the district court should not have admitted the prose-
        cution’s expert-opinion testimony, and that the district court erro-
        neously sentenced him in accordance with a statutory minimum.
        Gutierrez’s constitutional challenge fails because the state troopers
        lawfully stopped Gutierrez and did not extend their traffic stop be-
        yond the time necessary to fulfill its purpose. And the district court
        did not abuse its discretion in admitting the expert witness testi-
        mony. Finally, Gutierrez’s last-minute sentencing argument relies
        on a decision of this Court that is irrelevant to this appeal. We af-
        firm.
                                 I. BACKGROUND
                Florida state trooper Gabriel Llanes stopped Gutierrez and
        his wife at 8:55 a.m. as they travelled in a semi-truck towing a trailer
        full of smaller cars. Florida law requires that the lettering on a li-
        cense plate be clearly visible, FLA. STAT. § 316.605(1), but according
        to Llanes’s testimony, the lights over Gutierrez’s license plate faced
        outward and prevented Llanes from reading the license plate.
        Llanes explained this violation to Gutierrez and decided to give him
        a written warning.
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        21-13791               Opinion of the Court                         3

               Llanes began to write that warning at 9:01 a.m., at which
        time his patrol car’s computer time-stamped the warning. He tes-
        tiﬁed that the warning took more time than usual to complete be-
        cause Gutierrez’s truck, trailer, and license were from three diﬀer-
        ent states. While Llanes was still working on the warning, another
        trooper arrived and called for a K-9 unit to conduct an open-air
        drug sniﬀ. The unit arrived at 9:12 a.m., while Llanes was still work-
        ing on the warning, and Llanes paused only to tell the arriving of-
        ﬁcer about the situation, to step out of his car for his own safety,
        and to explain the reason for the stop to Gutierrez’s wife.
               Before Llanes could ﬁnish the written warning, a drug dog
        alerted the troopers to the presence of illicit drugs. In a toolbox on
        the driver’s side of the truck, the troopers found methampheta-
        mine and blue tablets that looked like Oxycodone but were in fact
        fentanyl. The troopers arrested Gutierrez, and Llanes ﬁnished the
        warning at the jail. Gutierrez was indicted for possessing, with the
        intent to distribute, ﬁve grams or more of both methamphetamine
        and a substance containing fentanyl. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1),
        (b)(1)(B)(vi), (b)(1)(B)(viii).
               Before trial, Gutierrez moved to suppress the drugs that
        were seized from the traﬃc stop. He argued that even if Llanes
        lawfully stopped him, Llanes unlawfully extended the stop so a dog
        could sniﬀ around his car. That extension, he argued, violated the
        Fourth Amendment as interpreted in Rodriguez v. United States, 575
        U.S. 348, 355 (2015). The district court credited Trooper Llanes’s
        testimony and denied the motion on the ground that there was
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                 21-13791

        probable cause for the stop and Llanes did not extend the stop
        longer than he needed to complete the written warning.
                The district court also allowed the expert-opinion testimony
        of Dr. Jordan Trecki, a Drug Enforcement Administration pharma-
        cology expert. The prosecution sought Dr. Trecki’s testimony
        about “the impact of drugs of abuse on the human body and about
        dosages, side eﬀects, and consequences of use . . . of drugs.”
        Gutierrez moved in limine to exclude this testimony, and the district
        court addressed the motion in a hearing at the beginning of trial.
        Dr. Trecki had a Ph.D in pharmacology and had worked at the En-
        vironmental Protection Agency as a neurotoxicologist before
        transferring to the Drug Enforcement Administration. At the Drug
        Enforcement Administration, he ran the “DEA TOX” program,
        which “collects biological ﬂuids from overdosed victims around
        the country” so that the agency can identify new illegal substances
        being traﬃcked. Dr. Trecki gained extensive experience reviewing
        samples from overdose victims and studying eﬀects of drugs on the
        body. Dr. Trecki also testiﬁed that he based his testimony on clinical
        trials, peer-reviewed studies, common reference materials, and his
        own experience in the DEA TOX program.
               The district court admitted Dr. Trecki’s testimony. It con-
        cluded that Dr. Trecki was qualiﬁed to testify regarding the eﬀects
        of diﬀerent quantities of controlled substances and that his meth-
        ods were reliable even if the conclusions were debated in the ﬁeld.
        It also ruled that Dr. Trecki’s testimony would be helpful to the
        jury. According to the district court, Dr. Trecki’s testimony could
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        21-13791               Opinion of the Court                          5

        help the jury understand what quantity of the two relevant drugs
        would be appropriate for personal use, as opposed to distribution.
        The jury convicted Gutierrez, and the district court sentenced him
        to 120 months of imprisonment. This sentence was the minimum
        sentence permitted by the law because the prosecution gave notice
        of a previous “serious drug felony,” namely conspiracy to possess
        cocaine with the intent to import and distribute it. See 21 U.S.C.
        § 841(b)(1)(B).
                          II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW
               “A denial of a motion to suppress involves mixed questions
        of fact and law,” so we review the district court’s factual ﬁndings
        for clear error and review questions of law and the district court’s
        application of the law to facts de novo. United States v. Campbell, 26
        F.4th 860, 870 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc). We review a decision to
        admit expert opinion testimony for abuse of discretion and will not
        reverse “in the absence of manifest error.” United States v. Holt, 777
        F.3d 1234, 1264 (11th Cir. 2015).
                                 III. DISCUSSION
               We divide our discussion in three parts. We begin with
        Gutierrez’s argument that the denial of his motion to suppress vi-
        olated the Fourth Amendment. We then address his argument that
        the district court abused its discretion in admitting Dr. Trecki’s tes-
        timony. Last, we address Gutierrez’s eleventh-hour sentencing chal-
        lenge.
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        6                       Opinion of the Court                   21-13791

            A . The District Court Correctly Denied the Motion to Suppress.
                The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches
        and seizures.” U.S. CONST. amend. IV. To enforce this prohibition,
        courts exclude evidence that is the fruit of an unreasonable search
        or seizure. United States v. Perkins, 348 F.3d 965, 969 (11th Cir. 2003).
        A routine traﬃc stop qualiﬁes as a “seizure” within the meaning of
        the Fourth Amendment, and a stop is permissible only if the police
        have “reasonable suspicion” of unlawful activity. Rodriguez, 575 U.S.
        at 354–55. A traﬃc stop must not extend beyond when the “tasks
        tied to the traﬃc infraction are—or reasonably should have been—
        completed.” Id. at 354. So a police oﬃcer “may conduct certain un-
        related checks,” such as an open-air dog sniﬀ, as part of the stop,
        but the checks must not prolong the stop unless there is independ-
        ent reasonable suspicion for those checks. Id. at 355; see also Camp-
        bell, 26 F.4th at 884.
                There was reasonable suspicion for the initial stop. Gutierrez
        argues that there was not reasonable suspicion that his license plate
        was unlawfully obscured. The district court found that the license
        plate was obscured. The district court examined a photograph of
        the license plate from Trooper Llanes’s dash-camera and concluded
        that at least part of one number was blocked. And it credited
        Llanes’s testimony that, from his perspective when Gutierrez drove
        by, as opposed to the more favorable angle the dash-camera oﬀered,
        the license plate was even less visible. Gutierrez fails to explain why
        the district court’s ﬁnding was clearly erroneous. See Owens v. Wain-
        wright, 698 F.2d 1111, 1113 (11th Cir. 1983) (“Appellate courts
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        21-13791               Opinion of the Court                          7

        reviewing a cold record give particular deference to credibility de-
        terminations of a fact-ﬁnder who had the opportunity to see live
        testimony.”).
               Gutierrez also argues that Trooper Llanes unlawfully ex-
        tended the stop to allow a drug-dog sniﬀ. He contends that the
        tasks relevant to the license-plate violation for which he was
        stopped were completed at 9:01 a.m., when, according to
        Gutierrez, Llanes ﬁnished preparing the written warning. He ar-
        gues that he should have been released then but was instead de-
        tained for another eleven minutes until a drug dog came and trig-
        gered the search that produced the evidence used against him at
        trial.
                Gutierrez misreads the record. As the district court ex-
        plained, Llanes started preparing the written warning at 9:01 a.m.
        but was still working on it when the drug dog arrived. He did not
        extend the stop after the completion of the written warning; the
        warning was incomplete when the dog detected the drugs in
        Gutierrez’s car. Gutierrez’s brief does not acknowledge this ﬁnd-
        ing, let alone explain why it was clearly erroneous, so his sole chal-
        lenge to the suppression ruling fails.
        B. The District Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion in Admitting Expert
                                     Testimony.
                We reject Gutierrez’s argument that Dr. Trecki’s testimony
        was irrelevant and unreliable. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms.,
        Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589 (1993). Dr. Trecki’s testimony helped the jury
        determine whether Gutierrez had drugs for personal use or
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        8                       Opinion of the Court                  21-13791

        intended to distribute them as the indictment alleged. See 21 U.S.C.
        § 841(a)(1) (penalizing the possession of an illegal drug “with intent
        to . . . distribute” it). And Gutierrez’s assertion that other experts
        would disagree with Dr. Trecki’s testimony does not establish that
        the testimony was unreliable.
               A settled framework governs the admission of expert-opin-
        ion testimony. Expert testimony is admissible if “(1) the expert is
        qualiﬁed to testify competently regarding the matters he intends to
        address; (2) the methodology by which the expert reaches his con-
        clusions is suﬃciently reliable; and (3) the testimony assists the trier
        of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.”
        United States v. Esformes, 60 F.4th 621, 636 (11th Cir. 2023) (citation
        omitted and alteration adopted). The district court may also ex-
        clude the testimony “if its probative value is substantially out-
        weighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice, confusing the issues,
        [or] misleading the jury.” FED. R. EVID. 403.
               Gutierrez has not established that the district court commit-
        ted “manifest error” when it found Dr. Trecki’s testimony relevant
        and helpful to the jury. Holt, 777 F.3d at 1264. He argues that Dr.
        Trecki’s pharmacological testimony would be relevant if Gutierrez
        had been found with analogues to illegal substances whose eﬀects
        are unknown, not actual controlled substances like those seized
        from Gutierrez. But this argument does not respond to the district
        court’s grounds for admitting Dr. Trecki’s testimony. That the tes-
        timony could have been relevant to cases involving controlled-sub-
        stance analogues does not establish that it was irrelevant in
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        21-13791                Opinion of the Court                           9

        Gutierrez’s trial. Dr. Trecki’s testimony about the eﬀects of the spe-
        ciﬁc drugs Gutierrez possessed could help the jury to assess
        whether the possession of that amount of drugs suggested an in-
        tent to distribute those drugs. Having failed to address the district
        court’s justiﬁcation for admitting the evidence, Gutierrez cannot
        establish on appeal that the testimony clearly did not “assist[] the
        trier of fact” to decide essential issues, Esformes, 60 F.4th at 636 (ci-
        tation omitted), nor that the testimony was substantially more prej-
        udicial than helpful, FED. R. EVID. 403. See United States v. Morel, 63
        F.4th 913, 920 (11th Cir. 2023) (explaining that a district court must
        be aﬃrmed if an appellant fails to challenge one of the independ-
        ent grounds for its decision).
               Gutierrez’s methodology challenge also fails. He contends
        that Dr. Trecki’s methodology was not “acceptable” without fur-
        ther explanation. And he argues that the testimony “was contra-
        dicted by other sources, including respected and accepted studies,
        organizations, reports, journals, and experts.” The district court
        correctly rejected this argument on the ground that mere disagree-
        ment among possible experts is not enough to prove an expert’s
        methodology unreliable. That disagreement can form the basis for
        cross-examination or competing witnesses, but it is not a ground
        for preventing a witness from testifying. See Daubert, 509 U.S. at
        596.
                          C. Gutierrez’s Sentence Was Lawful.
              Only two days before oral argument, Gutierrez asked this
        Court for the ﬁrst time to review the application of the statutory
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        10                      Opinion of the Court                  21-13791

        mandatory minimum of ten years of imprisonment based on his
        prior conviction for conspiring to possess cocaine. He argues that
        our recent decision in United States v. Dupree, 57 F.4th 1269 (11th Cir.
        2023) (en banc), requires vacating his sentence. In Dupree, we held
        that an inchoate oﬀense like conspiracy is not a “controlled sub-
        stance oﬀense” triggering guideline sentencing enhancements. Id.
        at 1271. We decided Dupree four months before Gutierrez raised
        this issue. Gutierrez’s submission is not only last-minute; it is also
        entirely meritless. Dupree addressed the interpretation of the term
        “controlled substance oﬀense” in the Sentencing Guidelines. But
        Gutierrez was sentenced in excess of the guideline range for his
        oﬀense because of a statutory minimum based on his previous “se-
        rious drug felony.” 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B). Dupree said nothing
        about statutory minimum sentences, so that decision is irrelevant
        to this appeal.
                                 IV. CONCLUSION
               We AFFIRM Gutierrez’s conviction and sentence.