Court Opinion

ID: 9496527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:28:58.339407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:38.173749
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Police stopped, for speeding, a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer. They discovered that Alfonso Garnica, the driver, did not have a valid license. Before allowing the truck and its occupants to proceed, the police needed to find out whether one of the passengers (Thomas Martin and Mark Reed) was legally entitled to drive. A computer check revealed that they were— and that both also have criminal records as drug dealers. None of the trio could explain where the horses in the trailer had come from or what they were planning to do with the animals. Martin said that he had purchased them but couldn’t remember where or from whom. Horse trailers are a popular way to move marijuana, because they have room to hide that bulky substance and the horses’ odor masks its smell. See United States v. Torres, 32 F.3d 225 (7th Cir.1994); see also United States v. Portales, 52 Fed.Appx. 290 (7th Cir.2002) (unpublished order). Suspicions aroused, the officers asked Martin, who owned the truck, to permit a search; he agreed. Officers found two bundles hidden under the floor of the trailer and covered by bales of hay. The bundles contained about $94,000 in currency wrapped in pink cellophane. Martin called this a recent inheritance from his mother’s estate. At the stationhouse, Reed conclud*467ed that he was in hot water and that his best hope of extrication lay in switching sides. He then revealed the trio’s drug dealings. When he learned that assistance did not fully exonerate him, Reed moved to suppress his statement and all evidence based on it.
In the district court, the parties debated three questions: first, when was Reed arrested (before the trip to the stationhouse, as he insists, or only after his confession, as the prosecutor contends)?; second, if the arrest preceded the confession, was it supported by probable cause?; third, if the arrest was not supported by probable cause, is the confession admissible as “an act of free will [sufficient] to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion”? Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 486, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). See also Kaupp v. Texas, — U.S. -, 123 S.Ct. 1843, 1847, 155 L.Ed.2d 814 (2003); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). Preter-mitting the first two, the district judge concluded that Reed’s statement, made about six hours after he arrived at the stationhouse, stemmed from a desire to win favor and reward and was not a consequence of any illegality. This implies that Reed would have reached the same conclusion, and given the same information eventually, if he had been allowed to go home right after the officers seized the cash; Reed still would have known that the police were onto him and still would have wanted to reduce his criminal exposure. Most of Reed’s time had been spent in an empty and unlocked room, the judge found; there is no doubt that his statement was the result of free will. Moreover, the judge concluded — and this is a finding of fact — that the police had acted in good faith and had not sought to round up the occupants without probable cause in the hope that, if held long enough, they would inculpate themselves. This led the district judge to deem the statements admissible.
Multi-factor-balancing tests of the sort Brown created pose tough issues for district judges. The appellate role, by contrast, is limited to determining whether a clear error has been committed. Brawn said as much. Immediately after listing the principal considerations that should inform the analysis, the Court added: “Our approach relies heavily, but not excessively, on the ‘learning, good sense, fairness and courage of federal trial judges.’ Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 342, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939).” 422 U.S. at 604 n. 10, 95 S.Ct. 2254. This means that we must review the district court’s resolution deferentially and must remand (if the district judge left some stones unturned) rather than make our own findings; otherwise the Court would have said that it was relying on the learning, etc., of appellate judges.
I do not think that the district judge made any clearly erroneous finding or abused her discretion in balancing the factors. Brown said, and my colleagues reiterate, that the most important consideration is whether the police have acted in bad faith by reeling in suspects without colorable justification. At 5:30 p.m., well before Reed confessed, the police told him point blank that he was not under arrest; this is not the behavior of officers determined to hold someone until he cracks. What is more, in both Brown and Kaupp the police lacked any cause to arrest, let alone do so at a person’s home: both Brown and Kaupp were snatched in handcuffs from their residences. Here the intrusion is smaller and the justification greater. At a minimum, the police had probable cause to believe they had probable cause. Cf. Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 228, 112 S.Ct. 534, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (right question for qualified immuni*468ty from damages is whether “a reasonable officer could have believed that probable cause existed”). Perhaps the district judge failed to spell out the thinking behind some of her conclusions (such as the proposition that Reed would have confessed eventually even if not in custody), but I think the judge’s assessment sufficiently straightforward that remand is unnecessary.
Indeed, the whole “fruits” inquiry is unnecessary, for the police had probable cause. Although application of the Brown factors is reviewed deferentially on appeal, probable cause is assessed independently. See Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996). All findings of historical fact that influence the probable-cause decision have been made; what purpose could be served by a remand, when Ornelas requires us to disregard the district judge’s disposition? And if I’m wrong about the existence of probable cause, it remains hard to see how police could be blamed for thinking that they had enough to act; resolution of a close question ought not imply that the losing side acted in wilful disregard of the law.
Before taking Reed to the stationhouse, officers knew that Reed and Martin had a history of drug dealing; that the trio had a conveyance that can be used to hide both the bulk and the odor of marijuana; that a hidden compartment in the trailer contained almost $100,000; and that Martin’s explanations for the money and the horses were not only implausible but also so lacking in detail (how could Martin not know where “his” horses had come from and where they were going?) that the most likely explanation was that someone else had furnished the trailer to conceal drugs and their purchase money. The police found proceeds rather than drugs. If this was not adequate to arrest the trio for distributing drugs (the crime to which Reed eventually confessed, telling the police that the trailer had been used to transport marijuana north and now was taking the receipts back south), it was more than enough to arrest them for money laundering. The local police may not have been able to name the federal crimes involved, but this is not necessary. See Wayne R. LaFave, 2 Search & Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 3.2(e) at 72 (3d ed.1996) (collecting authority). Probable cause is determined objectively, based on all facts in the collective possession of the police. See, e.g., Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). It is accordingly irrelevant what crime particular officers thought they were arresting for, or indeed whether they thought they were making an arrest at all. (Officers who don’t believe that they are making an arrest may not have any offense in mind, but this too is beside the point when the inquiry is objective.) Nor should it matter how one offense is “related” to another. Drug transactions doubtless are related closely to money laundering. Most traffickers commit both, and it may be happenstance whether the police find the drugs before the sale, or the payment afterward. Still, opinions making something turn on relations among offenses are hard to reconcile with the Supreme Court’s objective approach, so I’m loathe to pursue the link between drug and currency offenses.
Any currency transaction using the proceeds of a crime, and structured so as to avoid financial reporting requirements, constitutes money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(l)(B)(ii), (a)(3)(C). The horse trailer contained more than nine times the trigger for reporting cash transactions. Conviction under § 1956 would require proof of an illegal origin or use of the money, but the officers had reason to suspect this and probable cause is something well short of evidence required for *469conviction. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 235, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983); Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 96, 85 S.Ct. 223, 13 L.Ed.2d 142 (1964). Reed was then awaiting trial on another drug charge; none of the occupants could explain where the horses had come from; and the explanation (“an inheritance”) for the cash was risible. Executors of decedents’ estates do not distribute bequests in pink cellophane. Likely the police had probable cause to arrest for any of a large number of offenses that people commit using packets of currency. The financial-structuring guideline, U.S.S.G. § 2S1.3, offers a list. Some statutes make it a crime to structure any transaction to avoid reporting the transfer of more than $10,000 in cash. These have lower penalties than § 1956 but also omit any need to show that the funds have an illegal genesis. So there was probable cause to arrest Reed as soon as the money came to light. Further proceedings in the district court would be bootless. And whether or not this analysis of probable cause is conclusive, it shows that the district court did not commit a clear error in finding that the officers acted in good faith.