Court Opinion

ID: 9918413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-12 21:00:49.063338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:00:23.025706
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 22-3294
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                   Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                 v.

CHARLES R. HAYS,
                                               Defendant-Appellant.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
                     Central District of Illinois.
          No. 3:20-cr-30021 — Sue E. Myerscough, Judge.
                     ____________________

  ARGUED NOVEMBER 6, 2023 — DECIDED JANUARY 12, 2024
               ____________________

   Before FLAUM, SCUDDER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.
    KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. After stopping the car Charles Hays
was driving, officers observed Hays’s passenger possessing
methamphetamine and a smoking pipe. Officers searched the
car’s interior, finding a screwdriver in the center console but
no drugs. An officer then searched under the car’s hood and
found methamphetamine in the air filter. The only issue on
appeal is whether the officers had probable cause to search
under the car’s hood, including inside the air filter. Because
2                                                     No. 22-3294

the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment’s war-
rant requirement authorizes officers to search a car without a
warrant if there is probable cause to believe it contains con-
traband, including all parts of the car in which there is a fair
probability contraband could be concealed, we conclude they
did.
                                 I
    The following facts are not in dispute. In October 2019, Il-
linois State Police (ISP) Inspector Evert Nation received infor-
mation that a male subject known as “Chuck” was distrib-
uting methamphetamine in Christian County, Illinois. That
same month, ISP agents were surveilling a suspected drug
traﬃcking location in Christian County and observed a man
driving a silver Cadillac arrive at the location. The agents de-
termined that the car was registered to Brenda Berger, and the
driver, Charles Hays, was her son.
    On October 15, 2019, Inspector Nation spotted the Cadillac
traveling toward Taylorville, Illinois, and noticed that the ve-
hicle did not have working taillights. Inspector Nation noti-
ﬁed the Taylorville police chief, Dwayne Wheeler, of his ob-
servation. Chief Wheeler located the Cadillac and, after notic-
ing its illegal tints and observing it cross the center lane twice,
initiated a traﬃc stop with help from Oﬃcer Jeremy Alwerdt.
   During the stop, the oﬃcers identiﬁed the driver as Hays,
and Oﬃcer Alwerdt recognized the passenger, Tamera Wis-
nasky, from previous encounters and knew she had an out-
standing arrest warrant. When questioned, Wisnasky falsely
identiﬁed herself as Kayla. Oﬃcer Alwerdt noticed that Wis-
nasky was attempting to conceal something in her right hand,
which he recognized as a glass pipe used to smoke
No. 22-3294                                                     3

methamphetamine. Oﬃcer Alwerdt then went to grab Wis-
nasky’s hands, at which time he observed her shove some-
thing in her mouth. At Oﬃcer Alwerdt’s demand, Wisnasky
spit out the object, and he identiﬁed it as a plastic container
carrying suspected methamphetamine. Wisnasky was conse-
quently arrested. Meanwhile, Chief Wheeler directed Hays to
get out of the car. During questioning, Hays looked nervous,
falsely identiﬁed Wisnasky as Kayla, and stated that he had
been arrested before and gone to prison for drug possession.
    At that point, the oﬃcers decided to search the Cadillac.
The oﬃcers did not ﬁnd contraband inside the passenger
compartment but spotted a screwdriver in the center console,
which they knew could be used to hide drugs in traps within
vehicles. An oﬃcer then searched under the hood, including
inside the air ﬁlter (a screwdriver is used to open the air ﬁlter
housing box). In the air ﬁlter housing, he found a bag contain-
ing methamphetamine.
    Following indictment, Hays moved to suppress the evi-
dence obtained during the traﬃc stop, which the district court
denied. Hays pleaded guilty to possession with the intent to
distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine in violation
of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A), reserving his right to ap-
peal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. On
appeal, Hays argues that the oﬃcers did not have probable
cause to search under the hood and in the air ﬁlter.
                                II
    We review the district court’s probable cause determina-
tion de novo. United States v. Williams, 627 F.3d 247, 251 (7th
Cir. 2010).
4                                                   No. 22-3294

    Under the automobile exception to the Fourth Amend-
ment’s warrant requirement, oﬃcers may conduct “a war-
rantless search of a vehicle … so long as there is probable
cause to believe it contains contraband or evidence of illegal
activity.” United States v. Washburn, 383 F.3d 638, 641 (7th Cir.
2004) (citing Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 153–56
(1925)). It is well settled that oﬃcers can search a car without
a warrant where there is probable cause to believe that illegal
substances are present. See, e.g., Wyoming v. Houghton, 526
U.S. 295, 300–02 (1999) (holding that oﬃcers could conduct a
warrantless search of a car where they “had probable cause to
believe there were illegal drugs in the car”); United States v.
Johnson, 383 F.3d 538, 545 (7th Cir. 2004) (ﬁnding probable
cause to search a car, including the trunk, without a warrant
where the oﬃcer discovered a controlled substance which
had fallen out of the defendant’s hat). During the traﬃc stop,
oﬃcers saw Wisnasky in possession of a pipe for smoking
methamphetamine and methamphetamine itself, and oﬃcers
knew that Hays was recently seen at a known drug traﬃcking
location. True, as Hays argues, the oﬃcers observed Hays’s
passenger, rather than Hays himself, with methamphetamine.
But we previously held that under the automobile exception,
an oﬃcer had the authority to conduct a warrantless search of
a car when he discovered the passenger in possession of con-
traband. United States v. McGuire, 957 F.2d 310, 314 (7th Cir.
1992) (“Once Trooper Newman discovered that [the passen-
ger] was transporting open, alcoholic liquor … he had proba-
ble cause to believe that the car contained additional contra-
band or evidence.”); see Houghton, 526 U.S. at 304–05 (reject-
ing a driver/passenger distinction and noting that a vehicle’s
driver and passenger “will often be engaged in a common en-
terprise … and have the same interest in concealing the fruits
No. 22-3294                                                      5

or the evidence of their wrongdoing”). Thus, the oﬃcers had
probable cause to search the car’s interior.
     Further, officers may search all containers within a car
“where they have probable cause to believe contraband or ev-
idence is contained.” California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 580
(1991). In other words, “[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[,]” Houghton, 526 U.S. at 301 (quotation omitted)
(emphasis in the original), “including closed compartments,
containers, packages, and trunks,” Williams, 627 F.3d at 251.
To justify probable cause for a search, “[a]ll that is required is
a fair probability of discovering contraband.” Id. at 252. This
is true “without qualification as to ownership” of the contain-
ers searched. Houghton, 526 U.S. at 301. Once the officers be-
gan searching the car’s interior, they discovered a screwdriver
in the center console but nothing else to suggest that the
screwdriver was a tool of Hays’s trade. Based on their experi-
ence, the officers knew that the screwdriver could have been
used to hide methamphetamine in the vehicle. Thus, consid-
ering the circumstances leading up to and during the stop
“viewed from the position of a reasonable police officer,”
United States v. Hines, 449 F.3d 808, 815 n.7 (7th Cir. 2006), the
officers reasonably found a fair probability that the area un-
der the hood, including the air filter, could contain metham-
phetamine. See United States v. Eymann, 962 F.3d 273, 286 (7th
Cir. 2020) (“Probable cause to search a vehicle exists ‘if, given
the totality of the circumstances, there is a fair probability that
contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular
place.’”) (quotation omitted); see also United States v. Patter-
son, 65 F.3d 68, 71 (7th Cir. 1995) (finding probable cause to
search behind a vehicle’s tailgate panel where officers
6                                                 No. 22-3294

observed missing screws from the tailgate interior and a drug-
sniffing dog alerted to the odor of drugs).
                                                    AFFIRMED