U.S. v. Mayo

Citation394 F.3d 1271
Decision Date14 January 2005
Docket NumberNo. 04-10076.,04-10076.
PartiesUNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Eric Alan MAYO, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

Tim Warriner, Sacramento, CA, for the appellant.

Norman Y. Wong, Assistant United States Attorney, Sacramento, CA, for the appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California; Edward J. Garcia, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-02-00381-EJG.

Before: CANBY, RYMER, and HAWKINS, Circuit Judges.

CANBY, Circuit Judge.

Eric Mayo appeals the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence found in a search of his vehicle. While responding to a call about suspicious narcotics activity, officers arrested Mayo for a felony violation of California's vehicle code. The officers searched Mayo's car incident to this arrest, finding bags of stolen mail. Mayo seeks to suppress this evidence on the grounds that officers: (1) lacked reasonable suspicion to detain him, (2) unreasonably broadened the length and scope of their investigation during his detention, (3) lacked probable cause to arrest him on the vehicle code violation, and (4) expanded the scope of the search incident to arrest beyond constitutional limits when they searched the hatchback area of his car. We reject all four claims, and affirm the judgment of the district court. In doing so, we join other circuits in ruling that, for purposes of an automobile search incident to arrest, officers may search the cargo area behind the rear seat of a hatchback vehicle.

Facts

On July 16, 2002, Officer Fritts of the Stockton Police Department Narcotics Unit received a call from the manager of a Super-8 Motel.1 The manager reported suspicious activity in the motel's parking lot. Four cars — a brown Chevrolet truck, red Pontiac Firebird, silver Dodge Caravan, and a silver Honda Civic (Mayo's car) — pulled up next to each other. The occupants got out of their cars and began talking. One of the occupants handed another a package of some sort. The driver of the truck wiped down the steering wheel and door handle of the truck with a rag or shirt, and then he walked away from the group, carrying a maroon backpack. The manager gave Officer Fritts the make and license plate number of each of the four vehicles.

After Officer Fritts received the call, he radioed the police dispatcher to send a patrol car to the motel to investigate suspicious activity, possibly involving narcotics. He also gave the dispatcher the descriptions of the four cars involved.2 He told the dispatcher nothing else.

Responding to the dispatcher, Officer Golden arrived at the motel within a few minutes. By the time of his arrival, however, three of the cars had left the motel. Officer Golden spotted the fourth car Mayo's Honda Civic, parked by the manager's office. Officer Golden pulled in behind the Civic and, as part of standard safety procedure, entered Mayo's license plate information into his computer.

Officer Golden then approached Mayo, who was standing next to his Civic. Officer Golden informed Mayo that he was investigating possible narcotics activity, and he asked Mayo for identification. Mayo handed Officer Golden his driver's license and California vehicle sales license.3 The two then chatted informally for a minute, and Officer Golden asked Mayo whether he owned the Civic, to which Mayo responded that he was in the process of buying it from a third party. Officer Golden then took Mayo's licenses back to his patrol car to enter the information into his computer.

After returning to his patrol car, Officer Golden noticed for the first time that the Civic's registration expired in 1999, but the sticker on the plate read 2003, indicating that the sticker probably was stolen. Officer Golden walked back to Mayo and asked him about the registration. Mayo denied any knowledge of the stolen sticker on the license plate.4

During this time, Officer Fritts arrived to investigate narcotics activity. The motel manager told him that Mayo attempted to rent a room with a credit card in the name of Bennie Bindi. Officer Fritts approached Mayo, and Fritts, along with another narcotics officer, smelled a chemical odor commonly found in methamphetamine labs. Officer Fritts asked Mayo about the smell, and Mayo denied any knowledge of it.

Officer Fritts then asked Mayo about the credit card that he tried to use to rent the motel room. Mayo explained that Bennie Bindi authorized the use of the card because Mayo did not have enough cash to rent a room. Mayo then consented to a pat-down search. The search produced nothing suspicious, except $160.00 in twenty-dollar bills. Officer Fritts asked Mayo why he did not rent the room with this money, and Mayo responded that he wanted to rent the room for two nights.

Shortly thereafter, Bennie Bindi approached the group. Officer Fritts searched Bindi's car — the silver Dodge Caravan that the manager had seen earlier — because Bindi was on searchable probation. The search produced glass pipes for smoking methamphetamine and an altered driver's license, among other things.

Officer Fritts returned to Mayo and asked him several times to consent to a search of his vehicle. Mayo refused each time. Finally, Officer Fritts instructed Mayo that, if Mayo did not consent to the search, he would arrest Mayo for the felony vehicle registration violation. When Mayo again refused, Officer Fritts arrested him and searched his Civic incident to arrest. Officer Fritts found the stolen mail — the subject of the indictment — in bags located in both the passenger compartment and hatchback area behind the rear seat. From the slim record, it appears that Mayo could access the hatchback area from the passenger compartment. The entire event lasted between twenty and forty minutes, from the first arrival of the police to the search of Mayo's vehicle.

Procedural History

Mayo filed a motion in the district court to suppress the evidence from the search of his vehicle. After a hearing, the district judge denied the motion. Mayo then entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. The district court sentenced Mayo to six months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Mayo appealed.5

Discussion
I. REASONABLE SUSPICION TO DETAIN AND QUESTION

The parties assume, as we do, that Mayo was detained at least by the time that Officer Golden took Mayo's driver's license and walked back to his patrol car with it. We conclude that this detention and its limited extension was supported by reasonable suspicion, based on specific, articulable facts, that Mayo was engaging in criminal activity. See, e.g., United States v. Michael R., 90 F.3d 340, 346 (9th Cir.1996) (stating standard for reasonable suspicion).6 Before detaining and questioning Mayo, officers knew the following: four vehicles, including Mayo's, arrived in the motel parking lot in tandem; the occupants of the vehicles gathered around the silver Dodge Caravan; the driver of the Caravan handed a package to the driver of the Firebird; the driver of the Chevrolet truck then wiped down the steering wheel and driver's side door handle with a shirt or rag, and then he walked away carrying a maroon backpack; and after this "transaction," the occupants (save Mayo) left the area.7 Moreover, this meeting took place in a high-crime area and in front of a motel that hosted previous narcotics activity. See, e.g., United States v. Diaz-Juarez, 299 F.3d 1138, 1142 (9th Cir.2002) (noting that presence in a high — crime area is relevant to a reasonable suspicion analysis).

We reject Mayo's contention that his detention was based on mere presence in the vicinity of suspicious activity. Mayo relies on Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 100 S.Ct. 338, 62 L.Ed.2d 238 (1979), which held that officers lacked reasonable suspicion to detain and search a defendant solely because of his presence in a tavern in which the officers suspected the bartender dealt heroin. Unlike Ybarra, however, Mayo clearly interacted with the other participants during the suspicious activity. The officers therefore had reasonable suspicion to detain and question Mayo when they arrived on the scene.

II. LENGTH AND SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION

Mayo further contends that his detention exceeded Fourth Amendment limitations in both duration and scope. We conclude to the contrary.8 From the record, the maximum estimated time of the detention was forty minutes. Although the duration of detention bears on whether a Terry stop is justified, there is no strict time requirement. United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 687, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985) (holding that, under the circumstances, a twenty-minute detention was not too long); Haynie v. County of Los Angeles, 339 F.3d 1071, 1076 (9th Cir.2003) (noting that a Terry stop does not have rigid time constraints so long as the officer conducts the investigation in a diligent and reasonable fashion).

Here, the officers conducted the investigation in a constitutional manner. The period of detention was permissibly extended because new grounds for suspicion of criminal activity continued to unfold. The officers pursued their multiple inquiries promptly as they arose: they questioned Mayo regarding their suspicion of narcotics activity; investigated the vehicle code violation; investigated Mayo's attempted use of another's credit card; investigated the connection between Mayo and Bindi, who returned to the scene while officers were questioning Mayo; searched Bindi's Dodge Caravan; and questioned Mayo about the chemical odor associated with methamphetamine. A maximum of forty minutes to pursue all of these inquiries was not unreasonable. Therefore, the Terry detention did not exceed constitutional limits.

III. PROBABLE CAUSE TO ARREST

We also conclude that there was...

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