U.S. v. Amaya

• Decision Date: 06 April 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-3670,94-3670
• Citation: 52 F.3d 172
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Luciano Lucas AMAYA, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 172

52 F.3d 172

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Luciano Lucas AMAYA, Appellant.

No. 94-3670.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted March 14, 1995.

Decided April 6, 1995.

Robert Joseph Govar, U.S. Atty's Office, Little Rock, AR (argued), for U.S.

William Charles McArthur, McArthur & Finkelstein, Little Rock, AR (argued), for Luciano Lucas Amaya.

Before WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge, FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge, and MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Luciano Lucas Amaya appeals from the district court's ¹ denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized during a drug search of his car. We affirm.

I.

On August 27, 1993, an unidentified caller to the Arkansas narcotics hotline reported a cocaine operation in Little Rock that acquired its drugs from the Houston, Texas area. The caller named several participants, including a local contact named "Enrique" and a courier identified as "Luca." Several days later another call to the hotline provided more information about this drug activity. The information received from these calls, including the name of the motel where the participants normally stayed and the belief that "Luca" drove a black car, was reported to the FBI's Metropolitan Little Rock Violent Crimes Task Force, which is composed of both federal and state officers.

On January 14, 1994, task force officers stopped Enrique Vallejo in connection with additional information provided by a confidential informant. Although his vehicle was drug-free, Vallejo gave the officers written consent to search his residence and provided them with drugs, scales, firearms, more than $10,000 in cash, and information about a drug courier named Lucas who was on his way to Little Rock from Houston. Vallejo paged this individual, and they conducted several phone conversations entirely in Spanish. Vallejo told the officers that Lucas drove an older model, yellow or gold Oldsmobile or Buick with Texas license plates. Vallejo also told the officers that Lucas stayed at the same motel identified by the anonymous caller(s), as well as the name of the restaurant next door to the motel where Lucas would eat when he arrived.

Later that evening, officers spied a tan Buick Century that met Vallejo's description leaving the restaurant parking lot. Although the officers expected their target to be alone there were two occupants in the vehicle. Officers followed the car, and they eventually stopped it for the purpose of conducting a canine drug sniff. The dog alerted to drugs, and a package of what was later determined to be 2.012 kilograms of cocaine was discovered under the hood.

Amaya moved to suppress the drug evidence, contending that the officers did not have probable cause to stop and search the car. The motion to suppress was denied, and Amaya entered a conditional plea of guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a)(1). Amaya was sentenced to 63 months in prison and four years of supervised release.

II.

Amaya asserts that the information received from Vallejo and the phone tips was insufficient to develop probable cause to believe that Amaya was transporting cocaine when the officers stopped him and searched the vehicle. Specifically, Amaya points to the officers' lack of prior knowledge of Vallejo's reputation for veracity, his prior criminal record, and the circumstances in which he provided the information. The officers did not verify the pager number called by Vallejo, nor did they check the motel registration records for any verification before stopping Amaya. Additionally, the information received from the hotline was from an unknown, anonymous informant.

The officers could stop and search the vehicle driven by Amaya without a warrant as long as they had probable cause to believe that he was transporting drugs. See United States v. Horne, 4 F.3d 579, 585 (8th Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1121, 127 L.Ed.2d 430 (1994). The test for probable cause is the same as that applied in determining whether there were sufficient objective facts to support the issuance of a warrant. United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 825, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 2173, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982); Horne, 4 F.3d at 585. Whether the officers had probable cause to stop Amaya is determined by...