U.S. v. Grajeda

• Decision Date: 16 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-4120.,06-4120.
• Citation: 497 F.3d 879
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Amalia GRAJEDA, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

497 F.3d 879

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Amalia GRAJEDA, Appellant.

No. 06-4120.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: May 15, 2007.

Filed: August 16, 2007.

Sean Joseph Brennan, argued, Lincoln, NE, for appellant.

Sara Elizabeth Fullerton, AUSA, argued, Lincoln, NE, for appellee.

Before MURPHY, HANSEN, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

[PUBLISHED]

HANSEN, Circuit Judge.

Following the district court's¹ denial of her motion to suppress the fruits of a vehicle search, Amalia Grajeda entered a conditional plea of guilty to possessing with intent to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine or its isomers, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1). The conditional plea preserved her right to appeal the denial of her motion to suppress, and she now argues that suppression was warranted because the search was tainted by a Fourth Amendment violation, which was not cured by her consent. We affirm.

Ms. Grajeda was a passenger in her white BMW X5 SUV, licensed in Nevada, and her aunt, Maria Mendez, was driving as they traveled east on Interstate 80 in February 2005. Nebraska State Patrol Trooper David Frye stopped them for a license plate violation of Nevada law, an obstructed rear view mirror in violation of Nebraska law, and driving over the white line. Trooper Frye approached the passenger side of the vehicle and noticed an overwhelming scent of air freshener when Ms. Grajeda rolled down the window. He obtained both of their drivers' licenses, the vehicle registration, and the insurance documentation for the vehicle and asked Ms. Mendez (the driver) to sit in the patrol car while he checked the documents. Ms. Grajeda remained in the passenger seat of the BMW, but Trooper Frye noticed her at one point hanging out the front window to look back at them and then moving all about in the parked BMW while he was speaking with Mendez in the patrol car. He considered her movements unusual and contacted another trooper for backup assistance.

Ms. Mendez and Ms. Grajeda each gave Trooper Frye slightly differing details regarding their travels, and they were vague about their destination. Through somewhat broken English, Ms. Mendez indicated that they were traveling to Iowa, though she did not know the name of the town or city, to meet Ms. Grajeda's boyfriend, who lived in Iowa, and that she would be returning home to Nevada on the following Monday. Trooper Frye left Ms. Mendez in his patrol car and went to ask Ms. Grajeda some questions from outside the BMW. Ms. Grajeda, who spoke English well, told him they were going to Iowa to meet her boyfriend's family and that her boyfriend, who lives in Las Vegas, would be flying to Iowa to join them at his family's home, though she also did not know the name of the town or city. She said she planned to call for directions when they arrived in Iowa. She intended to stay in Iowa for three weeks and said that Ms. Mendez was along for the ride.

Trooper Frye then informed Ms. Grajeda that he was going to check the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) number on the dashboard and the door. He looked through the front windshield on the driver's side to read the VIN located on the dashboard. Then he opened the driver's side door to read the VIN on the door frame or doorjamb, while continuing to converse with Ms. Grajeda who remained inside the vehicle. Crouching by the driver's opened door to read the number, he saw that the bolt securing the driver's seat "had a large amount of what appeared to be a recent scarring," as if it had been marked up by a ratchet used to remove and reinstall the seat. (Suppression Hrg. Tr. at 23.) Based on his training and experience, Trooper Frye knew that there was an empty compartment under the front seat of this particular vehicle model that is sometimes used to hide and transport illegal drugs.

At the conclusion of the traffic stop, Trooper Frye contacted a Spanish interpreter by telephone to speak to Ms. Mendez to ensure that she had understood why he had stopped her and that he was issuing only a warning ticket. At the completion of the traffic stop, she agreed to further questioning and consented to a search of items she owned that were located inside the vehicle. Ms. Grajeda, the vehicle's owner, also agreed to further inquiries. She denied possessing any illegal drugs and consented, both orally and in writing, to a search of the vehicle. Trooper Frye expressly informed Ms. Grajeda that she had the right to refuse consent. Ms. Grajeda confirmed her understanding and signed the consent form.

After beginning the search along the highway with another trooper, they determined that it would be necessary to remove the seats, and they asked Ms. Grajeda for permission to move the vehicle to a safer location at a nearby scale to complete the search. She agreed to permit the vehicle to be moved. Trooper Frye again requested and received consent before continuing the search with a drug dog. The dog alerted to the presence of illegal drugs in the BMW, and packages containing suspected drugs were discovered hidden in the compartment under the front seats. Both women were arrested and charged in federal court.²

Ms. Grajeda moved to suppress the evidence seized from the vehicle, arguing that Trooper Frye engaged in an illegal search by opening the door to the BMW to view the VIN, when he in fact was interested in viewing the bolts holding the driver's seat to the floor to see if they had been tampered with. She also argued that her subsequent consent to search did not cure the violation. The district court, adopting the report and recommendation of the magistrate judge, denied the motion concluding that even if opening the door of the vehicle was an illegal search, the subsequent voluntary consent purged any resulting taint. Ms. Grajeda appeals after entering a conditional plea of guilty and receiving a sentence of 87 months of imprisonment.

Ms. Grajeda acknowledges that a motorist has no reasonable expectation of privacy in a vehicle's VIN, citing New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 113-14, 106 S.Ct. 960, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 (1986) (Appellant's Br. at 6), but asserts that once the officer obtained the VIN by viewing it through the windshield, there was no legitimate reason for opening the door to view the number on the door frame. See Class, 475 U.S. at 119, 106 S.Ct. 960 ("If the VIN is in the plain view of someone outside the vehicle, there is no justification for governmental intrusion into the passenger compartment to see it."); see also United States v. Caro, 248 F.3d 1240, 1247 (10th Cir.2001) (holding there was no justification to search for an additional VIN inside the vehicle when the dashboard VIN matched the vehicle registration). She asserts that the videotape confirms Trooper Frye opened the door only to look at the seat bolts, not the VIN, and that this was an unjustified intrusion. She further argues that her subsequent consent to search did not cure that illegality.

When reviewing a motion to suppress, we review the district court's factual findings for clear error, and "[w]e will affirm the denial of a suppression motion unless we find that the decision is unsupported by the evidence, based on an erroneous view of the law, or the Court is left with a firm conviction that a mistake has been made." United States v. Donnelly, 475 F.3d 946, 951 (8th Cir.) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied...