U.S. v. Lopez-Garcia

• Decision Date: 21 April 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-12662.,08-12662.
• Citation: 565 F.3d 1306
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jorge LOPEZ-GARCIA, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

565 F.3d 1306

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jorge LOPEZ-GARCIA, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 08-12662.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

April 21, 2009.

Stephanie Kearns, Kendal D. Silas, Fed. Pub. Defenders, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant.

Stephanie Gabay-Smith, John Andrew Horn, J. Elizabeth McBath, AUSA, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before BLACK and MARCUS, Circuit Judges, and BUCKLEW,^* District Judge.

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

Defendant Jorge Lopez-Garcia appeals from his conviction for having been unlawfully found in the United States after having been previously removed and deported, in violation of Title 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) and (b)(2). The district court denied Lopez-Garcia's motion to suppress statements he made regarding his immigration status to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") agent while in police custody after being arrested on unrelated drug charges. Lopez-Garcia claims that his statements, and certain documentary evidence regarding his immigration status, were inadmissible because they were tainted by the alleged unconstitutionality of his initial arrest. He also argues that his statements should have been suppressed because he was not first properly informed of his Miranda rights. Finally, Lopez-Garcia says that the district court erred in enhancing his sentence under the United States Sentencing Guidelines based on his prior conviction for a firearms offense under Georgia law.

After thorough review, we affirm.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

The basic facts are these: on June 18, 2007, Police Officer Jesus Maldonado was driving his patrol car near the intersection of Allgood Road and Birney Street in Marietta, Georgia. The area is well-known for narcotics activity—particularly for street-level, hand-to-hand drug dealing. As Officer Maldonado turned onto Birney Street, he observed a gold-colored four-door vehicle stopped in the right-hand lane of the roadway. A man was seen standing outside the vehicle, leaning into the passenger side window and speaking to the driver. As Officer Maldonado's cruiser approached, the man at the car's window looked up, turned around, and walked away; and the car drove away from the officer's cruiser.

Officer Maldonado followed the vehicle and pulled it over a short time later, explaining to the driver—later determined to be Lopez-Garcia—that he had violated a traffic law by stopping in the roadway on Birney Street. Asked for his driver's license, Lopez-Garcia produced a Mexican license bearing the name "Emanuel Sanchez-Lopez." In response to Officer Maldonado's questions, Lopez-Garcia explained that he had resided in the United States for several years, and that the person to whom he had been speaking on Birney Street was his brother-in-law.

Officer Maldonado ran a check on the license and found that although the driver had been issued identification in Georgia, he was unlicensed under the name "Emanuel Sanchez-Lopez." Maldonado returned to Lopez-Garcia's vehicle and asked whether he was in possession of any illegal narcotics or weapons. Lopez-Garcia answered that he had no drugs or weapons, and he consented to a search of his person and his vehicle. Under one of the vehicle's seats, Maldonado found a bulb-shaped glass tube containing a white residue that he believed to be methamphetamine. At that point, Maldonado placed Lopez-Garcia under arrest for possession of methamphetamine, and took him to the Cobb County Jail.

As part of the ordinary booking process, the Cobb County Jail ordered that an Immigration Action Query ("IAQ") be performed on Lopez-Garcia. The IAQ reveals an individual's name and aliases, his date and place of birth, as well as other details concerning his immigration status, such as whether he had previously been deported, removed, or excluded, and whether there was any record of his re-entry into the country. The results of the IAQ were not received until the following day, June 19, 2007.

On June 19—but before receiving the IAQ—Sheriff's Deputy Paul Diaz, an officer assigned to the jail's Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit, met with Lopez-Garcia. As an ICE agent, Deputy Diaz's role was to identify illegal aliens and facilitate their removal from the country. He regularly received a list of individuals booked at the jail who had been born outside the United States. Based on the charges against them, and initial checks into their immigration status, Diaz would decide which of the detainees to interview. The purpose of the interviews was to determine whether the detainee had the documentation necessary to remain in the United States. If not, Diaz would arrange for the individual to appear before an immigration judge or, if the defendant waived his appearance, to facilitate his removal. Notably, Diaz's purpose was not to initiate criminal charges against those present in the country illegally. Indeed, Diaz lacked the authority to decide whether to bring criminal charges against any of the individuals whom he interviewed.

Prior to meeting with the defendant, Diaz conducted a preliminary computer search and learned that Lopez-Garcia had been born outside of the United States. Diaz did not provide Lopez-Garcia with Miranda warnings at any point during the interview. Rather, he explained to Lopez-Garcia that his purpose was to determine whether he had immigration papers. Diaz informed Lopez-Garcia that if he did not have papers, he had the option of seeing an immigration judge or being removed. Diaz also told Lopez-Garcia that he could expedite his removal by signing a waiver of appearance. In response to Diaz's questions, Lopez-Garcia stated that his name was "Emanuel Sanchez," that he was from Mexico, and that he was present in the United States illegally.

After the June 19, 2007 meeting, Diaz received Lopez-Garcia's IAQ. It indicated that Lopez-Garcia had been deported, removed, or excluded on July 12, 2003, and that no record of a legal entry had been found. Diaz then ordered Lopez-Garcia's alien file ("A-File").¹ After receiving the A-File, he questioned Lopez-Garcia for a second time, on June 29, 2007. The second interview took place in an ICE office within the jail. In addition to Diaz and Lopez-Garcia, the meeting was attended by another ICE Agent, Alberto Prieto. Neither of the agents was armed, and Lopez-Garcia appeared calm at all times. This time, Diaz read Lopez-Garcia Miranda warnings from a standardized form, which he translated into Spanish, and then gave Lopez-Garcia an opportunity to ask questions. Lopez-Garcia indicated that he understood the warning and signed a form waiving his rights. In response to Diaz's questions, Lopez-Garcia stated that his date of birth was April 13, 1977; that he was born in Cardenas, Tabasco, Mexico; that he was a Mexican citizen; that he had been removed on one prior occasion by the INS; and that he was in the country illegally, having entered the United States in May 2007 via Brownsville, Texas.

The questioning was conducted in Spanish and lasted for roughly ten minutes. Diaz then presented Lopez-Garcia with a sheet containing all of the questions he had been asked and all of the answers he had given. Lopez-Garcia was told that he was not required to sign the document, but he nevertheless chose to do so.

Lopez-Garcia was later indicted on federal charges of having been unlawfully found in the United States after having been previously removed and deported, in violation of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) and (b)(2). He moved to suppress the statements he had made to Diaz on June 19, 2007 and June 29, 2007 regarding his immigration status; he also moved to suppress the documentary evidence (i.e., the IAQ and his A-File) that had been obtained after his arrest. The matter was referred to a magistrate judge, who held an evidentiary hearing on the motions and issued a Report and Recommendation ("R&R") on January 14, 2008. The R&R concluded that Officer Maldonado's decision to stop Lopez-Garcia's vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment because it was not based on either probable cause or reasonable suspicion. As a result, the R&R recommended that evidence obtained at the scene of the arrest be suppressed. However, the R&R concluded that Lopez-Garcia's subsequent statements, as well as the IAQ and A-File, should not be suppressed. The district court reviewed the R&R, rejected Lopez-Garcia's objections, and adopted the magistrate judge's conclusions.

On February 12, 2008, Lopez-Garcia entered a conditional plea of guilty to the indictment, reserving the right to appeal the district court's rulings on his motion to suppress pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2). On April 30, 2008, the district court sentenced Lopez-Garcia to a term of fifty-two months of imprisonment. The sentence was based in part on the district court's determination that Lopez-Garcia was subject to a sixteen offense-level enhancement for the prior commission of a felony firearms offense.

II.

"A district court's ruling on a motion to suppress presents a mixed question of law and fact." United States v. Santa, 236 F.3d 662, 668 (11th Cir.2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). We review the district court's findings of fact for clear error and its application of the law to the facts de novo. Farias-Gonzalez, 556 F.3d at 1185. Similarly, in assessing a district court's imposition of an offense-level enhancement, we review the court's "findings of fact for clear error and its application of the Sentencing Guidelines de novo." United States v. Rendon, 354 F.3d 1320, 1329 (11th Cir.2003).

Lopez-Garcia first argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the statements he made to Diaz on June 19, 2007 and again on June 29, 2007 and the documentary evidence (the IAQ and alien file) that Diaz obtained regarding his identity and immigration status. According to...