U.S. v. Obasa
| Decision Date | 04 February 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-5483,93-5483 |
| Citation | 15 F.3d 603 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Johnson OBASA, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Jacquelyn A. Jess, Asst. U.S. Atty. (argued and briefed), Office of the U.S. Atty., Covington, KY, Karen K. Caldwell, Lexington, KY, for plaintiff-appellee.
Harry P. Hellings, Jr., Dean A. Pisacano (argued and briefed), Hellings & Nutter, Covington, KY, for defendant-appellant.
Before: RYAN and SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judges; and LIVELY, Senior Circuit Judge.
The outcome of this appeal turns on our determination of when the warrantless arrest of the defendant-appellant occurred. Both the government and Johnson Obasa agree that Obasa was arrested; they disagree on whether the arrest took place before or after the arresting officer had probable cause.
Resolution of this issue requires a full factual statement.
On September 2, 1992, Sergeant David Bunning of the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport Police Department, along with officers from the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, was monitoring the arrival of a flight into Cincinnati from New York City. The flight was closely scrutinized because the officers claimed that it was known to be a common courier flight for drugs. The officers watched two black men deplane separately, one in a business suit, the other in jeans and a baseball cap. The man in the suit asked a Delta agent for directions to a connecting flight, and the other man walked on ahead. One officer then noted that the two men were speaking to each other but were not looking at each other. Believing this was unusual, Officer Bunning pursued the matter. He went to the gate where the men had been speaking and asked the agent for a list of connections to the Little Rock flight scheduled to depart from that gate. Bunning was told that only two passengers were transferring from the New York City flight (from which the two men had just departed) to the Little Rock flight. The tickets, which were issued to Robert and David Williams, were one-way tickets and were purchased on a credit card less than fifteen minutes prior to departure from New York City.
Based on this information, Bunning decided to talk to the men. Bunning found the man in jeans in the Little Rock departure area and asked the man his name. The man identified himself as Victor Obasa and presented a New York driver's license. Bunning stated he noticed that the man had a Nigerian accent, which he found significant because of the high rate of credit card fraud and narcotics involvement among Nigerians.
Victor Obasa told Bunning that he was traveling alone, and Bunning asked to see his ticket. After looking through his garment bag, Victor Obasa said that his brother must have his ticket. When reminded that he claimed to be traveling alone, Victor Obasa said that he was travelling with his brother. When Bunning stated that he had information that the two men were traveling under the name of Williams, Victor Obasa initially made no response. He then told the agent that a friend had purchased the tickets.
Bunning asked for permission to search Victor Obasa's bag and his person. Victor asked what the officer was looking for; when Bunning told him narcotics, Victor Obasa agreed to the search. They walked to a small room 30 to 40 feet away where Bunning conducted searches. Bunning found clothes in the bag, but did not go through the pockets. When he searched Victor Obasa's person, he found a wallet. Victor Obasa consented to a search of the wallet, and Bunning found a Virginia driver's license and a Visa card in the name of Julius Sheppard. Victor Obasa's explanations for having two driver's licenses and a credit card in someone else's name further increased Bunning's suspicions. Bunning told Victor Obasa that he was being detained for investigation of possible credit card fraud.
Believing that Victor's brother, the defendant Johnson Obasa, was probably also involved in the credit card fraud, Bunning left Victor Obasa in the room with one of the other officers and went to search for the brother. After failing to locate Johnson Obasa in a thorough search of the airport, Bunning sent out a radio description of the defendant. Four or five minutes later, Bunning learned that a person answering the defendant's description had been seen leaving the airport in a taxi. Shortly thereafter, in response to a further radio dispatch, local police stopped a cab in which Johnson Obasa was riding several miles from the airport on Interstate 275. When Bunning arrived at the scene, the cab driver told him that the defendant had asked to be taken to the train station. One of the officers who stopped the taxi had questioned the passenger, who had produced an alien registration card bearing the name Johnson Obasa. Bunning patted Johnson Obasa down and found nothing illegal. Bunning testified that he did not know at that time that the airline tickets had been Meanwhile, back at the airport, Bunning's supervisor had contacted Visa and found out that the airline tickets for the brothers had been purchased on a credit card belonging to Virginia McQuade but issued in the name of Robert Williams. The Visa representative also told police that several large and suspicious cash advances had been obtained on the card in the past few days. The advances were suspicious because they were all for the same amount ($1900) and were made so close together. In addition, the card had been used to purchase tickets on the American Airlines flight from New York to Nashville several days earlier.
purchased with a stolen credit card, but testified he felt he had good reason to believe this was the case. Bunning also stated that Johnson Obasa never identified himself by the name Williams. The defendant denied having been at the airport, even after Officer Bunning said that he had seen the defendant get off the New York flight. Bunning then "immediately" read Johnson Obasa his Miranda rights and told him that he was being detained for investigation of counterfeit credit cards or possible credit card fraud. Bunning then had Johnson Obasa transported to the airport police station in a police cruiser driven by one of the officers who had made the stop on I-275.
Based on this information, which was related to him after he and Johnson Obasa had returned to the airport, Bunning made another inspection of Victor Obasa's bag. In the pockets of two pairs of pants, Officer Bunning found two driver's licenses and two matching Visa cards, in the name of David Shaw and Robert Williams. Each driver's license contained a picture of Johnson Obasa. Both licenses were false and contained false social security numbers.
According to Bunning, no more than thirty minutes elapsed between the initial conversation with Victor Obasa and the receipt of the information from Visa indicating credit card fraud.
After hearing Bunning's testimony at a "probable cause hearing," a magistrate judge found the evidence was sufficient to hold Johnson Obasa over to a grand jury.
The federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment against Johnson Obasa, including one count of conspiracy, one count of aiding and abetting the use of stolen credit cards, one count of use of a false social security number, and one count of aiding and abetting use of stolen credit cards to purchase airline tickets. Johnson Obasa originally pled not guilty to all charges.
On September 29, 1992, Victor and Johnson Obasa filed a motion to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless searches and arrests that took place on September 2. After a hearing at which Bunning again testified substantially as at the earlier hearing, the magistrate judge denied the motion. Johnson Obasa then moved for rearraignment and entered a conditional guilty plea. He was sentenced to five years' probation, with the condition that he pay restitution to Chase Manhattan Financial Services, and now appeals.
At oral argument, counsel for the government conceded that Bunning did not have probable cause to arrest Johnson Obasa when he detained the defendant on I-275 and caused him to be transported to the airport police department in the marked police cruiser. As in her brief, however, government counsel argued that the detention of Johnson Obasa on the highway and his transportation in the police car to the airport police department never went beyond the bounds of an investigative stop or detention. It is the government's position that the detention did not reach the level of an arrest requiring probable cause until Johnson Obasa was formally arrested at the airport after the driver's licenses bearing his picture and a fictitious name were recovered during the second search of Victor Obasa's carry-on garment bag.
Bunning estimated that no more than 30 minutes expired between his first questions to Victor Obasa and discovery of the evidence that clearly implicated Johnson Obasa. Nevertheless As further justification for detaining Johnson Obasa on the highway and causing him to be taken to the airport police department, the government points to the defendant's "flight" from the airport. Finally, the government argues that there was no less intrusive means available for continuing the investigation of Johnson Obasa's possible role in a credit card scheme to defraud than searching Johnson Obasa, placing him in the police cruiser and directing that he be taken to the airport police department.
Bunning testified that the original discrepancies in Victor Obasa's stories and the second driver's license he was carrying caused him to look for Johnson Obasa "because I felt possibly his [Victor's] brother was also involved in some kind of credit card fraud." The government contends that it was not unreasonable to extend the investigative stops for 30...To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Com. v. Revere
...suspect to a detention room was necessary to effectuate a safe investigation.") (citations and quotations omitted); United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 608 (6th Cir.1994) (transport of suspect back to airport police station unreasonable because officer "offered no explanation for his decis......
-
U.S. v. Ridley
...Cir.2000), citing United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). See also, United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 606 (6th Cir.1994). Herein, the Court finds that the Defendant was not seized when he was transported to the offices of the FBI. Rather, he......
-
Lane v. State
...1216, 1222 (11th Cir. 1993) (noting that "Mirandizing a detainee does not convert a Terry stop into an arrest"); United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 608 (6th Cir. 1994) (noting that "giving Miranda warnings to a detainee may not automatically convert a Terry stop into an arrest"); and Unit......
-
Houston v. Clark County Sheriff Deputy John Does 1-5
...the scope and duration of the stop to checking out the suspicious circumstances that led to the original stop. See United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 607 (6th Cir.1994). If the officers exceeded this limitation, the stop ripened into an arrest requiring them to possess probable cause. See......