U.S. v. Sandoval

• Decision Date: 07 July 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-4226,93-4226
• Citation: 29 F.3d 537
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Miguel SANDOVAL, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 537

29 F.3d 537

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Miguel SANDOVAL, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 93-4226.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

July 7, 1994.

Loni F. DeLand, McRae & DeLand, Salt Lake City, UT (D. Gilbert Athay with him on the brief), for defendant-appellant.

Scott M. Matheson, Jr., U.S. Atty., and Bruce C. Lubeck, Asst. U.S. Atty., Salt Lake City, UT, for plaintiff-appellee.

Before TACHA, Circuit Judge and McKAY, Senior Circuit Judge and SHADUR, Senior District Judge. ^*

SHADUR, Senior District Judge.

Miguel Sandoval ("Sandoval") was indicted for possessing with the intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. Secs. 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(B). Sandoval filed a motion to suppress the evidence of the cocaine itself on the ground that it had been obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. After an evidentiary hearing the district court denied that motion (829 F.Supp. 355 (D. Utah 1993), cited "Opinion at ----"). ¹ Sandoval then entered a guilty plea conditioned on his right to appeal the suppression ruling pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2). We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

Facts

Shortly before 8 a.m. on Monday, March 22, 1993 Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Jim Hillin ("Hillin") was traveling westbound on Interstate 70 in Sevier County, Utah. Hillin observed an eastbound pickup truck that he clocked at 71 to 73 miles per hour, somewhat over the 65-mile-per-hour speed limit on the interstate highway. Hillin turned his car onto the westbound lanes, caught up with the pickup truck, activated his emergency lights and pulled the truck over.

Hillin approached the truck and asked its sole occupant, Sandoval, for his driver's license and vehicle registration. Sandoval produced a California license in his name and a registration in his daughter's name. In response to Hillin's further inquiry, Sandoval said he was traveling to Denver to visit a friend.

Hillin told Sandoval that he had been speeding, returned to the patrol car, prepared a warning citation and ran an NCIC computer check on both Sandoval and the truck. That check reflected that (1) there were no outstanding warrants for Sandoval, (2) his license was valid and (3) the vehicle was not stolen, but (4) Sandoval "had been involved with some type of a hit-and-run," and he had been arrested (but not convicted) for a claimed narcotics violation back in 1988.

Hillin returned to the truck and asked Sandoval to come back to the patrol car with him. Hillin testified at the suppression hearing (Tr. 16) that he did so "[t]o inquire into" Sandoval's criminal history. With Sandoval in the passenger seat next to Hillin, the officer showed Sandoval the radar reading, cautioned him about the need to observe the speed limit (particularly when driving downhill), handed him the warning citation and returned his documents. At that point the following exchange took place: ²

Hillin: This is your license and your registration back.

Sandoval: That's it?

Hillin: No, wait a minute.

Sandoval: Oh.

Hillin immediately went on to ask Sandoval what his prior arrest was for (Sandoval initially responded that he did not recall), if he were still involved in "drugs" (Sandoval said "no") and if he were carrying any weapons on his person (Sandoval again said "no"). After Hillin said he knew the earlier arrest was drug-related, the line of questioning then culminated in the following: ³

Hillin: You're not carrying any drugs today?

Sandoval: No.

Hillin: You're sure?

Sandoval: Sure.

Hillin: It's okay to look?

Sandoval: Sure.

Hillin: Okay. I appreciate that.

Hillin told Sandoval to remain in the patrol car and then proceeded to search the truck. On its underside the officer noticed spot welding and the hinges of an access door near the driver's side fuel tank, which appeared to be new compared to the passenger side fuel tank. Hillin called on his radio for backup, and when he asked Sandoval about the apparent modifications to the truck Sandoval responded that he was not aware of any. Then a second patrol officer arrived, looked at the access door and agreed it appeared to be to a hidden compartment.

Hillin then asked Sandoval if he could inspect the access door more closely, to which Sandoval responded "All right." ⁴ Using a screwdriver, Hillin opened the access door and found packages containing cocaine in a compartment behind the door. That is the evidence that Sandoval unsuccessfully moved to suppress in the district court.

Standard of Review

We will uphold a district court's factual findings made in connection with a motion to suppress unless they are clearly erroneous (United States v. Little, 18 F.3d 1499, 1503 (10th Cir.1994) (en banc)). By contrast, conclusions as to whether the police action at issue "was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment is a question of law that we review de novo" (United States v. Maestas, 2 F.3d 1485, 1490 (10th Cir.1993)). Although "[t]he proponent of a motion to suppress bears the burden of proof" in general terms (United States v. Moore, 22 F.3d 241, 243 (10th Cir.1994), citing Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 130-31 n. 1, 99 S.Ct. 421, 423-24 n. 1, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978)), whenever the government relies on the consent of the defendant to validate a search the government bears the burden of proving that the consent "was freely and voluntarily given" (Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); United States v. Price, 925 F.2d 1268, 1271 (10th Cir.1991)).

Substantive Legal Standards

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879-80, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) and its numerous progeny teach that law enforcement officers may seize and search individuals based on a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity derived from "specific and articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion" (id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880)--something less than probable cause. Royer, 460 U.S. at 500, 103 S.Ct. at 1325 counsels that the permissible scope of any such "investigative detention" depends on "the particular facts and circumstances of each case," but that in every case it "must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop."

In the context of traffic stops, we frequently hark back to the succinct summary in United States v. Guzman, 864 F.2d 1512, 1519 (10th Cir.1988) (citations omitted), most recently quoted in United States v. Fernandez, 18 F.3d 874, 878 (10th Cir.1994):

An officer conducting a routine traffic stop may request a driver's license and vehicle registration, run a computer check, and issue a citation. When the driver has produced a valid license and proof that he is entitled to operate the car, he must be allowed to proceed on his way, without being subject to further delay by police for additional questioning.

United States v. Gonzalez-Lerma, 14 F.3d 1479, 1483 (10th Cir.1994) teaches that further questioning and the concomitant detention of a driver are permissible in either of two circumstances: (1) during the course of the traffic stop the officer acquires an objectively reasonable and articulable suspicion that the driver is engaged in illegal activity (see, e.g., United States v. Soto, 988 F.2d 1548, 1554 (10th Cir.1993); United States v. Horn, 970 F.2d 728, 732 (10th Cir.1992)) or (2) the driver voluntarily consents to the officer's additional questioning. In the first situation a Fourth Amendment seizure has taken place, but it is reasonable and consequently constitutional. In the second there is no seizure, and hence the Fourth Amendment's strictures are not implicated. But if neither of those factors is present, evidence derived from further questioning (or, a fortiori, from an ensuing search) is impermissibly tainted in Fourth Amendment terms.

On appeal Sandoval argues that his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures was violated because neither of the two described circumstances was present, rendering his continued detention and the later search of the truck improper. Because the district judge based his rejection of that argument on his finding that the search of the truck took place during a police-citizen encounter to which Sandoval consented voluntarily, that issue will be addressed first.

Voluntariness of the Continued Encounter

Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 439, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2389, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991) has reconfirmed the Supreme Court's adherence:

to the rule that, in order to determine whether a particular encounter constitutes a seizure, a court must consider all the circumstances surrounding the encounter to determine whether the police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that the person was not free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter.

That totality-of-the-circumstances approach means that "[n]o single factor dictates whether a seizure has occurred" (United States v. Houston, 21 F.3d 1035, 1037 (10th Cir.1994)). In the context of traffic stops this Circuit has adopted as an indicium of a seizure the officer's taking of necessary documentation (driver's license and vehicle registration) from a driver, and we have also considered as a necessary (but not always sufficient) condition of the termination of that seizure the officer's return of such documentation--both of those rulings being based on the premise that the requisite consent is impossible because no "reasonable person" would feel free to leave without such documentation (United States v. McKneely, 6 F.3d 1447, 1451 (10th Cir.1993)).

After the point at which the driver has his or her other documentation back, the touchstone of our analysis is simply whether--adapting the language of Bostick to the circumstances of a traffic stop--the driver (United States v. Werking, 915 F.2d 1404, 1408 (10th Cir.1990)):

has an objective reason to believe that ...