U.S. v. Santiago

• Decision Date: 17 October 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-31338.,01-31338.
• Citation: 310 F.3d 336
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Isidro Francisco SANTIAGO, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 336

310 F.3d 336

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Isidro Francisco SANTIAGO, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 01-31338.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

October 17, 2002.

Josette Louise Cassiere, Asst. U.S. Atty. (argued), Shreveport, LA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Elton B. Richey, Jr. (argued), Shreveport, LA, for Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before DeMOSS, STEWART and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

DeMOSS, Circuit Judge:

Isidro Francisco Santiago pleaded guilty to count 1 of an indictment charging him with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, reserving the right to appeal the district court's order denying his motion to suppress evidence. Santiago was sentenced to a 50-month term of imprisonment and to a four-year period of supervised release. Santiago now appeals the district court's order denying his motion to suppress.

BACKGROUND

On August 22, 2000, Louisiana State Police Trooper Ted Raley was conducting safety inspections of commercial vehicles on Interstate 20 in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. Trooper Raley testified that at some time just prior to 9:00 a.m.,¹ his attention was drawn to a red sport-utility vehicle that was approaching from the west. Raley claims that what drew his attention to the vehicle was a flashing light that emanated from the dash of the vehicle directly below the rear-view mirror. Raley was unable to determine what the source of the light was as the vehicle passed because the vehicle's windows were tinted. Raley, believing that the flashing light posed a hazard to oncoming traffic, decided to pursue the vehicle. Just prior to pulling the vehicle over, Raley testified that he noticed the vehicle was only going 50 miles-per-hour and that the speed limit was 70.² Prior to exiting his cruiser, Raley testified that he noticed some "trinkets" hanging from the rear-view mirror.

After pulling the vehicle over, Raley asked the driver, Isidro Santiago, to exit the vehicle. Also present in the car were Santiago's two daughters and a woman, Josefina Vasquez. Trooper Raley asked Santiago for his driver's license and testified that Santiago's hands were shaking when he handed over the license and that he believed Santiago exhibited "extreme nervousness." Raley told Santiago why he had been stopped and was able to identify the object hanging from the mirror as a beaded chain with two golf-ball sized crystal balls hanging from either end. Raley informed Santiago that it is illegal in Louisiana to have objects hanging from a car's rear-view mirror.

Raley then entered into a brief dialogue with Santiago. Noticing that Santiago had a California driver's license and the vehicle had California plates, Raley testified that he had concerns about whether or not Santiago was trying to travel straight through to his destination as many travelers try to do on such long trips. He therefore asked Santiago why he was driving so slow, referring to the 50 miles-per-hour that Santiago was going. Santiago told Raley that he did not realize he was driving slowly. Raley then asked Santiago where he was going and what he would be doing there. Santiago told Raley that they were heading to Atlanta, Georgia, for one week to vacation before his daughters started back at school. Trooper Raley testified that he found this odd because school had already started in Louisiana but Santiago told him that school did not start until September 6th where they lived.

Trooper Raley asked Santiago whether the car belonged to him, and Santiago said that it was his car. Trooper Raley then asked whether the registration was in the glove box, and Santiago said that it was. Trooper Raley asked who the young woman in the passenger seat was and what her name was. Santiago stated that she was his wife, but hesitated before telling Raley her name. Finally, he pointed his right index finger at Trooper Raley and said "`Josefina.'" Trooper Raley testified that, "it was almost as if he had remembered it suddenly and was glad he did."

Trooper Raley told Santiago to wait by the front of his cruiser as he went to the passenger window of Santiago's vehicle to check the registration and to look at the object hanging from the rear-view mirror. Raley asked the passenger for her driver's license and for the vehicle registration. She stated that Santiago had the registration. Raley stated that Vasquez seemed flustered while she was digging through her purse looking for her license. Her driver's license identified her as Josefina Vasquez, not Josefina Santiago, which led Raley to ask her whether she was Santiago's wife. She stated that she was.

Trooper Raley told Vasquez to remain in the vehicle with the children as he returned to Santiago and told Santiago that Vasquez had stated that Santiago had the registration. Santiago volunteered to go to the vehicle to get the registration. Upon receiving the registration, Trooper Raley noted that the vehicle was registered to Santiago and to another woman, Justina Orochco.

Trooper Raley returned to his cruiser to run checks on the drivers' licenses. Trooper Raley explained that, although Vasquez had stated that they were headed to Atlanta for a vacation, she said they would be in Atlanta for two or three weeks. This statement contradicted Santiago's statement that the family intended to vacation in Atlanta for one week and led Raley to have some "uneasy feelings" about the situation. Raley testified, however that he had no specific suspicion that Santiago was transporting drugs, though he hadn't ruled out the possibility, but was concerned that the car might be stolen or that the children were abducted, and therefore called for backup. Driver's-license and criminal-history checks were then run on Santiago and Vasquez, but the checks came back negative.

Trooper Raley then walked up to Santiago and asked him who Justina Orochco was, referring to the other name listed on the car's registration. Trooper Raley stated, "it looked almost as if I had hit him over the head with a sledgehammer. His eyes got big and he kind of hesitated and he said, `That's my other wife.'" Santiago explained that Vasquez was his ex-wife and the mother of his two children. Trooper Raley testified that he found this explanation unconvincing and believed at that point that Santiago and Vasquez were trying to conceal something. Raley testified that he had three main concerns during the stop: 1) that the children may have been abducted; 2) that the car may have been stolen; and 3) that the couple may have been transporting illegal narcotics. Once the criminal history check came back negative, Raley testified that he had satisfied himself that his first two concerns were not a problem, but he was still concerned about the narcotics. Raley stated, "I didn't know — you know, I knew it wasn't a stolen vehicle, I knew it wasn't the children, but I — that leads me on into the narcotics phase or weapons phase."

Trooper Raley told Santiago that he should remove the object from his mirror before leaving, but before he let Santiago go, he told Santiago that a lot of illegal contraband was being smuggled down the interstate highways. Trooper Raley noted that Santiago was from Santa Ana, which was relatively near the border and which he knew to be a major source of methamphetamine, and also noted that Santiago's destination, Atlanta, was known to be a major distribution point of narcotics.

Trooper Raley then asked Santiago whether he had any illegal contraband on his person or in the vehicle. Santiago stated that he did not, and Raley asked Santiago if he minded whether he searched the vehicle to make sure. Santiago stated that he did not mind. Trooper Raley produced a Louisiana-consent-to-search form in Spanish, which Santiago signed after apparently reading it.

Trooper Jeff White then arrived at the scene, and Santiago and Vasquez were frisked for weapons. Trooper Raley told them to stand with the children near his cruiser with Trooper White as he searched the front of the vehicle. Finding nothing in the front, he then opened the rear hatch and immediately noticed that the floor was too high. He also noticed that the plastic molding around the sides had been cut, leading him to believe that there was something beneath the floor.

Trooper Raley removed the molding and attempted to pull up the carpet. The carpet was glued to the floor, which is not typical and Raley concluded that there was a compartment beneath the floor. Trooper Raley then called Trooper Bruce Vanderhoeven, who had a drug dog, and asked him to come to his location. The dog alerted to the inside and outside of the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to state police Troop G headquarters, where a hatch, secured with Bondo, was found in the wheel well. Inside a compartment under the false floor, the troopers found eight to nine packages containing 21 pounds of cocaine.

Santiago pleaded guilty to count 1 of an indictment charging him with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, but reserved the right to appeal the district court's order denying his motion to suppress evidence. Santiago was sentenced to a 50-month term of imprisonment and to a four-year period of supervised release. Santiago now appeals the district court's order denying his motion to suppress.

DISCUSSION

Did the initial stop of Santiago's vehicle violate the Fourth Amendment?

Santiago contends that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress. In reviewing a denial of a motion to suppress, this court reviews the district court's factual findings for clear error and the court's ultimate conclusions on Fourth Amendment issues drawn from those facts de novo. Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996). The court reviews all of the evidence introduced at a suppression hearing in the light most favorable to the prevailing party,...