United States v. Mata-Peña
| Decision Date | 10 February 2017 |
| Docket Number | Criminal No. 16–423 (ADC) |
| Citation | 233 F.Supp.3d 281 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, v. Gerald MATA–PEÑA, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Philippe A. Mesa–Pabon, United States Attorney's Office, San Juan, PR, for United States of America.
By an Indictment, dated June 30, 2016, a grand jury has charged defendants Gerald Mata–Peña ("Mata") and Domingo Ramos–Hernández ("Ramos") with Possession of Cocaine with Intent to Distribute, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and Possession of a Firearm in Furtherance of a Drug–Trafficking Crime, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). ECF No. 5 at 1–2. The grand jury also charged Ramos with Being an Illegal Alien in Possession of a Firearm and Ammunition, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A). Id. at 2–3. The charges stem from the traffic stop of a Toyota Tacoma truck in which Mata was the driver and Ramos, its owner, was the passenger. ECF No. 1–1 at 1. During the traffic stop, a police officer searched the truck and found three cardboard boxes inside a black plastic trash bag, containing opaque packages with a total of about six kilograms of cocaine. Id. at 1–2. Later, the officer found, inside a bag in the truck, a .40–caliber pistol with two fully-loaded magazines. Id. at 2. Mata and Ramos have pleaded not guilty to the charges. ECF Nos. 12, 13.
On September 23, 2016, Mata moved the Court to suppress the physical evidence taken from the truck on the ground that the police had searched the truck in violation of the Fourth Amendment. ECF No. 33. Ramos has moved the Court to let him join Mata's motion, which the Court will allow him to do. ECF No. 36. The Government opposes suppression. ECF No. 37.
On November 21, 2016, the Court conducted a suppression hearing. At the start of the hearing, the Government challenged Mata's standing, under the Fourth Amendment, to contest the searches of Ramos's truck. The Government requested leave to file a supplemental brief on standing, which the Court granted. During the evidentiary part of the hearing, the Government presented only a single witness: the officer who had not only stopped the truck, but found and seized all of the physical evidence in the truck. Defendants did not present any witnesses, by contrast, relying instead on cross-examination of the Government's witness. On November 30, 2016, the Government filed its supplemental brief, arguing that Mata lacks standing because, although he was driving the truck, he was only its passenger for Fourth Amendment purposes. ECF No. 53. Mata and Ramos filed separate responses to the brief. ECF Nos. 55, 56.
Having considered all of the evidence in the record, the Court now finds that the police violated the Fourth Amendment by searching and seizing, without probable cause or a warrant, the only contraband in the truck that was allegedly in plain view. The Court finds further that all of the physical evidence from the truck warrants suppression as fruit of the poisonous tree. However, the Court will grant suppression only as to Ramos because only he has established his standing, under the Fourth Amendment, to contest the police conduct. Because Mata has failed to establish his own standing, the evidence against him will not be suppressed.
Agent Nolbert Cortés–Gómez ("Agent Cortés"), badge number 31546, has been a member of the Puerto Rico Police Department ("PRPD") since 2004.1 He has been assigned to the PRPD's Tactical Operations Division since 2010. Previously, he served in the PRPD's Drug Division for more than six years. As an officer in the Drug Division, Agent Cortés learned how to identify drugs, conduct field tests, and supervise undercover officers. He has participated in more than five hundred drug-related arrests, about three to four of which involved kilograms ("kilos") of cocaine. His training and experience have taught him that kilos of powder cocaine are usually packaged as compact rectangular cubes, wrapped in clear plastic, beige tape, and/or newspaper.
On June 28, 2016, at approximately 4:00 a.m., Agent Cortés and other Tactical Operations Division members reported to the PRPD Academy in Gurabo, Puerto Rico, for a physical exam. At approximately 10:00 a.m., once the exams were over, the officers started to drive back to their stationhouse in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, on the other side of the island, in a caravan of marked police vehicles. At approximately 11:30 a.m., near the 53.9–kilometer marker on Highway 52, Agent Cortés, who was driving the vehicle at the head of the caravan, saw a burgundy Toyota Tacoma truck make an illegal lane change—that is, change lanes without properly signaling in violation of P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 9, § 5156. Agent Cortés activated his vehicle's lights and sirens, and pulled the truck over. The other police vehicles in the caravan pulled over as well.
Agent Cortés's passenger, Sergeant Nuñez, proceeded to the front driver's-side window of the truck, while Cortés went to its front passenger's-side window. Both windows were rolled down. Mata was driving the truck, while Ramos, its owner, was sitting in the front passenger's seat. While Sergeant Nuñez spoke to Mata, Agent Cortés saw, through the open passenger's window, a tall black plastic garbage bag, with an open cardboard box sticking out of its top, in the middle of the rear seat of the truck. Protruding out of the box was an unzipped CD binder, normally used to store CDs in pages of sleeves, which had what appeared to be a rectangular package, wrapped in opaque newspaper, peering out of its near side by a few inches. The binder was resting on the open flap of the box. Agent Cortés's view of the package was unobstructed. In light of his training and experience, he thought that the package looked like a kilo of cocaine.
Based on an in-court demonstration of what the exposed package looked like—using the actual boxes, binders, newspapers, and kilos of cocaine that the police found in the truck—Agent Cortés could see, at most, only a few inches of one of its short and narrow sides sticking out of the otherwise closed edge of the CD binder.2 Because its wrapping was opaque, the package's contents were not visible. Agent Cortés, acting upon his own initiative and without consulting anyone or receiving the passenger's consent, opened the rear passenger's-side door of the truck, removed the wrapped package from the CD binder, tore the newspaper off of the package, and uncovered a compact rectangular cube of white power, wrapped in clear plastic, that he believed to be kilo of cocaine.3 Agent Cortés informed Sergeant Nuñez about what he had found, and the officers then placed Mata and Ramos under arrest.
Agent Cortés now saw that the CD binder contained, behind the package he had just removed, a second rectangular package, wrapped in opaque newspaper. Unlike the exposed package, which had one of its short sides pointing towards the bottom of its binder, the second package had one of its long sides pointing towards it. Agent Cortés then removed the second package from the binder, tore off its wrapping, and discovered a second kilo of cocaine. Inside the black plastic garbage bag on the rear seat of the truck were two more cardboard boxes, sealed with tape. The boxes were stacked vertically within the garbage bag, one on top of the other.
Agent Cortés removed the two closed boxes from the bag, tore off their tape, and opened them. Buried in the middle of each box, which were filled with foam and newspaper (amongst other padding), was another binder, except these were both zippered shut. So, Agent Cortés unzipped the binders, opened them, and found, in each binder, two more rectangular packages, wrapped in opaque newspaper. Like the second package in the exposed binder, these packages were positioned with their long sides running parallel to the short ends of their binder—i.e., horizontally or in "landscape" mode—thereby allowing two packages to fit in each binder when zipped shut. The officers then transported the defendants, the evidence, and Ramos's truck to a stationhouse in Salinas, Puerto Rico, located about ten minutes away.
At the stationhouse, Agent Cortés unwrapped the four packages he had found inside the closed CD binders, which in turn he had found inside the closed cardboard boxes, which in turn he had found in the black plastic garbage bag on the rear seat of the truck. Upon opening each package, Agent Cortés discovered a new kilo of cocaine, for a total of six kilos. Approximately thirty to forty-five minutes after the arrest, Agent Cortés conducted, in the parking lot of the stationhouse, an "inventory search" of the truck, following a PRPD form and procedure. During the search, which he performed in front of defendants, Agent Cortés took a black bag, which he called a "man purse," from the floor of the truck's front passenger's seat. Inside the bag, Agent Cortés found a .40–caliber Taurus PT140 pistol, with two fully-loaded ten-round magazines and $1,113 in cash. At the time of this "inventory search," Agent Cortés did not believe that either defendant posed any threat of harm or evidence destruction. At some point, at the stationhouse, Agent Cortés asserts he issued Mata a traffic ticket for his illegal lane change. However, at the hearing, Agent Cortés did not recall either when or exactly where he had issued the ticket.4
Agent Cortés's above searches and seizures did not occur pursuant to a warrant or with the consent of Mata or Ramos.
The Fourth Amendment "protects ‘[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.’ " City of Los Angeles v. Patel , ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 2443, 2452, 192 L.Ed.2d 435 (2015) (alteration in original) ). "It further provides that ‘no Warrants shall issue, but upon...
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