United States v. Pacheco
| Decision Date | 16 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | CRIMINAL 18-82 (FAB) |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Plaintiff, v. [1] MIGUEL ANGEL AGOSTO PACHECO, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
REPORT & RECOMMENDATION
Pending before the court is a motion to suppress by Miguel Angel Agosto Pacheco (“Defendant”). ECF No. 299. On February 8, 2018 a grand jury returned an indictment against Defendant charging him with Conspiracy to Possess With Intent to Distribute Controlled Substances in violation of 21 U.S.C §§ 846, 841(a)(1), and 841(b)(1)(A)(ii), and with Conspiracy to Import a Controlled Substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 963, 952, 960(a)(1), and 960(b)(1)(B). ECF No. 3 at 1-2. Defendant filed the instant motion to suppress “identifications” of himself and two passengers made by officers of the Puerto Rico Police Department (“PRPD”) during a traffic stop on July 27, 2017. ECF No. 299 at 4. The United States of America (“the Government”) subsequently filed a response in opposition. ECF No. 324. On March 25, 2022 the court held an evidentiary hearing in which testimony and oral arguments from both parties were heard and documentary evidence submitted into the record. ECF Nos. 499, 500, 522.
On July 27, 2017 approximately ten law enforcement officers of a joint Task Force with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) were conducting a surveillance operation of the Luis Munoz Marin Airport in Carolina, Puerto Rico. ECF No. 531 at 20; 22. ¶¶ 19-21. PRPD Officer Orlando Feliciano (“Officer Feliciano”) was a member of the Task Force and testified at the suppression hearing. ECF No. 531 at 18, ¶¶ 9-15. Officer Feliciano explained that the objective of the surveillance at the airport on July 27, 2017 was to identify a suspected drug trafficker arriving at the airport to pick up two passengers from Colombia. ECF No. 531 at 21, ¶¶ 1-6. Officer Feliciano and fellow PRPD Officer Leslie Rivera (“Officer Rivera”) were ordered to follow the individual's vehicle from the airport and effectuate a traffic stop to ascertain the identities of the driver and his passengers. ECF No. 531 at 21, ¶¶ 18-25. On that day, Officer Feliciano was uniformed and drove a marked PRPD patrol car while Officer Rivera sat in the front passenger seat. ECF No. 531 at 22, ¶¶ 1-13.
At approximately 2:00 to 3:00 PM on July 27, 2017, other members of the Task Force conducting surveillance at the airport notified Officers Feliciano and Rivera via radio that the person of interest had arrived to pick up the Colombian passengers. ECF No. 531 at 23, ¶¶ 1-6. The Task Force officers informed Officers Feliciano and Rivera that the individual had arrived in a black Mercedes Benz. ECF No. 531 at 23, ¶¶ 7-11. At the hearing, Officer Feliciano identified the Defendant as the individual who arrived at the airport and who was the target of the surveillance on that day. ECF No. 531 at 19, ¶¶ 19-25; 20, ¶¶ 1-3. At the pickup, one of Defendant's passengers sat in the front passenger seat and the other sat in the back seat. Officers Feliciano and Rivera spotted Defendant's black Mercedes Benz as it left the airport and they followed Defendant's vehicle for about 2 to 3 minutes as it traveled down Baldorioty Avenue toward Carolina, Puerto Rico. ECF No. 531 at 23, ¶¶ 12-23. The PRPD officers trailed Defendant's car from behind at a distance of “seven or eight vehicles.” ECF No. 531 at 24, ¶¶ 17-20. Officer Feliciano testified that as they followed Defendant's automobile, they were “trying to find a violation of the law.” ECF No. 531 at 24, ¶¶ 1-2.
After tailing Defendant for seven (7) to nine (9) minutes on Baldorioty Avenue, Defendant's black Mercedes Benz exited onto a street in Carolina, Puerto Rico. ECF No. 531 at 24, ¶¶ 11-16. As they drove down the street in Carolina, Officer Feliciano brought the patrol car closer and roughly abreast but slightly behind Defendant's automobile. ECF No. 531 at 24, ¶¶ 21-25; 30, ¶¶ 21-25; 31, ¶¶ 1-4. Officer Feliciano testified that he and Officer Rivera then performed a traffic stop of Defendant's car because both he and Officer Rivera saw that the rear passenger was not wearing a seat belt. Upon executing the traffic stop, Officer Feliciano explained that he and Officer Rivera exited their patrol car and approached Defendant's vehicle from behind. When Officer Feliciano arrived at the Mercedes Benz, he observed that the rear passenger was in fact wearing her seat belt “at that time.” ECF No. 531 at 32. Officer Feliciano described how in his experience, when someone is stopped for a traffic violation and are not wearing their seat belt, they usually put it on so that they are wearing it when interacting with police. ECF No. 531 at 33-34.
Officer Feliciano informed Defendant that he stopped the car because the Defendant's rear passenger was not wearing her seat belt, and asked Defendant for his driver's license and vehicle registration. ECF No. 531 at 34. Officer Feliciano allowed Defendant to exit the vehicle, open the trunk of the car, and retrieve his driver's license from a fanny pack. Approximately three (3) minutes passed between the time Officer Feliciano stopped Defendant's car and when he examined Defendant's driver's license. ECF No. 531 at 36. After looking at Defendant's driver's license, Officer Feliciano requested “the identification of the passengers to verify that they were legally here in Puerto Rico.” ECF No. 531 at 36. Officer Feliciano then took all three identification documents to his patrol car where he photographed them. The documents consisted of Defendant's driver's license and two passports from the Republic of Colombia. ECF Nos. 531 at 36-37; 500-1; 500-2; 500-3. Officer Feliciano explained that he then returned the identification documents to Defendant and his passengers and they were given permission to leave. According to Officer Feliciano, the entire stop lasted approximately eight (8) minutes. ECF No. 531 at 37.
The Supreme Court conceives of a traffic stop as akin to a brief detention authorized by Terry v. Ohio. United States v. Fernandez, 600 F.3d 56, 59 (1st Cir. 2010) (citing Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439 n. 29 (1984); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 (1968)). When making a traffic stop of a vehicle, the police have made a seizure of everyone inside the vehicle-both driver and passengers. Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 255 (2007). Violation of a defendant's Fourth amendment rights is remedied by the suppression of evidence obtained through the illegal police conduct, including evidence found as a direct result of the illegal conduct as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” United States v. Kimball, 25 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1994). However, in moving to suppress evidence, the defendant “bears the burden to show a Fourth Amendment violation.” United States v. Young, 835 F.3d 13, 19 (1st Cir. 2016).
Defendant not only moves to suppress his own identity produced as a result of his stop by the PRPD officers, but also moves to suppress the identities of his passengers. ECF No. 329 at 4. Defendant argues that there was no probable cause to stop the vehicle and that Officer Feliciano unjustifiably extended the length of the traffic stop to request the identification of the Defendant's passengers. ECF No. 299 at 3-4. Each individual subject to a police seizure “may challenge his own detention regardless of whether he was the immediate target of the investigation or whether he had a privacy interest in the vehicle itself.” United States v. Sowers, 136 F.3d 24, 27 (1st Cir. 1998). Even so, a Defendant moving to suppress evidence must “prove that the challenged governmental action infringed upon his own Fourth Amendment rights.” Kimball, 25 F.3d at 5 (emphasis added). This is because, “Fourth Amendment rights are personal,” and therefore “cannot be vicariously asserted.” Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 133 (1978). As such, while a defendant has standing to challenge his to his own seizure, he cannot raise a constitutional Fourth Amendment claim based on the alleged violation of a third person's privacy rights-such as those of a passenger inside his vehicle. Sowers, 136 F.3d at 27.
Showing a violation of defendant's own “expectation of privacy is a threshold standing requirement that a defendant must establish before a court can proceed with any Fourth Amendment analysis.” United States v. Lewis, 40 F.3d 1325, 1333 (1st Cir.1994). “The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends only to those places and interests in which the defendant has a reasonable expectation of privacy.” Id. The defendant bears the burden of persuasion to show that he possessed a subjective expectation of privacy which was violated by the police, and that his expectation of privacy was subjectively reasonable under the circumstances. Id.; United States v. Aguirre, 839 F.2d 854, 856 (1st Cir. 1988). A defendant who fails to demonstrate a sufficiently close connection to the relevant places or objects will not have standing to claim an illegal search or seizure. Lewis, 40 F.3d at 1333.
Courts from various circuits have opined that a defendant does not have a valid privacy interest in someone else's person even if that person is a passenger in the defendant's vehicle. Sowers, 136 F.3d at 28-29 (); United States v. McCray, 230 F.Supp.2d 89, 93 (D. Me. 2002) (); United States v. Miles, 2006...
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