United States v. Reagor
Decision Date | 25 June 1971 |
Docket Number | No. 29532.,29532. |
Citation | 441 F.2d 252 |
Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jerome REAGOR and Wesley Lee Williams, Defendants-Appellants. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Pat E. Dwyer, Robert E. Kennedy, El Paso, Tex., for defendants-appellants.
Seagal V. Wheatley, U. S. Atty., San Antonio, Tex., Romualdo Cesar Caballero, Atty., Tax Division, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before COLEMAN, SIMPSON, and RONEY, Circuit Judges.
Rehearing Denied and Rehearing En Banc Denied June 25, 1971.
In the Pecos Division of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Jerome Reagor and Wesley Lee Williams were indicted in three counts and convicted by a jury of (1) conspiracy to receive, conceal, and facilitate the transportation and concealment of 9 grams of heroin, (2) receipt, concealment, and the facilitation of the transportation and concealment of the heroin, and (3) importation of the heroin, all in violation of § 174 of Title 21 U.S.C. The sole issue on appeal is the validity of a search near Marfa, Texas, which yielded the heroin introduced in evidence against the appellants at the trial below. We affirm.
On February 4, 1969, accompanied by a female co-defendant who was also convicted but has not appealed, Reagor and Williams set out from Dallas, Texas, to Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico. They were traveling in a 1966 Buick, towing a Rambler. They went by Odessa, Texas, where they met another co-defendant, Jose Angel Marrufo, who entered a plea of guilty to a lesser included offense and is not before us on appeal. All of the indictees were addicted to the use of heroin and there was testimony that they often resorted to its use during the time involved in this litigation.
On February 5, 1969, Reagor and Marrufo crossed the international border at Presidio, Texas, headed for Ojinaga, traveling in the Rambler. On the outward bound journey Marrufo registered as a drug addict.1 The purpose was to contact one Pedro Mendoza, a narcotics runner. Williamson and the girl remained behind at a motel in Presidio.
The next day, both men recrossed into the United States at Presidio, but a thorough search failed to reveal narcotics either on their persons or in the Rambler. A deputy sheriff followed them away from the check point and observed them as they drove directly to the El Charro Cafe. There the appellants met two men, one of whom was Mendoza, who had arrived by taxi and who drove away in the Rambler. The deputy did not know Mendoza. Reagor and Marrufo then walked to a point near the motel occupied by their associates, where they re-entered the 1966 Buick, occupied by Williams and the above mentioned female companion. The 1966 Buick was then seen to drive out of Presidio, headed toward Marfa, on the only feasibly available highway between Presidio and that point, sixty miles away. This highway traversed a desolate and generally uninhabited territory. The deputy, who regularly worked in co-operation with Customs officers, then telephoned the sheriff at Marfa and told him to be on the lookout for the 1966 Buick occupied by Reagor, Williams, Marrufo, and the woman.
The sheriff, accompanied by two Texas Highway Patrol and an Immigration and Customs Patrol Inspector, drove outside Marfa on U. S. Highway 67, where they encountered and stopped the 1966 Buick and its occupants at about 10:10 o'clock, p. m., February 6, 1969. A search of the 1966 Buick resulted in the location of the 9 grams of heroin concealed below an ash tray located by the left rear seat of the vehicle.
The appellants say that this search neither qualified as a border search nor did it meet the requirements of probable cause.
The appellants were indicted on February 24, 1969. The trial began August 18, 1969. There had been no motion filed by retained counsel to suppress the seized heroin as provided by Rule 41 (e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Title 18 U.S.C. This failure may have been, at least it could have been, caused by the special problems encountered in efforts to represent narcotic addicts. The testimony showed, for example, that on the way from Presidio back to Marfa the parties stopped at a ghost town, where each took two injections of heroin. Williams took too much and was "out cold" for a considerable period of time.
Defense counsel attempted to make a motion to suppress after the trial had begun. This the court, in the exercise of its discretion, rejected as untimely. The rejection is of no real significance, however, because all of the facts surrounding the search near Marfa were thoroughly developed in the course of the proof for the prosecution and defense, as a consequence of which we are left in no doubt that this was a valid border search, leaving the appellants no room to complain of the introduction of the heroin at the trial below.
First, we are of the view that the search at Marfa imposed no "unreasonable elasticity" on the border, Marsh v. United States, 5 Cir., 1965, 344 F.2d 317, 324. Reagor and Marrufo, one of them a registered addict, had left and returned to the Country at Presidio. They had rejoined their companions at...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
U.S. v. Hart, 73-3949
...v. McGlynn, 496 F.2d 1316 (5th Cir. 1974). Permanent checkpoint 4 mi. W. of Sierra Blanca. Valid.H. Marfa, TexasUnited States v. Reagor, 441 F.2d 252 (5th Cir. 1971). Surveillance. Valid. United States v. Acosta, 411 F.2d 627 (5th Cir. 1969). Tip, no checkpoint. Valid.I. Harlingen, TexasUni......
-
United States v. Martinez
...upheld under the border search rationale even though conducted a considerable distance from the border. See, e. g., United States v. Reagor, 441 F.2d 252 (5th Cir. 1971) (60 miles); Castillo-Garcia v. United States, 424 F.2d 482 (9th Cir. 1970) (105 miles); United States v. Harris, 427 F. 2......
-
U.S. v. Fogelman
...known whether the truck in fact contained contraband until it was searched several days later at San Antonio. Similarly in U. S. v. Reagor, 441 F.2d 252 (C.A.5, 1971), the search was conducted 60 miles from the border at a time when agents did not know whether there was contraband In U. S. ......
- United States v. Lawson