United States v. Sanchez
| Decision Date | 30 July 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 26958.,26958. |
| Citation | 412 F.2d 1177 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Luis Felipe SANCHEZ, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Alfred M. Carvajal, Carvajal & Lieberman, Miami, Fla., for defendant-appellant.
Theodore Klein, Asst. U. S. Atty., William A. Meadows, Jr., U. S. Atty., Robert L. Steuer, Asst. U. S. Atty., Miami, Fla., for appellee.
Before BROWN, Chief Judge, DYER, Circuit Judge, and HUNTER, District Judge.
Sanchez appeals his judgment of conviction entered upon a jury verdict on one conspiracy and two substantive counts of importing, possessing and purchasing a narcotic drug in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. § 174 and 26 U.S.C. § 4704. He urges reversal on the ground that he was arrested without probable cause, and that evidence obtained by a warrant-less search and seizure was inadmissible. We affirm.
On June 8, 1968, Prado was arrested as he attempted to smuggle in excess of one million dollars' worth of cocaine, concealed in clothing specially fitted for that purpose, through Customs at the Miami, Florida, International Airport. Prado agreed to cooperate with Customs. Although he did not know the name of the man who equipped him with the special clothing containing the cocaine, Prado described the appearance of his source with great particularity. He was in his late forties and had a dark complexion and dark wavy hair. He always wore sun glasses with gold trim across the top and tortoise-shell trim on the bottom. He also wore a wristwatch with a wide gold band on his right wrist and a part of one of his fingers was missing. Customs later learned that the man's name was Grijalva. Prado told Customs agents that as soon as he successfully entered the United States he was to signal his source by sending a telegram to a person by the name of Julio Munoz in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Prado was to then take a room at the Ponce de Leon Hotel on Flagler Street in Miami. He was to make contact with his source by walking up and down Flagler Street during the morning hours. The cocaine, according to Prado, was to be delivered to a Cuban. Under the direction of Customs agents the telegram was sent. Prado was given a room in the Ponce de Leon and the agents took an adjoining room. Prado walked Flagler Street as instructed by his source all the while being under the surveillance of the agents.
At approximately 9:40 A.M. on June 12, 1968, an agent followed Prado out of the Ponce de Leon and down Flagler Street. Prado turned and faced the agent and then walked up to and started talking with a man who in every particular fitted the description given by Prado. The complexion, age, hair, watch, gold and tortoise-shell sun glasses, and missing finger all checked out. The man, Grijalva, and Prado talked a short time and then crossed Flagler Street and went into a drug store. There, for the first time, the agent observed the appellant, Sanchez, as he talked with Grijalva. This meeting added credibility to Prado's story that he did not know the identity of the "Cuban" to whom the cocaine would be passed but that Grijalva did. In a short time Prado, Grijalva and Sanchez recrossed Flagler. Once on the other side, Grijalva turned to walk toward the Ponce de Leon and Prado turned to go with him. Grijalva motioned for Prado not to follow him but to go with Sanchez. Sanchez simultaneously motioned for Prado to accompany him in the opposite direction. The Customs agents were then faced with a dilemma. They had to stay with Prado and Sanchez because Prado had not passed the cocaine which he had ostensibly been successful in smuggling into the country and they also had to stay with Grijalva to make sure that he didn't escape. The agents therefore split, one followed Grijalva back to the Ponce de Leon Hotel and eventually arrested him along with Dante, who was found to be in possession of cocaine, and other agents followed Prado and Sanchez for several hours as the two men walked around Flagler Street and stopped for something to eat. On one occasion an agent walked up to arrest Sanchez, but Prado waved him away.
Finally the agents observed Prado and Sanchez going into the Ponce de Leon Hotel. As Prado and Sanchez prepared to enter their rooms, which were on the same floor and were across from each other, Prado turned in the direction of the agents who had been following and raised his head and eyes back toward Sanchez. Sanchez, who had started to enter his room, was arrested. A search of his room revealed a corset and swimming trunks and the cocaine valued in excess of $1,000,000.1
Sanchez contends that Customs did not have probable cause for his warrantless arrest because prior to his arrest on June 12, 1968, his identity was unknown and he had not been observed engaging in any unlawful activity. We disagree. Neither identity nor unlawful activity are per se prerequisites to probable cause. We are unwilling to ignore the reality of the events preceding Sanchez' arrest and conclude that the Customs agents had probable cause to believe that Sanchez was committing or had committed an offense in violation of the ...
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