US v. Navas

• Decision Date: 08 March 2010
• Docket Number: Docket No. 09-1144-cr.
• Citation: 597 F.3d 492
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Jose NAVAS, Jose Alvarez, and Arturo Morel, Defendants-Appellees, Fausto Velez, Fernando Delgado, Pedro Ventura, Antonio Morel, and Euris Velez, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

597 F.3d 492

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Jose NAVAS, Jose Alvarez, and Arturo Morel, Defendants-Appellees Fausto Velez, Fernando Delgado, Pedro Ventura, Antonio Morel, and Euris Velez, Defendants.^*

Docket No. 09-1144-cr.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: January 27, 2010.

Decided: March 8, 2010.

Telemachus P. Kasulis, Assistant United States Attorney (Katherine Polk Failla, Assistant United States Attorney, on the brief), for Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY, for Appellant.

Patrick J. Joyce, New York, NY, for Appellee, Jose Navas.

Lawrence D. Gerzog, New York, NY, for Appellee, Jose Alvarez.

Susan G. Kellman, Brooklyn, NY, for Appellee, Arturo Morel.

Before: LEVAL and WESLEY, Circuit Judges, and GLEESON, District Judge.^**

WESLEY, Circuit Judge:

This appeal concerns a trailer, unhitched from its cab and parked in a warehouse. The district court held that a warrantless search of the trailer ran afoul of the Fourth Amendment. On appeal, defendants liken the trailer to a fixed structure, and argue that the district court properly suppressed the fruits of the search. The government argues that, whether or not attached to a cab, the trailer is subject to a warrantless search pursuant to the "automobile exception" to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. As the trailer was readily mobile and commanded only a diminished expectation of privacy, we hold that the automobile exception applies. Therefore, we reverse.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts

The information leading to defendants' arrests was provided to the Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA") by a cooperating witness who himself had been arrested for a narcotics-related offense. The witness informed the DEA that he was a member of a narcotics distribution enterprise that shuttled large quantities of narcotics and illicit proceeds between California and New York City. The modus operandi of the group, according to the cooperating witness, was to transport the contraband in hidden "traps" located within trailers that contained more mundane freight.¹ In addition to providing information about the nature of the narcotics trafficking scheme, the cooperating witness also implicated defendant-appellee Jose Navas and provided the number of a cellular telephone that was subsequently linked to Navas following further investigation.

On October 27, 2008, the government obtained an order from a magistrate judge in the Southern District of New York that authorized law enforcement officers to track the location of the phone.² On November 4, 2008, agents assigned to the Drug Enforcement Task Force observed that the phone was approaching the Bronx. Based on that observation, agents were dispatched to the Hunts Point Terminal Market to conduct surveillance.³ During the afternoon, one of the agents identified Navas at the Market. He was seen unloading a tractor trailer with out-of-state license plates, aided by an individual later identified as defendant-appellee Jose Alvarez. Later that night, Navas and Alvarez drove the tractor trailer to a private warehouse on Drake Street in the Bronx, approximately one half mile from the Hunts Point Market. At the warehouse, the agents watched Navas open the garage door, park the tractor trailer in the warehouse, unhitch the cab, and lower the legs in the front of the trailer to stabilize it. Navas and Alvarez then drove the cab out of the warehouse, closed its garage door, and drove away. Some of the surveilling agents pursued Navas and Alvarez, and others remained at the warehouse.

Navas and Alvarez proceeded to a nearby McDonald's restaurant, where they parked the cab on the street. A male later identified as defendant Fernando Delgado approached the cab and engaged in a discussion with Navas and Alvarez. After the conversation, Delgado entered a black Lincoln Town Car with Ohio license plates, which then parked in the McDonald's parking lot. Delgado exited that vehicle, spoke again with Navas and Alvarez, and then entered a silver Honda Odyssey parked adjacent to the Lincoln. Thereafter, approximately five individuals exited the Honda with black duffel bags.

The agents at the scene then arrested Navas, Alvarez, Delgado, and the remaining occupants of the Lincoln and the Honda. Searches incident to those arrests revealed that the duffel bags removed from the Honda were empty, but that additional bags within that vehicle contained gloves, drills, and drill bits. The agents patted down the arrestees and transported them back to the warehouse, where they were issued Miranda warnings in Spanish and patted down a second time. After receiving Miranda warnings, Navas "admitted that he was a driver for drug traffickers, that the trailer was being delivered to a member of the trafficking organization, and that narcotics were stowed in a secret rooftop compartment of the trailer." Navas, 640 F.Supp.2d at 261.

During the pat-down of an arrestee later identified as defendant-appellee Arturo Morel, an agent noticed a "large box-like object" in Morel's right front pants pocket. The agent testified at the suppression hearing that Morel stated that the object was "the garage door opener to his house," but the garage door of the warehouse opened when the agent "inadvertently" "touched" it.⁴ Id. at 261. After further discussion, Morel verbally consented to a search "inside the warehouse at 528 Drake Street and anything that was in there." Id. Morel also executed a written Consent Form, but neither the agents nor Morel completed the portion of the form calling for a description of the area to be searched.

Following Morel's consent, the agents entered the warehouse and conducted the search at issue in this appeal. Acting on information from Navas's post-arrest statement and the cooperating witness, they examined the top of the trailer and observed physical indicia of a secret compartment. The agents then "ripped off the sheet metal roof" of the trailer, discovered 230 kilograms of cocaine, and promptly seized the contraband. Id. at 262.

B. Procedural History

Following the November 4, 2008 arrests, eight defendants were indicted on November 19, 2008. The indictment charges a single count of conspiracy to possess and distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. In early 2009, defendants-appellees Navas, Alvarez, and Morel filed separate motions to suppress. The central issues raised by their motions related to the government's cell site surveillance, the searches incident to the arrests, and the search of the trailer. The district court conducted a suppression hearing on February 24, 2009, at which the government offered testimony from three of the agents who participated in the investigation. Navas and Alvarez also submitted evidence in affidavit form.

On March 19, 2009, the district court issued a decision granting in part and denying in part the motions. The district court rejected the challenges to the cell site surveillance. See Navas, 640 F.Supp.2d at 263-64. It also held that defendants' arrests were supported by probable cause, and that the searches of their persons, the Honda, the Lincoln, and the cab were all lawful searches incident to those arrests. See id. at 265-66.

Finally, the district court held that the search of the trailer in the warehouse violated the Fourth Amendment. It began by rejecting the government's argument that Morel's consent was sufficient to permit the search. The district court found it "undisputed that Morel verbally consented to a general search of the warehouse," but concluded that his consent did not extend to a physically invasive search of the trailer. Id. at 267.⁵ Therefore, the court held, the warrantless search of the trailer was not justified by the consent doctrine. Id.

Turning to the application of the automobile exception, the district court took the view that the doctrine "generally relates to some type of vehicle that is capable of moving on its own." Id. at 267. Framed as such, the court held that the exception was inapplicable because "a stationary trailer, detached from a tractor cab with its legs dropped, and stored inside a warehouse, is not a vehicle that is readily mobile or in use for transportation." Id. Based on its holdings that Morel's consent did not extend to a search of the trailer and that the automobile exception was inapplicable, the district court ordered that the narcotics evidence be suppressed. Id. at 268.

II. DISCUSSION

We review de novo the district court's legal conclusion regarding the constitutionality of the search. E.g., United States v. Plugh, 576 F.3d 135, 140 n. 5 (2d Cir.2009). The district court's findings of fact, as well as its probable cause determination, are undisputed. Furthermore, in light of the district court's finding that "Morel verbally consented to a general search of the warehouse," the agents were lawfully within that structure. Navas, 640 F.Supp.2d at 267. To justify the search of the trailer, the government relies exclusively on the automobile exception. Consequently, we are left with a straightforward legal question: Is the warrantless search of a trailer that is unhitched from its cab permissible under the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement? We hold that the exception applies.

A. The Automobile Exception

We begin our inquiry on well-tread ground. "Searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (footnote omitted). One such exception is the "automobile exception." It permits law enforcement to conduct a warrantless search of a readily mobile vehicle where there is probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains...