Archive for the ‘Probable Cause’ Category

« Older Entries

Physical profiling of defendant permitted as long as not the sole reason for police encounter.

Friday, January 29th, 2010

U.S. v. Quintana, 585 F.3d 1407 (11th Cir. 2009)

This defendant entered a conditional guilty plea and was convicted of illegally entering the U.S. after being previously removed following illegal entry. On appeal, the defendant argued that his right to equal protection was violated because he was only approached by police because they believed him to be of Middle Eastern descent or Muslim. The district court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment finding that the defendant’s ethnicity or religion was not the only basis for initiating an encounter. The appellate court, reviewing a motion to dismiss an indictment for abuse of discretion, reviewed the finding of fact for clear error. They determined that the totality of the circumstances known to the arresting officers were sufficient to justify a consensual encounter to decide whether further investigation might reveal criminal activity and therefore affirmed the district court’s finding that the defendant’s race or ethnicity was not the sole reason for the police encounter.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Probable Cause, Search incident to arrest | No Comments »

Walkaway conviction not a crime of violence under ACCA.

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

U.S. v. Lee, 586 F.3d 859 (11th Cir. 2009)

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to 180 months in prison. On appeal, he argued that the district court erroneously denied his motion to suppress the gun found in his co-defendant’s vehicle and abused its discretion by allowing improper jury instructions. The defendant also challenged his sentence arguing that his prior NJ convictions did not meet the standard under the ACCA to enhance his sentence.

The appellate court held that because the defendant, a passenger, had no legitimate expectation of privacy in the interior of the vehicle, he neither had a privacy expectation of the glove box, and lacked standing to challenge the search.

The appellate court also found that the district court’s jury instructions constituted an accurate statement of the law and therefore did not warrant reversal.

Lastly, the appellate court examined the defendant’s NJ prior walkaway conviction to determine it if fit within the ACCA’s enumerated crimes. It found that “a non-violent walkaway escape from unsecured custody is not sufficiently similar in kind or degree of risk posed to the ACCA’s enumerated crimes to bring it within its residual provision.” Therefore, the appellate court vacated defendant’s sentence and remanded back to the district court for resentencing.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Fourth Amendment, Jury Instructions, Motion to Suppress Evidence, Probable Cause, Search and Seizure, Search incident to arrest, sentence enhancement | No Comments »

Unsolicited private search does not constitute “search” under Fourth Amendment as long as search is confined to same scope as initial private search.

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

U.S. v. GARCIA-BERCOVICH, 582 F.3d 1234 (11th Cir. September 10, 2009)

Appealing his convictions for both conspiracy to distribute and possession with the intent to distribute at least 100 kilograms, but less than 1000 kilograms of marijuana, the defendant argued that there was insufficient evidence to establish his knowledge or awareness that there was marijuana contained in the package seized and that the district court erred when it denied his motion to suppress because the government improperly expanded the search. However, the appellate court found that sufficient evidence did exist to support the defendant’s knowledge or awareness because the defendant made multiple trips to pick up packages from an unknown source, he had prior convictions for marijuana importation, he acted with “deliberate ignorance” regarding the existence of contraband, and he attempted to evade the police when caught. The court then examined the legality of the motion to suppress and found no error because as long as the search was confined to the same scope as the initial search, once one box was opened permissibly, the others could also be searched as part of same package.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Conspiracy, Drug Crimes, Fourth Amendment, Motion to Suppress Evidence, Probable Cause, Search and Seizure, due process | No Comments »

The defendant was not entitled to Franks hearing.

Monday, July 27th, 2009

U.S. v. Valencia-Trujillo, 2009 WL 1929157 (11th Cir. July 7, 2009)

The defendant was convicted of several drug and money laundering crimes after being extradicted to the U.S. from Colombia in 2002. He was sentenced to 480 months imprisonment and to forfeit $110 million.  The Fourth Amendment does not apply to actions against foreign citizens on foreign soil. The Supreme Court has explained that a violation of the fourth Amendment is ‘fully accomplished’ at the time of an unreasonable governmental intrusion.

The case did not warrant reversal.

The Court of Appeals stated that the defendant points out that he put into evidence handwritten notes identifying the owners of the cocaine aboard both vessels and that he was not one of them. Yet other evidence existed from which the jury could find defendant responsible for the cocaine aboard those vessels. And, again, there were three other predicate acts anyway.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Fourth Amendment, Motion to Suppress Evidence, Probable Cause, Search Warrant, Search and Seizure | No Comments »

Arrest was supported by probable cause, therefore irrelevant for Fourth Amendment purposes.

Monday, July 27th, 2009

U.S. v. Goings, 2009 WL 1927455 (11th Cir. July 7, 2009)

The defendant pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine. He then appealed, challenging denial of his motion to suppress and argued that the District Court erred by denying his suppression motion only on the ground that the arrest leading to the discovery of the evidence violated Florida law. However, the Court of Appeals ruled that the district court correctly found that, under the Supreme Court’s Moore decision, it was irrelevant for purposes of the Fourth Amendment whether a defendant’s arrest violated state law, so long as it was supported by probable cause.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Fourth Amendment, Motion to Suppress Evidence, Probable Cause, Search and Seizure | No Comments »

Bahamian wiretap did not shock the judicial conscience.

Monday, July 20th, 2009

U.S. v. Emmanuel, 565 F.3d 1324 (11th Cir. April 21, 2009)

The defendant, a Bahamian citizen, was arrested in 2006 and charged with conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S.; attempting to import cocaine into the U.S.; possessing with intent to distribute cocaine while on board a vessel of the U.S.; and two counts of importing cocaine into the U.S. The court determined that the “shock he conscience” standard was meant to protect against conduct that violates fundamental international norms of decency. As a Bahamian citizen, the defendant was not entitled to protections under the Fourth Amendment as he had no previous significant voluntary connection with the U.S.

The District Court did not abuse its discretion in failing to declare a mistrial or giving a curative instruction.

A government witness stated that he knew the defendant from signing in as a condition of his bail. The defendant argues that this statement prejudiced his rights. The court held that, in light of the substantial evidence against the defendant, it is unlikely that, but for the reference to his condition of bail, the outcome of the trial would have been different.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Arrest Warrant, Conspiracy, Fourth Amendment, Motion to Suppress Evidence, Probable Cause, Search and Seizure | No Comments »

Reasonable suspicion of drug transaction led to probable cause to arrest defendant for possession of methamphetamine.

Monday, July 13th, 2009

United States v. Lopez-Garcia, 565 F.3d 1306 (11th Cir. 2009)

The defendant was convicted of being unlawfully found in the United States after having been previously removed and deported.

The defendant was pulled over for violating a traffic law in an area well-known for narcotics activity, after an officer observed his car stopped in the roadway and someone leaning into the passenger window. When asked for his driver’s license, the defendant showed the officer a Mexican license and said he had resided in the U.S. for several years. The defendant consented to the search of his car and the officer found a bulb-shaped glass tube containing a white residue believed to be methamphetamine.

He was arrested for possession and booked, and an ICE agent assigned to the jail performed a preliminary computer search where he learned that the defendant was born outside of the U.S. The ICE agent told the defendant that his purpose was to determine his immigration status. After this meeting, the agent received the Immigration Action Query that was run as part of the jail’s ordinary booking procedure, which indicated that the defendant had been deported, removed, or excluded in 2003 and no record of a legal entry was found.

At the second meeting, the agent read the defendant his Miranda warnings in Spanish from a standardized form which the defendant signed. The agent questioned the defendant in Spanish for about ten minutes and gave the defendant a copy of all the questions and answers, which he again willingly signed.

The defendant was indicted on federal charges of having been unlawfully found in the U.S. after having been previously removed and deported. The defendant moved to suppress the statements made to the ICE agent regarding his immigration status and the documentary evidence obtained. A magistrate judge held an evidentiary hearing and issued and R&R concluding that the arresting officer violated the Fourth Amendment when he stopped the defendant’s vehicle because he did not have either probable cause or reasonable suspicion. The judge then recommended that the evidence obtained at the scene of the arrest be suppressed. However, the R&R concluded that the defendants subsequent statements and documentary evidence should not be suppressed.

The officer had reasonable suspicion that defendant was engaged in hand-to-hand drug transaction and had probable cause to arrest defendant for possession of methamphetamine.

The District court held that officer’s suspicion was supported by several articulable facts including the location of the vehicle, physically, and in a high-crime area, an unknown individual leaning into the window, and the defendant leaving the scene once he noticed the officer. Furthermore, based on the substance and paraphernalia recovered from the consensual search, the officer reasonable believed that the defendant was in possession of methamphetamine.

The District court correctly concluded that the statements made to ICE agent were too removed from arrest to have suffered any taint.

Since the defendant’s seizure and arrest were not found to be unconstitutional , the fruit of the poisonous tree argument fails. In the alternative, even if the statements were tainted, they were too attenuated from the arrest to be regarded as fruit of the poisonous tree: the statements were made the day after the arrest; the arrest and questioning were done by two different individuals with two different objectives-immigration status and suspected drug activity; and neither the stop of the vehicle nor the immigration inquiry were made with an ulterior motive to prosecute the defendant for being illegally in the U.S.

The District court did not err in imposing the Guideline’s sixteen offense-level enhancement.

The defendant, prior to his removal, had a conviction for a felony firearms offense in Georgia, which, he argues, does not fall within the Guidelines 2L1.2 definition. The Court of Appeals found that the prior conviction met the Guidelines definition; and based on the facts set forth in the PSI, the District court correctly concluded that the defendant’s conduct from the previous conviction would have constituted a violation of Section 924(c) and therefore, the court was correct to impose the sixteen offense-level enhancement.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Arrest Warrant, Fourth Amendment, Motion to Suppress Evidence, Pre-Sentence Investigation Report, Probable Cause, Procedure, Search and Seizure, Search incident to arrest, Sentencing Guidelines, sentence enhancement, upward variance | No Comments »

Border patrol agent with more than 15 years of experience had “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity, of kind required to support stop of vehicle driven by defendant.

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

United States v. Bautista-Silva, 567 F.3d 1266 (11th Cir. 2009)

The Defendant, who was charged with knowingly transporting five illegal aliens within the United States for private financial gain, moved to suppress evidence discovered by the border patrol agent during a vehicular stop, on grounds that the agent did not have the requisite “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity needed to support such a stop. . The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida granted the suppression motion, and the government appealed.

District court, in considering whether border patrol agent had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, should not have engaged in “divide and conquer” analysis.

The agent’s decision to stop the defendant’s suburban was based on numerous factors that, in his professional experience, suggested that the vehicle contained illegal aliens. The District Court found that those facts were insufficient to justify a stop because they were “too commonplace to support [reasonable suspicion] or to be given meaningful weight in a ‘totality of the circumstances’ analysis.”

Tags: ,
Posted in Motion to Suppress Evidence, Probable Cause, Search and Seizure | No Comments »

Extraterritorial application of 18 USC Section 2251 warranted as part of a comprehensive scheme to eradicate sexual exploitation of children.

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

United States v. Kapordelis, No. 07-14499 (11th Cir 2009)

Defendant was convicted for producing, receiving, and possessing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. §2251(a), 2252A(2)(A), and 2252A(a)(5)(B). Defendant appealed his 420 month sentence and argued that the district court erred by: (1) denying his motion to dismiss Counts 1 and 3 of the Fourth Superseding Indictment; (2) denying his request for a Franks hearing and his motion to suppress evidence obtained under certain search warrants; (3) admitting testimony concerning his solicitation of sex from boys, under the age of eighteen, while in the Czech Republic under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b); (4) applying the 2003 US Sentencing Guidelines instead of the 2002 Guidelines in imposing a sentence; (5) finding that one of his victims was vulnerable, pursuant to U.S.S.G. Section 3A1.1; (6) double counting the number of images of child pornography and imposing a 2-level enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. Section 2G2.4(b)(2), and a 5-level enhancement under Section 2G2.4(b)(5)(D); (7) accepting a written victim impact statement during sentencing; and (8) imposing an unreasonable sentence.

Defendant was initially indicted on two counts of engaging in sex tourism. Then additional evidence was gathered and several superseding indictments were issued. The Fourth Superseding Indictment charged him with producing child pornography photographs and video on four separate occasions in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2251(a), receiving child pornography on a desktop computer and then a laptop computer, Section 2252A(2)(A), and possessing child pornography, Section 2252A(a)(5)(B). The PSR assigned an offense level of 41 and recommended a Guidlelines range of 324-405 months.

The court found that the extraterritorial application of 18 USC Section 2251 was warranted as the statute is a part of a comprehensive statutory scheme to eradicate sexual exploitation of children, and that “punishing the creation of child pornography outside the United States that is actually, is intended to be, or may reasonably expected to be transported in interstate or foreign commerce is an important enforcement tool.” (referencing United States v. Thomas, 893 F.2d 1066, 1069 (9th Cir. 1990). The court then considered the violation of Section 2251(a) alleged in Counts 1 and 3 to be a continuing offense, affirming the district court.

As to the Franks hearing, the court found that the magistrate judge undertook the evaluation prescribed by Franks and considered the affidavit in support of the search warrant with the omissions and additions proposed by Defendant and therefore did not err in declining to hold a hearing. Regarding the probable cause issue of the search warrant, the court found that the necessary nexus existed between the facts surrounding Defendant’s overseas travels and the facts that suggested he met and engaged in sexual activity with young boys, thus establishing the likelihood that evidence would be found in his home.

As to Defendant’s argument that evidence of trysts with young boys was precluded under FRE 404(b), the court ruled that “whether unlawful in the jurisdiction where they take place or not,” evidence “is admissible under Rule 404(b) if there is sufficient proof to support a jury’s finding that the defendant committed the similar act and the other act is probative of a material issue other that the defendant’s character.” The probative value of this evidence was found to outweigh its prejudicial nature.

The district court varied upward to the statutory maximum, giving the Defendant the longest sentence possible, based on his long history of abuse, parity, and the need for incapacitation. The Eleventh Circuit ruled that while the use of the 2002 Guidelines would have resulted in fewer enhancements, the overall record indicates that the district court would have imposed the same 420 month sentence had it applied the 2002 Guidelines.

Next, the court found the application of the vulnerable victim enhancement under U.S.S.G. Section 3A1.1 was not error as the boys qualified as “vulnerable victims” because they were asleep or otherwise nonresponsive and thus unable to object or respond in any way when Defendant took pornographic pictures of them.

Defendant’s arguments regarding double counting and the victim impact statement were rejected and the court then addressed the upward variance and reasonableness of the sentence by showing that the district court did not abuse its discretion and did take into consideration the Section 3553(a) factors, finding that “the 420 month sentence (1) promoted respect for the law, (2) illustrated the seriousness of the offense, and (3) will serve as a deterrent. Based on the totality of the circumstances, including the Defendant’s history of abuse, number of images in his possession, and the need to protect society, the Eleventh Circuit court found compelling justification to support the upward variance and reasonableness of the Defendant’s sentence.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Computer Sex Crimes, Fourth Amendment, Internet Crime, Motion to Suppress Evidence, Pre-Sentence Investigation Report, Probable Cause, Procedure, Search Warrant, Search and Seizure, Sentencing Guidelines, kiddie porn, sentence enhancement, upward variance | No Comments »

Reasonable suspicion and not probable cause enough for warrantless search of probationer’s home.

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

U.S. v. Carter, (case no. 08-00031) (N.D. Fla. April 27, 2009)

The defendant was on probation for felony battery and possession of cocaine when his probation officer suspected he was again involved in criminal conduct. The probation officer planned a warrantless search of the defendant’s townhome during which evidence of crack cocaine and a firearm were discovered, leading to his prosecution. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the search was not supported by probable cause. The district court denied the motion; and the defendant pled guilty to the two charges but reserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress.

The defendant argued that his fourth amendment right was violated because the search was not predicated on probable cause. Specifically, he argued that being a probationer does not subject him to searches based on reasonable suspicion alone. Rather, there must be some condition of probation that reduces a probationer’s expectation of privacy in the object of the search.

The Eleventh Circuit applied a balancing test set forth in United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 122 S. Ct. 587 (2001) which determines the reasonableness of a search “by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” (quoting Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 300, 199 S. Ct. 1297, 1300 (1999)). The court balanced the defendant’s privacy interest against the government’s interest and held that the defendant’s privacy interest was reduced by the condition of his probation which required him to submit to home visits by a probation officer. The court stated that, on the other hand, the government has a high interest in preventing drug and violence-related crimes-especially since this defendant has a history of drug and violence-related felonies. Therefore, the court concluded that search of the defendant’s home was permissible.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Fourth Amendment, Motion to Suppress Evidence, Probable Cause, Search Warrant, Search and Seizure | No Comments »

« Older Entries