United States v. Aguilar

400 F. App'x 85
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedNovember 4, 2010
DocketNo. 09-4157
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 400 F. App'x 85 (United States v. Aguilar) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Aguilar, 400 F. App'x 85 (7th Cir. 2010).

Opinion

ORDER

Christopher Aguilar appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence found in his car during a warrant-less search. He argues that the government did not submit any evidence to support the facts upon which the police relied to find probable cause for the search. Because Aguilar never contested many of the asserted facts, the government was not required to furnish evidence of them, and the district court properly found probable cause based on the undisputed facts. Thus we affirm the judgment.

According to the government, in 2006 Aguilar formed a methamphetamine distribution conspiracy with his co-defendant James Braden. After Braden began cooperating with law enforcement, he provided a statement implicating himself and Aguilar in the conspiracy. Then, with Braden’s help the Drug Enforcement Administration(“DEA”) recorded a series of telephone calls between Aguilar and Braden in which the two planned a methamphetamine purchase and delivery in Evansville, Indiana, in October 2008. It also observed Bra-den’s cash payments to Aguilar, which were made with DEA money. Having monitored and recorded Aguilar’s planned delivery of methamphetamine to Braden in Indiana, law enforcement located Aguilar on the way to Evansville on October 11, 2008; once he was inside the city, an Evansville Police Department officer stopped him at the DEA’s direction. The officer also observed Aguilar speeding just before the stop. A drug detection dog brought to the scene alerted to drugs at Aguilar’s rental car.

The officers conducted a warrantless search of the trunk and found 371 grams of methamphetamine concealed in false can containers. In the passenger compartment, they located a cell phone used to make calls to Braden. Aguilar also had some of the DEA purchase money with him. A grand jury indicted Aguilar with one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), 841(b)(l)(A)(viii).

[87]*87Aguilar moved to suppress the evidence seized from the car. He argued that the search violated his rights because it did not fall within any exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Aguilar also requested an eviden-tiary hearing on the motion. The government, in response, argued that Braden’s cooperation, the controlled deliveries, and the phone calls recording the planned delivery provided ample probable cause to search Aguilar’s car in Evansville. Alternatively, the officer had an independent basis for probable cause based on the police dog alert after stopping Aguilar for speeding. The government denied the need for an evidentiary hearing because Aguilar raised “no material dispute concerning the underlying facts of the investigation, as outlined herein and in the defendant’s motion ... the relevant facts are un-controverted.” Aguilar did not disagree with that assertion in a reply brief.

At the suppression hearing, the parties discussed the nature of any fact dispute. Barbara Williams, Aguilar’s appointed attorney, explained that Aguilar did dispute that he was speeding and the dog’s reliability:

MS. WILLIAMS: Mr. Aguilar does dispute some of the facts that are alleged in the government’s response with respect to the circumstances of this matter. We believe that the stop was initially without probable cause. Mr. Aguilar questions the reliability of the police officers’ contention that he was speeding. He indicates that he believes he was not speeding and that was a pretextual stop and that because of that, there was not probable cause to conduct a search. With respect to the fact that there was a canine at the scene, as Mr. Brookman indicated, ran around the door, we believe that the Court’s finding that is sufficient when the dog alerted or finding that would be highly reliable would be inappropriate in this case because we believe that the testimony of the officers will be rebutted and that there will be evidence that the dog was not well trained, had not received a certification in compliance with the national rules for canine training, had performed his duties in a haphazard way, and had given numerous false positives; in fact, we believe that the evidence would be that the canine’s skills were very suspect....

Williams urged the court to apply Arizona v. Gant, — U.S.-, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009) (holding that a war-rantless car search is constitutional only if the arrestee can still access the car or the police have reason to believe it contains evidence of a crime), to render the search unconstitutional. The district court reasoned, however, that even without the speeding and the police dog, the government had probable cause based solely on the recorded phone conversations with Braden:

THE COURT: But here there was reasonable belief that there would be drugs or contraband found in the vehicle, based upon the recorded phone conversations, so it seems to me that [Gant ] wouldn’t apply.
MS. WILLIAMS: Well, Your Honor, we would ask the Court to consider applying this case because the search was because of a speeding violation. And even though there were telephone conversations that were made before that, I don’t believe that would give the police officer who made the stop initially probable cause to stop the car for speeding.

The district court decided that “based upon the pleadings and the arguments of counsel,” the government had probable cause to search Aguilar’s car. It denied the motion to suppress on two alternative bases: The combination of the statement [88]*88from Braden, the delivery of cash to Aguilar, and the recorded phone conversations “provided more than enough probable cause”; also, the police dog alert after the speeding stop “provided an independent basis for probable cause.”

Aguilar then replaced his appointed attorney, and the district court allowed new counsel to supplement the suppression motion. Aguilar’s amended motion to suppress raised three arguments. First, he maintained that reliance on Braden’s cooperative statement to law enforcement was not sufficient: “[T]he information provided by James Braden, standing alone, did not provide cause to allow the stop of [Aguilar’s] vehicle” because “there is no evidence that Braden had a previous track record with the officers.” Within this argument, Aguilar inserts one sentence about the recorded phone calls, asserting that in those calls “there is nothing but the corroboration of innocent travel plans” to visit a dying relative in Indiana. Second, he disputed the police dog’s alert because the government had not shown the dog’s reliability. Finally, Aguilar claimed that if the dog’s alert was reliable, it still did not provide probable cause to search the car’s trunk. After the government’s response, the district court denied the amended motion, adopting its earlier reasoning.

Aguilar then entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. He retained his right to appeal the decision on the motion to suppress. Based on a criminal history category of VI and a total offense level of 34, Aguilar’s guidelines range for imprisonment was 262 to 327 months. The district court sentenced him to 262 months’ imprisonment, and Aguilar timely appealed.

On appeal Aguilar argues that a district court’s finding of probable cause must be based on evidence, and the finding in this case was not.

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Related

United States v. Dortch
342 F. Supp. 3d 810 (E.D. Illinois, 2018)
Aguilar v. United States
179 L. Ed. 2d 483 (Supreme Court, 2011)

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Bluebook (online)
400 F. App'x 85, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-aguilar-ca7-2010.