United States v. Daniel Michael Kelley

981 F.2d 1464, 37 Fed. R. Serv. 1092, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 872, 1993 WL 8351
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 20, 1993
Docket91-4879
StatusPublished
Cited by198 cases

This text of 981 F.2d 1464 (United States v. Daniel Michael Kelley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth 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. Daniel Michael Kelley, 981 F.2d 1464, 37 Fed. R. Serv. 1092, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 872, 1993 WL 8351 (5th Cir. 1993).

Opinion

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:

Daniel Michael Kelley was convicted for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to the drug trafficking crime, and possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. He appeals, contending that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress. He also complains of prosecutorial misconduct, errors in eviden-tiary rulings, and misapplication of the Sentencing Guidelines. Finding no reversible error, we AFFIRM.

I

On November 9, 1990, Kelley and Sondra Andrews drove Andrews’s car from Butler, Alabama, to Houston, Texas. They spent the night at a motel in Houston, and left the following day, headed east on Interstate 10 toward Beaumont. As the vehicle approached Beaumont, two Beaumont police officers, Froman and LaChance, observed that Andrews was seated near the middle of the front seat. They began to follow the vehicle, and observed that Kelley was not wearing a seatbelt, because the buckle was hanging down over his left shoulder. The officers decided to stop the vehicle for the seatbelt violation.

Andrews and Kelley both testified that Kelley got out of the car and walked back to the police car, but the officers testified that they approached Andrews’s vehicle while Kelley and Andrews were both still inside the vehicle. In any event, Kelley presented his driver’s license to the officers at their request. Froman asked Kelley to step to the rear of the vehicle, while La-Chance questioned Andrews. When asked about the reason for their trip to Houston, Andrews and Kelley gave inconsistent answers. Based on that fact, as well as the apparent nervousness of both Kelley and Andrews, the officers decided to ask for consent to search the vehicle. Andrews signed a consent form for the search.

During the search, Officer Froman found a loaded .38 caliber revolver in the glove compartment. On the right floorboard was a blue canvas bag containing approximately $4,000 in currency. In the trunk, he found a loaded .45 caliber pistol, and a soft body armor ballistics vest. While the officers were questioning Andrews about these items, Kelley fled on foot into the wooded area across the interstate. Fro-man unsuccessfully pursued him, and Kelley remained free until apprehended in Alabama approximately six months later.

After Kelley fled, Andrews was arrested for unlawful carrying of weapons, and was placed in the back seat of the police car to await the arrival of a female officer to perform a body frisk. Later, after she had been taken to jail, Andrews told the officers that, immediately before the stop, Kelley had handed her a bag of cocaine and told her to hide it in her pants, and she had complied. When she was placed in the back seat of the patrol car, she took the cocaine out of her pants and hid it under the front passenger seat. A search of the police car later that evening resulted in the discovery of approximately ten ounces of cocaine underneath the front seat behind which Andrews had been sitting.

II

Kelley was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1); using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c); and possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). The district court denied his motion to suppress the evidence seized in the search of Andrews’s automobile.

Andrews entered into a plea agreement and testified against Kelley at the suppres *1467 sion hearing and at trial. The jury found Kelley guilty on all three counts. He was sentenced to 240 months on the cocaine possession count, to run concurrently with a sentence of 327 months on the felon-in-possession count. He was also sentenced to a consecutive term of 60 months imprisonment on the firearm count. He filed a timely notice of appeal.

Ill

Kelley contends that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress. He further contends that the district court erred in admitting evidence of his flight from the scene of the search, in ruling that an expunged conviction under the Youthful Offender Act was admissible, in overruling his objection to the prosecutor’s closing argument, and in applying the Sentencing Guidelines.

A

Kelley contends that the evidence seized in the search of the car should have been suppressed, because the valid stop for seat-belt violations became an illegal detention when the police officers conducted an investigation that was not reasonably related to the justification for the stop. He further contends that Andrews’s consent was involuntary, because it was the product of the allegedly illegal detention. 1

(1)

“The proponent of a motion to suppress has the burden of proving, by a preponderance of evidence, that the evidence in question was obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.” United States v. Smith, 978 F.2d 171, 176 (5th Cir.1992). We review the district court’s findings of underlying facts for clear error; questions of law are reviewed de novo. Id. In evaluating the legality of investigatory stops, we consider (1) whether the officer’s action was justified at its inception, and (2) whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place. ’ Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19-20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1878-79, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).

Kelley acknowledges that United States v. Causey, 834 F.2d 1179 (5th Cir.1987) (en banc), forecloses the contention, which he made to the district court, that the stop for seatbelt violations was a mere pretext to allow the officers to search for drugs or weapons. Accordingly, he now concedes that the stop was justified at its inception. However, he contends that the investigation conducted by the officers was not reasonably related in scope to the purpose of the stop. According to Kelley, once the officers obtained his driver’s license, they should have issued a citation or a warning and refrained from any further questioning or investigation. 2 He urges us to adopt the rationale of two cases from the Tenth Circuit, which has expressly rejected Causey. 3

In United States v. Guzman, 864 F.2d 1512 (10th Cir.1988), an officer stopped the *1468 defendant and his wife for seatbelt violations.

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Bluebook (online)
981 F.2d 1464, 37 Fed. R. Serv. 1092, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 872, 1993 WL 8351, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-daniel-michael-kelley-ca5-1993.