United States v. Olivares-Campos

276 F. App'x 816
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedMay 2, 2008
Docket06-3411
StatusUnpublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 276 F. App'x 816 (United States v. Olivares-Campos) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth 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. Olivares-Campos, 276 F. App'x 816 (10th Cir. 2008).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

NEIL M. GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.

Jorge Olivares-Campos challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress drugs found in a search of his truck. Mr. Olivares-Campos argues that what began as a consensual encounter at a gas station became an illegal detention when the sheriffs deputy retained his license and registration without reasonable suspicion, and this illegal detention tainted his subsequent consent to the deputy’s request to search his truck, thus requiring suppression of the drugs found in that search as “fruit of a poisonous tree.” Even assuming the deputy seized Mr. OlivaresCampos within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when he retained his license and registration, we hold that reasonable suspicion of criminal activity existed at that time sufficient to justify a lawful investigative detention. Mr. Olivares-Campos’s subsequent consent to the search of his truck therefore was not tainted by an illegal seizure, and neither does it bear any other indicia of unlawful coercion. Accordingly, we affirm.

I

Mr. Olivares-Campos stopped for gas at Kelly’s Express in Topeka, Kansas, near Interstate 70, on an April morning in 2005. While Mr. Olivares-Campos filled up his pickup truck, Shawnee County Sheriffs Deputy Brian Rhodd arrived and parked his patrol car in front of the convenience store attached to the gas station. Deputy Rhodd observed that Mr. Olivares-Campos’s truck had a California license plate, and he noticed Mr. Olivares-Campos stealing glances at him.

Deputy Rhodd approached Mr. Olivares-Campos and asked if he could speak with him, and Mr. Olivares-Campos agreed. Deputy Rhodd inquired about Mr. Olivares-Campos’s travel plans; Mr. Olivares-Campos replied that he was traveling from California to Kansas City, where he planned to find work on a golf course. Mr. Olivares-Campos explained *818 that he' did not know where he was going to live in Kansas City and that he had to call someone when he arrived. Deputy Rhodd noticed that the bed of the truck contained only extension cords and Mr. Olivares-Campos was traveling with only one small bag.

During the pair’s conversation, it came out that Mr. Olivares-Campos did not own the truck he was driving and that he only knew the owner by his first name, Francisco. He offered the vehicle registration to Deputy Rhodd, which showed the truck was owned by a Francisco Rosales. Deputy Rhodd then asked Mr. Olivares-Campos for his license. Deputy Rhodd later testified that as Mr. Olivares-Campos held out his documents his hand shook severely — so much so that he could not still it — and his heart pounded visibly through his shirt.

While Mr. Olivares-Campos went to pay for the gas inside the convenience store, Deputy Rhodd took the vehicle registration and driver’s license to his patrol car to run checks through dispatch. At this time he also moved his patrol car next to Mr. Olivares-Campos’s truck, though without blocking it, and called Deputy Tracey Trammel, a canine handler, to the scene for assistance. When Mr. Olivares-Campos returned from paying for the gas, Deputy Rhodd returned his documents and asked where and with whom he was staying in Kansas City. Mr. Olivares-Campos said he was going to stay with his friend Francisco, the owner of the vehicle. Deputy Rhodd then asked how Mr. OlivaresCampos had come into possession of the truck, and Mr. Olivares-Campos explained that he had flown from Washington state to California to pick up the truck and was driving it to Kansas City as a favor for Francisco. During this conversation, dispatch reported that Mr. Olivares-Campos’s license was expired, but that he had no criminal history, and that the truck was registered in California to Francisco Rosales. Deputy Rhodd advised Mr. Olivares-Campos to take care of his expired license but later testified that he would not have arrested him for this offense.

After this, Deputy Rhodd wrapped up the conversation, saying “hey, I appreciate it, okay,” and Mr. Olivares-Campos replied “thanks, man.” But then Deputy Rhodd inquired if he could ask Mr. Olivares-Campos a few more questions. Though Mr. Olivares-Campos responded that he had to go, Deputy Rhodd nonetheless began asking whether there was anything illegal in the vehicle. Deputy Rhodd asked specifically whether Mr. Olivares-Campos was transporting marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, or illegal drugs. Mr. Olivares-Campos denied all of this, but Deputy Rhodd later testified that when Mr. Olivares-Campos denied transporting methamphetamine, he looked away in a manner Deputy Rhodd interpreted as deceitful.

Deputy Rhodd then asked for permission to search the truck, and Mr. OlivaresCampos agreed. Deputy Rhodd asked whether Mr. Olivares-Campos was more comfortable reading in Spanish or English, and when Mr. Olivares-Campos responded that he was more comfortable with Spanish, Deputy Rhodd provided him with a consent to search form that was written in Spanish, which Mr. Olivares-Campos read and signed. The form clarified that Mr. Olivares-Campos did not have to consent to the search or sign the form and that, by signing the form, he acknowledged that no promises, threats, force, or coercion had been used against him to secure his consent or signature.

While Mr. Olivares-Campos was reading the consent form, Deputy Trammel arrived with his drug detection dog, which he ran around the truck. The dog did not alert. After Mr. Olivares-Campos signed the *819 consent form, Deputy Rhodd directed him to move his truck to the south end of the parking lot, where he and Deputy Trammel began to search it. They noticed a heavy undercoating spray under the bed of the truck, which they testified is sometimes used to disguise welds and other indications of a hidden compartment fashioned for carrying contraband. Deputy Trammel also noticed freshly tooled bolts, suggesting to him that the bed of the truck had been removed recently, though the bed itself was not new. Eventually, Deputy Trammel drilled a hole up into the track and, using a probe, discovered a cavity containing something movable and saw cellophane. The deputies asked Mr. Olivares-Campos to follow them in his truck to the sheriffs office approximately seven miles away; there they ultimately found fourteen packages amounting to 5,820 grams of methamphetamine inside the hidden compartment.

Charged with possessing with intent to distribute approximately seven kilograms of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A), Mr. Olivares-Campos moved to suppress the drugs as fruits of an illegal detention and search. 1 The district court denied the motion, finding that the entire encounter was consensual. Alternatively, even if Mr. Olivares-Campos was detained, the court held that reasonable suspicion existed that he was involved in trafficking drugs and he thereafter freely consented to the search of his vehicle. After the court’s ruling, Mr. Olivares-Campos entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal the district court’s suppression order.

II

As in all appeals from a district court’s order on a motion to suppress, we approach Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
276 F. App'x 816, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-olivares-campos-ca10-2008.