United States v. Balser ( 2023 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 21-1813
UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
MICHAEL BALSER,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Landya B. McCafferty, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Kayatta, Lynch, and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Jaye L. Rancourt for appellant.
Anna Dronzek, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
Jane E. Young, United States Attorney, and Seth Aframe, Assistant
United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.
June 16, 2023
THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. This case poses the question
of whether and when a police officer, admittedly lacking his own
probable cause, may seize and search a car at the direction of
another officer. Enter Michael Balser. Following a suspected
drug buy, Balser was pulled over by Salem, New Hampshire police
officer Stephen DiChiara while driving up I-93, but only after a
United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) task force officer
asked DiChiara to conduct the stop. DiChiara stopped and then
seized the car, and a subsequent search of it uncovered roughly a
kilogram of cocaine. From there, Balser was indicted for
possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, so he moved to
suppress evidence of the drugs, asserting that DiChiara could not
act solely on the DEA officer's probable cause. After the district
court denied the motion, Balser conditionally pled guilty,
reserving his right to appeal the denial. This is that appeal.
For the reasons stated below, we affirm.
Background
When reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to
suppress, "we take the facts from the judge's decision and from
the hearing on the motion, presenting them in the light most
compatible with [her] ruling." United States v. McGregor, 650
F.3d 813, 816 (1st Cir. 2011).
Before getting to Balser's stop, we first offer a bit of
context on the federal drug investigation that precipitated it.
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DEA Investigation
In 2017, the DEA began investigating a drug trafficking
organization (DTO) headquartered in Lawrence, Massachusetts that
it believed to be selling large quantities of heroin, fentanyl,
and cocaine. As part of that DEA investigation, Salem, New
Hampshire police officer Nicholas Turner was assigned to work as
a task force officer, where he got versed in the ins-and-outs of
the DTO's business. This is some of what he learned. Typically,
a buyer would text the DTO's dispatch phone number and place their
drug-of-choice order, and the DTO would direct the buyer to pick
up their purchase somewhere in Lawrence (the location would
occasionally change). The buyer would let the DTO know when they
were 20 or 30 minutes away from the meet-up spot.
After about two years into the investigation, the DEA
team determined that its probe had "exhaust[ed]" -- they'd only
been able to arrest lower-level DTO members who wouldn't give up
any information and picking off those low-level members only caused
the DTO to change its dispatch number to avoid detection. Turner
explained that the DTO's dispatch number changed often -- seven to
ten times after he joined the investigation -- and each time the
dispatch number changed, the team would need to procure the new
number from a confidential source to further its investigation.
So, to enhance its monitoring of illegal drug activity and make
inroads into nabbing DTO hierarchy, the team sought, and in late
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February 2019 a federal judge granted, a 30-day Title III wiretap
of the DTO's electronic communications (i.e., text messages and
call logs to and from the dispatch number).1
Balser's Drug Buy
As part of his role in the investigation, Turner reviewed
wire intercepts between the DTO and its customers. Some 15 days
in to the first wiretap surveil, the known dispatch phone number
went dead, so the DEA team had to track down a new number from a
confidential source, which it confirmed by making a controlled
purchase on that number. Then on March 14, 2019, a judge approved
a second wire intercept of the new dispatch number, but after doing
so, there was a short transmission delay; it took the cell provider
about a day to begin providing messages from the new number to the
task force. This got remedied on March 15, when Turner, working
from the Bedford, New Hampshire wire room (just across the state
line from Lawrence), received a "flood" of messages from that day
and the day before.
Around 2:00 PM on the 15th, Turner began clearing the
deck of the prior day's messages when he noticed a conversation
1 Often used in drug trafficking investigations, a so-called
Title III wire refers to Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control
and Safe Streets Act of 1968, a Congress-created means for law
enforcement to surveil electronic communications, among other
media, if approved by a federal judge and certain other conditions
are met. See United States v. Cartagena, 593 F.3d 104, 108 n.1
(1st Cir. 2010).
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between the DTO and a new player, Balser (whose phone number was
identified by the cell provider). The back-and-forth from the
14th went like this:
DTO: Are you still coming tomorrow?
Balser: Yup.
DTO: Okay, [no problem], my friend . . . See
you tomorrow.
Balser: Usual plus sample.
DTO: [No problem], I'll add a ball of good
soft on your order.
Balser: For me, period, [thank you]. The
sample is brown, right?
DTO: One ball of brown and one ball of good
soft.2
Turner understood these messages to mean that Balser was
placing an order with the DTO to purchase drugs on March 15 (i.e.,
that day). Reviewing next the intercepts from earlier on the 15th,
Turner saw a message from the DTO to Balser, asking him to let the
DTO know when he was 30 minutes away from the pickup spot. Around
2:30 PM, Turner, after getting caught up with all the old messages,
saw Balser's reply come in live. Balser informed the DTO that he
was now 30 minutes away and heading toward 525 Essex St. in
Lawrence, as directed. That location was familiar to Turner since
the DEA team had conducted surveillance, made controlled
2Turner explained that the DTO would provide samples for
their usual customers to grow their business. And some terminology
for those curious -- according to Turner, "good soft" generally
means powder cocaine; "brown" is often heroin, but sometimes
fentanyl.
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purchases, and carried out some arrests there. By that point, DEA
agents were in Lawrence ready to surveil the pickup spot.
Balser then texted the DTO that he had arrived, the DTO
instructed him to enter the front door of the building and head up
to the fourth floor, and Balser texted back that he had made it
into the building. Seeing the texts, Turner radioed to the DEA
agents (already on the ground near Essex St.) that the DTO had
directed Balser there. He instructed them to close in on 525 Essex
St., as the messages suggested that Balser had just entered.
Agents responding to Turner's directive reported back that a white
Hyundai Sonata -- with Vermont plates registered to Balser -- had
parked nearby. Agents had also observed Balser exit the Sonata
and enter 525 Essex St. with a backpack, then return to the car
about five minutes later and drive off. The agents then followed
Balser as he drove away from Essex St. to I-93 North, and
maintaining their contact with Turner, told Turner to request that
a marked, uniformed police officer be dispatched to stop Balser's
car on the highway.
The Stop, Seizure, and Search
That's when Turner reached out to DiChiara, a Salem
police officer working a daytime patrol shift, to request that he
intercept Balser's car. DiChiara was no stranger to Turner or the
DEA investigation. The two had worked together as police officers
in Salem, Turner had previously called up DiChiara when the DEA
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team needed a uniformed officer to stop a car on I-93, and the two
had at some point discussed the wiretap and the ongoing
investigation. Turner testified that he told DiChiara that there
was a Title III wiretap as part of an ongoing drug investigation,
that the car had been in Lawrence to complete a drug transaction,
that the car was now driving north on I-93 toward Vermont, and
that there were suspected drugs inside.3 Turner asked DiChiara to
smoke out a traffic violation to justify stopping Balser, and to
develop his own probable cause to seize and search the car that
was separate from the DEA's. Turner explained that this type of
stop is called a walled-off or whisper stop, where local law
enforcement conducts a stop (or search) based upon their own
reasonable suspicion (or probable cause) to keep the broader
investigation under wraps.
3Turner's testimony about what information he shared with
DiChiara over the phone conflicts with DiChiara's testimony:
DiChiara testified that he was only told to look for a white sedan
with Vermont plates, but that Turner did not direct him to make
the stop, nor did Turner convey any information about the drug
investigation or Balser's drug transaction that day. The district
court credited Turner's testimony and found DiChiara's testimony
not credible based in part on inconsistencies in the various police
reports DiChiara filed after the incident. We usually apply the
"highly deferential" clear error standard to a district court's
"credibility calls," letting them "stand unless we are left with
a definite and firm conviction that the judge made a mistake."
McGregor, 650 F.3d at 820. Here, however, Balser has not raised
any argument that the district court clearly erred in crediting
Turner's testimony over DiChiara's. By failing to raise any
credibility argument in his brief, Balser has waived it. See
Sparkle Hill, Inc. v. Interstate Mat Corp., 788 F.3d 25, 29 (1st
Cir. 2015).
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After speaking with Turner, DiChiara was monitoring
traffic on I-93 when he spotted Balser's car drive by. As per
Turner's directive, he pulled Balser over for, as he puts it,
"traveling too close" to the car in front of him and for having an
obscured license plate. During the stop, DiChiara attempted to
develop his own probable cause to apprehend and search Balser's
vehicle. According to DiChiara, he concluded he had probable cause
to seize the car based upon several factors: (1) Balser's indirect
route from Massachusetts, where he claimed to be visiting his
mother, back home to Vermont, (2) Balser's apparent nervousness
(overly so) for a simple traffic stop, (3) Balser's cellphone
ringing during the stop and Balser not answering it, and (4) a
small piece of cotton on the driver's side rear floorboard, which
DiChiara said was "indicative of narcotics use."4 Believing he
had probable cause, DiChiara seized Balser's car, and had it towed
to the Salem police station, where a drug-sniffing dog (K9 Dash)
was deployed on the outside of the car. Dash alerted to the
presence of drugs in Balser's car, and with that positive
identification added to the reasonable-suspicion mix, DiChiara
applied for and received a warrant in New Hampshire state court to
search Balser's vehicle. In it, he found a kilogram of cocaine.
4 The government concedes that DiChiara lacked independent
probable cause, so we need not interrogate DiChiara's stated
justifications.
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District Court Proceedings
On November 13, 2019, a federal grand jury sitting in
the District of New Hampshire indicted Balser on a single count of
possession with intent to distribute cocaine. See 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Balser moved to suppress the drugs found
during the search of his car. In support, he argued that DiChiara
lacked reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop in the first place
and lacked probable cause to seize and search his car. In
response, the government invoked the collective knowledge doctrine
(more to come on that concept), asserting that the DEA's or
Turner's probable cause could be imputed to DiChiara when Turner
directed him to stop Balser's car. After a multi-day evidentiary
hearing -- where both Turner and DiChiara testified -- the district
court denied Balser's motion to suppress. Following that ruling,
Balser entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to
appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. See Fed. R. Crim P.
11(a)(2). The court sentenced Balser to time served with three
years of supervised release. And here we are.
Discussion
When reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to
suppress, we review its legal rulings de novo and factual findings
for clear error, "and we must uphold a denial of a suppression
motion if any reasonable view of the record supports it." United
States v. Gonsalves, 859 F.3d 95, 103 (1st Cir. 2017). Balser
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brings appellate challenges of both the factual-error and legal-
error varieties, which we'll now take in turn.
Factual Errors
Balser asserts that the district court made two factual
errors, which he says, "change the [legal] analysis of the
suppression issue" (to erroneous, we gather). He focuses on two
factual findings, but neither surpasses the high clear error bar.
See United States v. Siciliano, 578 F.3d 61, 67–68 (1st Cir. 2009)
("To find clear error, an inquiring federal court must form a
strong, unyielding belief, based on the whole of the record, that
a mistake has been made.").
First, and somewhat confusingly, Balser claims that the
district court "possibly overlooked" the fact that Turner reviewed
the March 14 messages on March 15 after the wire went back up,
such that "[t]here was very little time" for Turner and the DEA
agents to exchange information about Balser. We gather that Balser
argues (again without full explanation) that given the short time
frame, the district court clearly erred by finding that Turner did
share information with on-the-ground DEA agents (and vice versa)
that Balser was headed to 525 Essex St. in Lawrence to complete
his drug transaction. Even assuming the district court overlooked
the fact that Turner quickly reviewed the March 14 messages on the
next day, it supportably found that Turner and the DEA agents
exchanged information about Balser in real time on the 15th.
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Turner testified that he instructed the agents over the radio to
"position themselves near 525 Essex St." and explained to them
that Balser had placed an order with the DTO, and was heading
toward 525 Essex St., as directed by the DTO. Turner and the
agents stayed in communication as Balser approached and entered
that address. From there, the agents radioed back to Turner that
they had seen Balser get out of his car with a backpack, head in
to 525 Essex St., exit about five minutes later to get back in his
car, and drive off. We therefore find no clear error where the
record supports the court's finding that Turner and the DEA agents
indeed shared this information.
Second, Balser asserts that the district court's
findings overstated the information that Turner shared with
DiChiara over the phone when Turner directed DiChiara to stop
Balser, specifically the "observations in Lawrence" and "the
extent or content of the wire communications." Though he doesn't
spell it out, we presume what Balser means by "observations in
Lawrence" are the on-the-ground agents' observations of Balser
leaving his car, entering 525 Essex St. with a backpack, returning
to his car, and driving off. Similarly unexplained, we presume
what he is referring to as the "extent or content of the wire
communications" is the substance of the texts Balser exchanged
with the DTO. But contrary to Balser's assertions, the district
court did not find that Turner shared any such "observations" or
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the content of Balser's communications picked up by the wire.
Instead, it found that "Turner told DiChiara that the car had been
in Lawrence where the driver had likely completed a drug
transaction, that the car was headed north on Interstate 93, and
that Turner believed there were drugs inside the car[,]" and that
(emphasis ours), "Turner did not reference Balser's text messages
specifically, but he told DiChiara that this information was based
on a wiretap from an ongoing DEA investigation." Turner's
testimony, which the district court credited, supports the court's
factfinding.
Finding no clear error on either front, we reject
Balser's argument that errors in the district court's factfinding
infected its probable cause analysis.
Collective Knowledge
Balser contends that the district court erroneously
attributed Turner's probable cause to DiChiara to justify the stop,
seizure, and search of his car, since there's no dispute, he says,
that DiChiara failed to develop his own probable cause for any of
what transpired. Specifically, Balser challenges the district
court's application of the collective knowledge doctrine to the
facts here. Before assessing Balser's arguments for reversal, we
briefly walk through some background legal principles.
Usually, police must "obtain a warrant before conducting
a search [or seizure]," as the Fourth Amendment requires.
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Gonsalves, 859 F.3d at 103. But that general rule has several
exceptions, including the automobile exception. Id. The exception
applies when, as here, "a moving vehicle susceptible of
transporting contraband is lawfully stopped by the police on a
public highway." United States v. Simpkins, 978 F.3d 1, 6 n.1
(1st Cir. 2020). With that exception in play, all the police need
to search or seize a car is "probable cause to believe that
contraband is within the particular vehicle." Id. at 6; see United
States v. Silva, 742 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2014) (same). And police
have probable cause "when the totality of the circumstances
suggests that 'there is a fair probability that contraband or
evidence of a crime will be found in [the particular vehicle].'"
United States v. Gifford, 727 F.3d 92, 98 (1st Cir. 2013) (quoting
United States v. Hicks, 575 F.3d 130, 136 (1st Cir. 2009)). While
"reviewing the existence of probable cause . . . we look to the
collective information known to the law enforcement officers
participating in the investigation rather than isolate the
information known by the individual arresting officer." United
States v. Azor, 881 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2017). This is the so-
called collective knowledge doctrine.
Two of our sister circuits and several state courts have
helpfully labeled two categories where the collective knowledge
doctrine may apply: vertical and horizontal. See, e.g., United
States v. Massenburg, 654 F.3d 480, 493 (4th Cir. 2011); United
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States v. Chavez, 534 F.3d 1338, 1345–46 (10th Cir. 2008);
Commonwealth v. Privette, 204 N.E.3d 967, 975-76 (Mass. 2023).
Vertical collective knowledge cases look like this: "[W]hen a law
enforcement officer with information amounting to probable cause
directs an officer who lacks the knowledge to make the arrest, we
'impute' to the arresting officer the directing officer's
knowledge." United States v. Meade, 110 F.3d 190, 193 (1st Cir.
1997) (emphasis ours); Massenburg, 654 F.3d at 493 (explaining
that courts "simply . . . substitute the knowledge of the
instructing officer or officers for the knowledge of the acting
officer"). Predictably, horizontal cases function differently.
There, courts pool or "aggregate information available to . . .
all the officers involved in the investigation." United States v.
Winchenbach, 197 F.3d 548, 555 (1st Cir. 1999) (emphasis ours)
(citing Meade, 110 F.3d at 193-94). In other words, "a number of
individual law enforcement officers have pieces of the probable
cause puzzle, but no single officer possesses information
sufficient for probable cause." Chavez, 534 F.3d at 1345. The
two categories, however, are "by no means mutually exclusive," for
"the officer who has probable cause [in a vertical case] may
possess that information as a result of communication from other
officers." See id. at 1345 n.12.
Our prior cases have considered both scenarios without
using the same bifurcated nomenclature, but we've noted the
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distinction between directing another officer to make an arrest (a
so-called vertical case) and pooling or aggregating information
between multiple officers to create probable cause (a horizontal
case).5 See Meade, 110 F.3d at 194. And here, Balser's core legal
argument for reversal goes all in on us finding that this is a
horizontal case. Before proceeding, we note that both parties and
the district court used the same collective-knowledge lexicon, and
so, we follow suit and employ them too, with the caveat that the
two categories are not always cut and dry. See Chavez, 534 F.3d
at 1345 n.12.
With the basics of these two categories out of the way,
we move on to explain a key difference in their application. As
the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently explained after
extensively surveying state and federal cases applying various
permutations of the collective knowledge doctrine, "[r]eliance
upon vertical collective knowledge has sparked little controversy
. . .[,]" while, on the other hand, "[f]ederal and [s]tate courts
5 Our cases have not resisted these directional labels, and a
survey of out-of-circuit cases reveals no resistance either. Other
courts appear to simply distinguish their cases, like we have,
more substantively. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 627
F.3d 247, 253 (7th Cir. 2010) (applying collective knowledge
doctrine where "DEA agents asked local law enforcement officers to
stop a specifically-identified vehicle, and the local officers had
no knowledge of the facts underlying the DEA's probable cause"
(emphasis ours)); United States v. Sandoval-Venegas, 292 F.3d
1101, 1105 (9th Cir. 2002) (applying collective knowledge doctrine
where "pooled knowledge" of officers involved in investigation
amounted to probable cause for arrest).
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are split over how broadly to apply the horizontal outgrowth of
the collective knowledge doctrine." Privette, 204 N.E.3d at 975–
78; see, e.g., Massenburg, 654 F.3d at 494 (declining to expand
horizontal collective knowledge doctrine to permit after-the-fact
aggregation where on-scene officers did not share underlying facts
justifying reasonable suspicion with each other). Our own case
law has yet to squarely address the "maximum reach" of the so-
called horizontal collective knowledge doctrine (i.e., aggregation
of information among multiple officers), United States v.
Fiasconaro, 315 F.3d 28, 36 (1st Cir. 2002) (citing United States
v. Cook, 277 F.3d 82, 86 (1st Cir. 2002) (finding reasonable
suspicion where unconveyed information was aggregated from
different officers on the scene carrying out a stop, but also
expressing concern with courts more broadly pooling information to
justify searches)), although we have repeatedly permitted the
aggregation of information among multiple officers involved in an
investigation to find probable cause and uphold searches and
seizures, see, e.g., United States v. Verdugo, 617 F.3d 565, 573
(1st Cir. 2010); United States v. Pardue, 385 F.3d 101, 107 (1st
Cir. 2004); Cook, 277 F.3d at 86.
Jumping on what he sees as a split of authority, and a
dearth in our case law, Balser urges us to classify his case as
being part and parcel of the more controversial horizontal
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variety.6 He argues that Turner possessed some but not all the
information sufficient to support probable cause (though he fails
to specify in his brief what information Turner lacked), thus
needing to "pool[]" the information "relayed to him by multiple
members of the DEA task force," which prompted him to request that
DiChiara make the stop. And because this is a horizontal case,
Balser says, Turner was required to share more of the underlying
facts about the investigation with DiChiara, beyond the basic
tidbits conveyed (that Turner believed Balser was driving up I-93
with drugs in his car). Since Turner shared insufficient facts
about the investigation here (and because DiChiara failed to
develop independent probable cause of his own), the argument goes,
there was no probable cause for the stop, seizure, or search.
We disagree with the basic premise of Balser's
contention, which cuts our inquiry off at the start. Like the
district court, we conclude that Balser's case is best viewed as
vertical, not horizontal, after homing in on the interaction
6 Balser also argues briefly that the two seminal Supreme
Court cases establishing the collective knowledge doctrine did not
"clearly articulate approval of" it. We reject that argument out-
of-hand, as our longstanding precedent has applied the doctrine
based on these two cases. See, e.g., United States v. Ferreira,
821 F.2d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1987) (citing Whiteley v. Warden, Wyo.
State Penitentiary, 401 U.S. 560, 568 (1971) and United States v.
Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 232 (1985) to uphold arrest where knowledge
of one officer was imputed to another based on directive to make
an arrest); United States v. Cruz-Rivera, 14 F.4th 32, 44 (1st
Cir. 2021) (citing Hensley for the same).
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between Turner and DiChiara -- crucially, a fully clued-in Turner
directed DiChiara to stop Balser.
By the time Turner called DiChiara to request the stop,
he (Turner) knew all the facts supporting his own probable cause
to believe that Balser had purchased drugs from the DTO and was
driving up I-93 with those drugs in his car. Turner had personally
reviewed all the wire intercepts from March 14 and 15 showing that
Balser had placed an order with the DTO, that he was heading to
525 Essex St. for the transaction, and that he arrived and entered
the building. While DEA agents were on the ground to observe
Balser exit his car with backpack in hand to pick up the drugs,
then re-enter and drive off toward I-93 North, they communicated
these facts in real time to Turner in the wire room, so for our
probable cause inquiry, Turner possessed these facts, even if
indirectly. See Williams, 627 F.3d at 255 (explaining that it's
not relevant whether a directing officer learns information
firsthand or from other officers involved in the same
investigation, so long as that information amounts to probable
cause and leads to a sufficient directive to the arresting
officer); Chavez, 534 F.3d at 1347 (determining a case was
"vertical" where "the aspects of [a] DEA investigation that [were]
pertinent to the probable cause inquiry were known to" the
directing DEA officer, such that the directing officer "had all
the requisite probable cause components"). With all that
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information in tow, Turner had probable cause to believe Balser
possessed drugs in his car.
Turner then called up DiChiara and directed him to stop
the suspect vehicle. In so doing, he explained that the DEA was
up on a wire, that an individual (Balser) had ordered drugs and
completed his purchase, and that he then left the Lawrence,
Massachusetts area headed up I-93 North with drugs in his car.
Turner's directive to stop Balser was thus sufficient to attribute
Turner's probable cause to DiChiara. See Meade, 110 F.3d at 197(imputing directing officer's probable cause to arresting officer
after directive was given over radio to "locate the brown car and
arrest 'the third man'" involved in attempted robbery); United
States v. Paradis, 802 F.2d 553, 556–57 (1st Cir. 1986) (upholding
arrest ordered by superior, where DEA had probable cause but
arresting officer "admittedly lacked probable cause"); United
States v. Barnes, 506 F.3d 58, 63 (1st Cir. 2007) (holding that
officer's directive that arrestee be body searched was enough to
impute the directing officer's personal knowledge to the searching
officer). And we think the extent of the directive itself (as we
described above) was sufficient, too. Other courts to have
considered analogous factual circumstances have affirmed the
imputation of probable cause with similarly basic information
shared between the directing and arresting officers. See United
States v. Celio, 945 F.2d 180, 183-84 (7th Cir. 1991) (holding
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that state police had probable cause to stop and search a car based
solely upon DEA sharing "the location and direction of a specific
vehicle and its suspected contents" but not the "intricate details
of its surveillance"); see also Chavez, 534 F.3d at 1347(collecting cases from the Third, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth
Circuits holding that in vertical cases, "a police officer may
rely on the instructions of the DEA (or other law enforcement
agencies) in stopping a car, even if that officer himself or
herself is not privy to all the facts amounting to probable
cause").7
Given our conclusion that Turner's directive to DiChiara
was sufficient to impute Turner's probable cause to DiChiara, we
decline Balser's invitation to address both the outer limit of
horizontal collective knowledge cases and the quantum of
information that must be shared between officers in horizontal
cases, since this is not such a case. And Balser makes no argument
in the alternative that, should we find his case to be a vertical
Because we conclude that Turner adequately directed DiChiara
7
to apprehend Balser's car, we reject Balser's argument that the
collective knowledge doctrine cannot apply here because DiChiara
had no affiliation with the DEA investigation. Balser's argument
goes to horizontal cases. But there is no reliance here on the
aggregation of different pieces of information known by Turner and
DiChiara. Rather, DiChiara acted at Turner's direction, so by
virtue of the directive, there was "necessarily a communication
between those officers, and they are necessarily functioning as a
team." United States v. Ramirez, 473 F.3d 1026, 1036, 1037 n.8
(9th Cir. 2007) (cleaned up).
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one, as we have, he could still win. Accordingly, we spy no legal
error in the district court's denial of Balser's motion to
suppress.
Conclusion
For these reasons, we affirm.
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