United States v. Hernandez-Dominguez , 1 F. App'x 827 ( 2001 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
JAN 5 2001
TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
No. 99-3305
(D.C. No. 98-40116-02-RDR)
JUSTINO HERNANDEZ-
(Dist. Kan.)
DOMINGUEZ,
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before EBEL and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges and COOK, Senior District Judge. **
After a jury trial, Appellant Justino Hernandez-Dominguez (“Dominguez”)
was convicted of possession with intent to distribute and conspiracy with intent to
distribute approximately 1,992 grams of a mixture containing methamphetamine.
Dominguez now appeals the district court’s denials of his motion to suppress and
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. This court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
**
The Honorable H. Dale Cook, Senior District Judge, United States District
Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, sitting by designation.
his motion for judgment of acquittal, arrest of judgment, and new trial. We
affirm.
BACKGROUND
On October 23, 1998, Dominguez and Ivan Hernandez-Mercado
(“Mercado”) were stopped for a traffic violation on Interstate 70 in Lincoln
County, Kansas. The officer had observed the vehicle crossing the center line of
the highway three times. Upon request, Mercado, the driver of the car, provided
the officer with his license, registration, and proof of insurance. The officer
spoke to the two men in English and Spanish. 1 Mercado spoke English and
Spanish when responding to the officer’s questions, and the officer testified that
he did not have problems communicating with Mercado. The officer spoke
mostly Spanish when communicating with Dominguez, who seemed to have more
trouble speaking English.
The officer had Mercado sit in his car while he ran checks on Mercado’s
license and verified that Mercado was the owner of the vehicle. In response to
the officer’s questioning, Mercado told the officer that he and Dominguez had
been in Los Angeles attending his cousin’s wedding for two days, and were
driving from Los Angeles to Atlanta. The officer noticed that Mercado appeared
1
Although the officer who made the stop is not fluent in Spanish, he had
taken 40 hours of “street Spanish” through the Kansas Highway Patrol Training
Academy as well as several semesters of Spanish in high school.
-2-
nervous as he was asking him questions, and that Mercado was avoiding eye
contact. When the officer asked Mercado where he worked, Mercado first said
Los Angeles, and then changed his answer to Atlanta. Although Mercado told the
officer he had been living in Atlanta for the past three months, he had a driver’s
license issued just three months earlier from Miami Beach, Florida. The officer
asked Mercado if he had a green card and Mercado responded that he did not.
The officer asked Mercado if he was an illegal alien, and Mercado indicated he
was by nodding his head. At that point, dispatch advised the officer that Mercado
had a valid license and no criminal history. The officer then told Mercado he
could take a seat back in his own vehicle.
The officer had Dominguez take a seat in the patrol car. As this was
happening, Mercado opened the trunk of his car without being asked to do so.
The officer told Mercado to close the trunk. At this time, the officer noticed that
both Mercado and Dominguez had pagers on their belts. The officer asked
Dominguez for identification, and he responded that he had none. The officer
asked Dominguez if he had a green card, and he responded that he did not. The
officer ultimately obtained from Dominguez a Mexican federal ID card indicating
his name and date of birth. A check revealed that there were no warrants under
that name and date of birth. In response to the officer’s questions, Dominguez
stated that he and Mercado had been in Los Angeles visiting their friend Roberto,
-3-
but could not give a specific answer as to how many days they had been in Los
Angeles.
The officer gave Mercado a warning for the traffic violations and asked if
he could ask a few more questions before Mercado left. Mercado agreed. The
officer obtained voluntary consent to search the car from both Dominguez and
Mercado. During the search, the officer looked in the trunk and saw a spare
battery, which raised his suspicions because he had heard of narcotics being
smuggled in batteries. The officer then looked under the hood, pulled the top off
of the battery, and found vacuum packed packages of methamphetamine. At that
point, the officer placed Mercado and Dominguez under arrest and Mirandized
them in English. They were transported to the Lincoln County Jail, where both
were again Mirandized, this time in Spanish by a native Spanish speaking officer.
The two men were then interviewed separately. During those interviews,
Mercado told the officers that he and Dominguez were working for someone in
Los Angeles named La Bota. He also told them that on October 28, 1998, he and
Dominguez met with an unknown individual in the parking lot of a Los Angeles
mall, where their car battery was removed and replaced with a device that
appeared to be a battery, but in fact contained a false compartment packed with
methamphetamine. Mercado further told the officers that Dominguez was the
main contact who “set the load of methamphetamine up.” Mercado also told the
-4-
officers that he and Dominguez were supposed to get $3,000 for delivering the
battery to La Bota’s brother in Atlanta.
Dominguez separately told the officers that he knew of the agreement to
transport the methamphetamine, and that he knew the designated recipient of the
drugs. He also said that he had introduced Mercado to the recipient. Dominguez
told the officers the name of the apartment complex where the recipient lived and
showed them La Bota’s number on his pager. He also explained to them how the
false compartment worked on the battery. Dominguez further admitted to being
present in the Los Angeles parking lot where the battery was removed from the
car and replaced with the new battery containing the methamphetamine.
Dominguez also told the officers that he was the one who actually owned the
vehicle in which he and Mercado were traveling, and that the car was registered
in Mercado’s name only because Mercado had a valid driver’s license and
Dominguez did not.
On December 16, 1998, Dominguez and Mercado were indicted in the
United States District Court for the District of Kansas. Count I of the indictment
alleged that defendants Mercado and Dominguez knowingly and intentionally
possessed, with the intent to distribute, approximately 1,992 grams of a mixture or
substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine, in violation of 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Count II alleged that on or about October 20, 1998, and
-5-
continuing until October 23, 1998, Mercado and Dominguez knowingly, willfully,
and unlawfully conspired to possess with intent to distribute approximately 1,992
grams of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of
methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846.
The defendants moved to suppress the drugs found in the vehicle and the
statements they gave to the authorities, claiming they were illegally detained. The
district court denied the motion. At Dominguez’s jury trial, 2 the court submitted
instructions to the jury that did not contain a venue instruction. Dominguez did
not object to the lack of such an instruction. The jury found Dominguez guilty of
both charges.
On June 11, 1999, Dominguez filed a motion for acquittal, arrest of
judgment, and new trial, based upon the argument that the jury instructions did
not contain a venue instruction. The district court denied that motion.
Dominguez was sentenced to serve 188 months in prison on each count, with the
time to be served concurrently.
2
Mercado entered into a plea agreement with the government.
-6-
DISCUSSION
I. Denial of Motion to Suppress
On appeal, Dominguez challenges the district court’s denial of his motion
to suppress the drugs found in the car and the statements he subsequently gave to
the troopers. Specifically, Dominguez argues that the officer should have
released Mercado and Dominguez after he determined that Mercado’s license was
valid and there were no outstanding warrants. He asserts that anything discovered
after that point should have been suppressed as the result of an illegal detention.
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we accept the factual
findings of the district court unless they are clearly erroneous. The
ultimate determination of reasonableness under the Fourth
Amendment, however, is a question of law which we review de novo.
We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the district
court’s determination.
United States v. Wood, 106 F.3d 942, 945 (10th Cir. 1997) (internal citations
omitted).
Dominguez does not challenge the validity of the initial stop. The stop was
valid because it was based upon a traffic violation observed by the officer: failure
to maintain a single lane of traffic under Kan. Stat. Ann. § 8-1522. See also
Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996).
An officer conducting a routine traffic stop may legitimately detain a driver
while requesting a driver’s license and vehicle registration, running a computer
check, and issuing a citation. See United States v. Hunnicutt, 135 F.3d 1345,
-7-
1349 (10th Cir. 1998). “Once the driver produces a valid license and proof that
[he] is entitled to operate the car, the driver must be permitted to proceed.”
United States v. Jones, 44 F.3d 860, 872 (10th Cir. 1995). An officer may only
lengthen the stop for questioning beyond that related to the initial stop if (1) the
officer has an objectively reasonable and articulable suspicion that illegal activity
has occurred or is occurring, or (2) the initial detention has become a consensual
encounter. See Hunnicutt, 135 F.3d at 1349. The government concedes that the
officer’s questioning of Dominguez, after he had determined that Mercado’s
license was valid, was beyond the scope of and unrelated to the initial stop. The
government also concedes that the stop had not been transformed into a
consensual encounter at this point. Thus, the question before us is whether the
officer had an objectively reasonable and articulable suspicion that illegal activity
had occurred or was occurring. We agree with the district court that he did.
The determination of whether investigative detention beyond the scope of
the initial stop is supported by an objectively reasonable suspicion of illegal
activity “does not depend upon any one factor but on the totality of the
circumstances.” Jones, 44 F.3d at 872 (citing United States v. Soto, 988 F.2d
1548, 1555 (10th Cir. 1993). We make this determination “with deference to a
trained law enforcement officer’s ability to distinguish between innocent and
suspicious circumstances.” United States v. Mendez, 118 F.3d 1426, 1431 (10th
-8-
Cir. 1997). Here, while the officer was checking Mercado’s license and
registration, Mercado revealed that he was an illegal alien. Further detention of
Mercado was therefore justified, as was the questioning of Dominguez. See
United States v. Salinas-Calderon, 728 F.2d 1298, 1301 n.3 (10th Cir. 1984)
(stating that “[a] state trooper [who has executed a lawful stop] has general
investigatory authority to inquire into possible immigration violations”).
Moreover, the officer testified to several factors that caused him to suspect illegal
activity:
[Mercado] was coming from Los Angeles, which is a major
distribution point for the United States for narcotics. He had said he
– he had told me that his cousin – he went out to see his cousin, who
got married last week, but he had only been in L.A. for two days, and
if they’re driving all night, we’re probably looking at two more days
for their trip back. He was nervous and avoided eye contact as I
spoke with him. He’s up on I-70, which is a couple hundred miles
out of his way. Didn’t make sense to me why he would be clear up
here for that route back home. They had pagers on their belts, a cell
phone in the car.
Based on his experience, 3 the officer perceived these factors as “indicators of
narcotics smuggling.” Further contributing to the officer’s suspicions were the
3
The officer in question testified that he was experienced in narcotics
interdiction and had conducted between 30 to 50 narcotics interdiction stops. His
narcotics interdiction training included at least eight hours in the Highway Patrol
basic training academy, and approximately two weeks of advanced highway
criminal interdiction training.
-9-
facts that Mercado gave inconsistent statements about the city in which he
worked, appeared nervous, and avoided eye contact.
The factors cited by the officer have been acknowledged as factors that can
give rise to reasonable suspicion. Unusual or implausible travel plans, such as the
very brief stay in Los Angeles despite the lengthy drive back to Atlanta, and the
indirect path being taken to get to Atlanta, can contribute to a reasonable
suspicion of illegal activity. See Mendez, 118 F.3d at 1431; United States v.
Wood, 106 F.3d 942, 946-47 (10th Cir. 1997). Inconsistent statements may also
give rise to reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. See Wood, 106 F.3d at 947
(“As with unusual travel plans, inconsistencies in information provided to the
officer during the traffic stop may give rise to reasonable suspicion of criminal
activity.”). The fact that travel commenced in a city such as Los Angeles, which
is known for drug trafficking, may factor into the assessment. See United States
v. Espinosa, 782 F.2d 888, 891 (10th Cir. 1986). Although Mercado’s
nervousness and failure to make eye contact is rarely the kind of factor that is
dispositive in the inquiry, it can contribute to reasonable suspicion. See United
States v. Kopp, 45 F.3d 1450, 1454 (10th Cir. 1995); United States v. Soto, 988
F.2d 1548, 1554 (10th Cir. 1993). Pagers and cell phones, again, while not
dispositive, may be indicative of illegal activity because they are known tools of
-10-
the drug trade. See United States v. Slater, 971 F.2d 626, 637 (10th Cir. 1992)
(stating that a cell phone is a “recognized tool of the trade in drug dealing”).
When viewed collectively, these factors, which were recognized prior to the
determination that Mercado’s license was valid, support a finding of reasonable
suspicion of illegal activity. The officer therefore had authority to extend the
traffic stop for further questioning, and, once the consent to search was given by
Mercado, the driver of the car, Dominguez, the passenger, could not challenge the
fruits of that search. 4 See Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 148-49 (1979); United
States v. Lewis, 24 F.3d 79, 81 (10th Cir. 1994). In fact, the record indicates that
Dominguez himself consented to the search. The district court did not err in
denying the motion to suppress.
II. Denial of Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, Arrest of Judgment, and New
Trial
Dominguez’s other argument on appeal is that the district court erred by
failing to grant his motion for judgment of acquittal, arrest of judgment, and new
trial. Dominguez argues that the failure to instruct the jury on the issue of venue
4
On appeal, Dominguez did not raise more specific challenges to the
admission of the statements he made after being transported to the Lincoln
County jail. We note, however, that Dominguez was properly Mirandized, and
that there is no credible evidence indicating that his statements to the officers
were involuntary.
-11-
resulted in the charging instructions failing to allege a crime, and that therefore
the convictions and sentence should be vacated.
We review the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal de novo,
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government to
determine if the jury could have found defendant guilty of the
essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. However,
when the motion raises a question of venue, we alter the analysis
somewhat, for unlike other substantive elements of the offense
charged, the government need only prove venue by a preponderance
of the evidence.
United States v. Byrne, 171 F.3d 1231, 1234 (10th Cir. 1999) (internal citations
omitted). At oral argument, counsel for Dominguez admitted that he did not
request a venue instruction, and that he consciously and deliberately did not
object when he noticed that there was no venue instruction included in the
proposed instructions.
“Although venue is a right of constitutional dimension, . . . [w]e have . . .
applied a more relaxed standard for finding waiver of venue rights than for
finding waivers of other constitutional rights in criminal trials. A defendant can
waive venue rights by his inaction.” United States v. Miller, 111 F.3d 747, 749-50
(10th Cir. 1997) (citing Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 306, at 219-220
(2d ed. 1982)). Dominguez’s counsel admits that at the jury instruction
conference, he recognized that the instructions did not contain a specific venue
instruction, and that he then intentionally refrained from objecting to those
instructions. We hold that Dominguez has therefore waived his right to contest
-12-
venue. “A waiver is ordinarily an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a
known right or privilege.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 (1938).
Counsel’s intentional failure to object to the lack of a venue instruction meets this
definition.
We further note that the jury must have found that Dominguez possessed
the methamphetamine described in the indictment in the District of Kansas. The
evidence clearly showed that he and his co-defendant were stopped in Kansas in
possession of the drugs. As the district court stated, “It is not theoretically
possible that [the jury] found that defendant possessed the drugs in some other
state (California, for example), but not in Kansas.” With respect to the
conspiracy charge, venue lies “either in the jurisdiction in which the
conspiratorial agreement was formed or in any jurisdiction in which an overt act
in furtherance of the conspiracy was committed by any of the conspirators.”
Miller, 111 F.3d at 753 n.8. The guilty verdict on the conspiracy count
necessarily incorporated a finding that an overt act in furtherance of the
conspiracy, the transporting of the drugs, was committed in Kansas. See United
States v. Carter, 130 F.3d 1432, 1438-39 (10th Cir. 1997) (holding that venue for
a conspiracy conviction was satisfied when the defendant was arrested in New
Mexico in possession of the drugs because the jury necessarily found that an
agreement existed when the defendant committed the overt act of transporting the
-13-
drugs). Therefore, venue was satisfied, and the district court did not err in
denying the motion for judgment of acquittal, arrest of judgment, and new trial.
CONCLUSION
The district court did not err in denying the motion to suppress and the
motion for judgment of acquittal, arrest of judgment, and new trial. We AFFIRM
the defendant’s conviction.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
David M. Ebel
Circuit Judge
-14-