United States v. Rene Ramirez-Jimenez , 652 F. App'x 211 ( 2016 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-4204
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RENE RAMIREZ-JIMENEZ,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Joseph F. Anderson, Jr., Senior
District Judge. (3:13-cr-00486-JFA-5)
Argued: May 12, 2016 Decided: June 20, 2016
Before NIEMEYER, GREGORY, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Judge Harris wrote the
opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge Gregory joined.
ARGUED: Aimee Zmroczek, A.J.Z. LAW FIRM, LLC, Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellant. Jimmie Ewing, OFFICE OF THE UNITED
STATES ATTORNEY, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON
BRIEF: William N. Nettles, United States Attorney, John David
Rowell, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED
STATES ATTORNEY, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge:
Rene Ramirez-Jimenez was convicted by a jury of federal
drug-trafficking offenses. His sole challenge on appeal is to
the denial of his motion to suppress certain evidence uncovered
during a traffic stop and later used to identify him at trial.
For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
I.
A.
On September 27, 2012, Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) agents, assisted by a Richland County Sheriff’s Department
task force, arranged a controlled drug purchase. The target of
their investigation was Eduardo Valencia-Gaeta, a
methamphetamine dealer who went by the nickname “Lelo.” The DEA
agents outfitted their confidential informant, Dennis Kasabian,
with concealed audio and video equipment, and sent him to a
Lowe’s parking lot to meet Lelo.
Shortly after Kasabian met Lelo, a dark Chevrolet Silverado
truck with two occupants parked directly behind Lelo’s vehicle,
leading the agents to wonder whether the Silverado was involved
in the deal. Lelo told Kasabian that they would need to go to a
nearby restaurant, Monterrey’s, to break down the package of
methamphetamine to be purchased. The agents’ interest in the
Silverado heightened when Lelo, Kasabian, and the occupants of
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the Silverado all drove to Monterrey’s in their respective
vehicles. Once they arrived at the restaurant, Lelo and the
occupants of the Silverado went inside, and a short time later
Lelo returned outside to complete the transaction with Kasabian.
Kasabian understood the occupants of the Silverado, whom he had
not met previously and did not know by name, to be the suppliers
of the methamphetamine. After the buy, DEA agents met Kasabian
at a secure location to debrief and retrieve the purchased
drugs.
At the DEA’s direction, Kasabian called Lelo to negotiate
another purchase for later the same day, and it was agreed that
Kasabian would purchase four ounces of methamphetamine for
$5,400. Kasabian promptly returned to Monterrey’s to meet Lelo.
Before completing the transaction with Kasabian, Lelo again
spoke with the occupants of the Silverado inside Monterrey’s.
According to DEA agents observing the restaurant, the Silverado
had remained at Monterrey’s the entire time. After the deal was
done, Kasabian rendezvoused with the DEA agents and gave them
the drugs that he had acquired. Lab testing showed that the
substance from both buys was methamphetamine.
Following the second controlled buy, the DEA maintained
continuous surveillance on the Silverado. In an effort to
identify the occupants of the Silverado — but without tipping
its hand as to the ongoing drug investigation — the DEA
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requested that the South Carolina Highway Patrol initiate a
traffic stop of the vehicle. At approximately 4:02 p.m.,
Trooper Michael Shank spotted a littering violation and pulled
the truck over.
Because the ensuing stop is the focus of this appeal, we
recount it in some detail. Trooper Shank first asked the driver
and passenger of the Silverado for their identification.
Neither had a driver’s license, but both provided identification
cards. The driver of the vehicle was identified as Omar Gomez-
Suarez, and the passenger as the appellant, Rene Ramirez-
Jimenez. Trooper Shank then asked both occupants to exit the
vehicle. When Gomez-Suarez and Ramirez-Jimenez stood outside of
their vehicle, the police’s in-car video recording captured
their likenesses. At approximately 4:06 p.m., Trooper Shank
asked Gomez-Suarez for consent to search the vehicle, which
Gomez-Suarez granted. Trooper Shank then commenced an initial
search of the truck.
Around this time, a second South Carolina Highway Patrol
officer, Trooper Derrick Melton, arrived on the scene and took
charge of the traffic violation component of the stop. Trooper
Melton began preparing citations for littering and failing to
produce a driver’s license. At approximately 4:22 p.m., once
the citations were complete, Trooper Melton called dispatch to
verify the identification cards. Just over ten minutes later,
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Melton was able to confirm Gomez-Suarez’s address and learn that
he did not possess a valid driver’s license. At that point, at
roughly 4:35 p.m., Trooper Melton took photographs of the
identification cards and returned them to Gomez-Suarez and
Ramirez-Jimenez.
In the meantime, at the instruction of the DEA, Trooper
Shank continued to search the Silverado for evidence of drugs or
money from the controlled drug transactions. After failing to
uncover any contraband in his initial pass-through of the
vehicle, Shank called on the York County Interdiction Team to
execute a more comprehensive search. The search continued until
the police found a wad of money tied up in a washcloth, slightly
less than one hour after the vehicle originally was stopped.
The DEA asked the troopers not to arrest the Silverado’s
occupants. Instead, Trooper Melton informed Gomez-Suarez and
Ramirez-Jimenez that they could leave, but would need to post
bond for driving without a license. The troopers then returned
the money found inside the washcloth, less the amount of the
bond, and let Gomez-Suarez and Ramirez-Jimenez go.
The entire stop lasted just over one hour. The troopers
did not seize any evidence. But during the course of the
traffic stop, Shank and Melton were able to observe several
distinctive tattoos on the passenger’s arms, including one of
the appellant’s first name, “Rene.”
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B.
In June 2013, a grand jury in the United States District
Court for the District of South Carolina charged Ramirez-Jimenez
with two methamphetamine-related offenses: one count of
conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more
of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846; and one
count of possession with intent to distribute and distribution
of 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A). Ramirez-Jimenez was arrested in
April 2014.
Ramirez-Jimenez planned to argue at trial that he had been
misidentified, and was not in fact the passenger in the
Silverado. In aid of that defense, he moved to suppress the
identification evidence recovered from the September 27 traffic
stop: the in-car video recordings and still photographs showing
his likeness, and the troopers’ observations of his tattoos.
Ramirez-Jimenez conceded that the initial stop of the car was
valid, based on probable cause of a littering violation. The
problem, Ramirez-Jimenez argued, was that the duration of the
roughly hour-long stop was excessive. Once Trooper Melton
finished preparing the citations and checking background
information, Ramirez-Jimenez contended, the tasks tied to the
traffic violation were completed, and he should have been
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released — more than 20 minutes before he actually was given the
go-ahead to leave.
The district court rejected that argument and denied the
motion to suppress. The initial stop of the vehicle, the
district court held, was justified on two independent grounds:
Not only was there probable cause of a traffic violation, or
littering, but the officers also had probable cause to believe
that the occupants of the Silverado were engaged in drug-
trafficking activity. The district court noted that the stop
was extended by the absence of driver’s licenses and the need to
verify the occupants’ identification cards. And the court
determined that Gomez-Suarez gave valid consent to search the
vehicle, requiring additional time. With “all those factors
coming together,” the district court concluded, the “duration of
the stop was not unreasonable.” J.A. 35.
At trial, Ramirez-Jimenez continued to press his
misidentification defense, arguing that he was not in fact the
passenger in the Silverado on the day in question. The
government rebutted with testimony from Lelo, the target of the
investigation, and Gomez-Suarez, the driver, who both identified
Ramirez-Jimenez as the passenger in the Silverado and were able
to describe his role in the drug operation. Trooper Shank,
Trooper Melton, and a Richland County task force officer who
assisted the DEA during the operation also identified Ramirez-
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Jimenez as the passenger, based on their own observations during
the traffic stop and preceding surveillance. For good measure,
the government also introduced video and still photographs from
the traffic stop to show that Ramirez-Jimenez was the passenger
in the truck. The photographs included several shots of the
passenger’s distinctive tattoos, which matched Ramirez-
Jimenez’s, and the picture of the passenger’s identification
card.
The jury convicted Ramirez-Jimenez of the two drug-
trafficking offenses with which he was charged. The district
court sentenced Ramirez-Jimenez to 365 months’ imprisonment
followed by five years of supervised release. This timely
appeal followed.
II.
Ramirez-Jimenez’s sole challenge on appeal is to the
district court’s denial of his motion to suppress the
identification evidence from the traffic stop. We review the
factual findings underlying a motion to suppress for clear error
and the district court’s legal determinations de novo. See
United States v. Davis, 690 F.3d 226, 233 (4th Cir. 2012). When
a suppression motion has been denied, we construe the evidence
in the light most favorable to the government. See United
States v. Seidman, 156 F.3d 542, 547 (4th Cir. 1998). For the
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reasons discussed below, we affirm the district court’s denial
of the motion to suppress.
A.
As the Supreme Court has explained, a “routine traffic
stop” is a Fourth Amendment seizure akin to a so-called Terry
stop, see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), and like a Terry
stop, it may last no longer than is necessary to accomplish its
purposes. Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1609, 1614
(2015). Once “tasks tied to the traffic infraction” — checking
identifications, writing citations, and the like — have been
completed, the purpose of a traffic stop has been fulfilled and
a vehicle’s occupants generally are free to go. Id.; see United
States v. Ortiz, 669 F.3d 439, 444 (4th Cir. 2012); United
States v. Branch, 537 F.3d 328, 336 (4th Cir. 2008). Appealing
to this well-established case law, Ramirez-Jimenez argues that
the duration of his approximately hour-long stop was
constitutionally excessive, extending beyond the time required
to prepare citations and check identification by at least twenty
minutes.
What Ramirez-Jimenez overlooks, however, is that his was
not a “routine traffic stop,” 135 S. Ct. at 1614, of the sort
contemplated by Rodriguez. When the police pulled over the
Silverado, they had reason to suspect its occupants not only of
littering but also of drug trafficking. And when the police
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have some distinct justification, independent of the initial
traffic violation, for a prolonged detention, then they are not
bound by the usual time limits on traffic stops. See United
States v. Digiovanni, 650 F.3d 498, 507 (4th Cir. 2011); Branch,
537 F.3d at 336. A reasonable suspicion of illegal activity
apart from the traffic violation will authorize a separate
investigatory stop under Terry, see Branch, 537 F.3d at 336; and
probable cause of such illegal activity, a more demanding
standard, will authorize a more intrusive seizure, up to and
including an actual arrest, see Ortiz, 669 F.3d at 444.
We agree with the district court that the police here
possessed probable cause of drug trafficking, sufficient to
justify the protracted detention of the Silverado’s occupants. 1
“Probable cause is a flexible, common-sense standard,” requiring
only that the “facts available to the officer would warrant a
man of reasonable caution in the belief” that the suspect has
committed a crime. See Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 742 (1983)
(plurality opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under
the “collective-knowledge” doctrine, we consider not only the
1Accordingly, we need not consider the government’s
alternative contention that despite its roughly hour-long
duration, the seizure also may be sustained as an investigatory
Terry stop based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
See United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675 (1985) (sustaining 20-
minute stop as within the scope of Terry and declining to set
outer time limit for Terry stops).
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first-hand observations of the police officers actually making
the stop, but also the facts known to the DEA agents and
transmitted to those officers. See United States v. Massenburg,
654 F.3d 480, 492 (4th Cir. 2011). Evaluating the totality of
the circumstances, as we must, see Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S.
366, 371 (2003), we find ample support for a probable-cause
determination.
The undisputed evidence 2 indicates that in the hours
immediately before the traffic stop, the DEA carefully monitored
two controlled purchases of methamphetamine, with the occupants
of the Silverado playing a role in each. Soon after Kasabian,
the DEA’s confidential informant, and Lelo, the target
methamphetamine dealer, first met in a parking lot, the DEA
agents observed the occupants of the Silverado travel in tandem
with Lelo and Kasabian to the restaurant, Monterrey’s. And once
the vehicles arrived at Monterrey’s, the occupants of the
Silverado accompanied Lelo inside — where, Lelo told Kasabian,
the package of methamphetamine could be divided. As one of the
DEA agents leading the operation testified, that conduct
indicated that the occupants of the Silverado were Lelo’s
suppliers. The Silverado remained at Monterrey’s through the
2Ramirez-Jimenez does not contest the government’s
description of the conduct preceding the traffic stop, nor offer
any alternative, innocent explanation for that conduct.
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second buy at the restaurant. And significantly, the DEA
maintained constant surveillance on the Silverado as the driver
and passenger left the restaurant, drove to the highway, and
ultimately were stopped by the police, confirming that the
occupants remained the same throughout the day’s events.
When these facts are “viewed from the standpoint of an
objectively reasonable police officer,” Ornelas v. United
States, 517 U.S. 690, 696 (1996), it is plain that they support
the troopers’ reasonable belief that the occupants of the
Silverado were involved in a conspiracy to distribute
methamphetamine. The inculpatory evidence was robust, and we
routinely uphold probable-cause searches based upon less. See,
e.g., United States v. Laing, 538 F.2d 83, 84–85 (4th Cir. 1976)
(per curiam) (probable cause to search defendant for narcotics
possession where main evidence was tip of reliable informant).
Given the probable cause of drug trafficking, the police were
justified in conducting an extended stop.
B.
We also conclude, as a separate and additional basis for
our decision, that even if the prolonged detention exceeded
constitutional limits, the outcome of this case would remain the
same. To the extent any of the identification evidence to which
Ramirez-Jimenez objects could have been tainted by an
unconstitutionally extended detention, its admission was
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harmless error, in light of the overwhelming evidence of
Ramirez-Jimenez’s guilt. See United States v. Holness, 706 F.3d
579, 598 (4th Cir. 2013) (constitutional error harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt where “judgment was not substantially swayed by
the error” (internal quotation mark omitted)).
First, the government presented extensive evidence,
entirely independent of the traffic stop in question, that
Ramirez-Jimenez was indeed the passenger in the Silverado on
September 27, 2012. The first witness to make the
identification was a Richland County task force officer who,
along with the DEA, monitored the Silverado at Monterrey’s. The
second was Lelo, who identified Ramirez-Jimenez from his own
observations on September 27. Finally, Gomez-Suarez, the driver
of the Silverado, not only identified Ramirez-Jimenez as his
passenger, but also testified that he worked with him for
roughly a year prior to September 27, meeting with him four
times a week to deliver drugs. And to confirm that witness
testimony, the government introduced still photographs of the
Silverado’s passenger entering and exiting the vehicle in the
Monterrey’s parking lot.
Second, the government presented additional evidence of
identification that, though acquired in connection with the
traffic stop, could not have been tainted by any
unconstitutional extension of that stop. For instance, Troopers
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Shank and Melton were able to identify Ramirez-Jimenez as the
Silverado’s passenger, in part because of his distinctive
tattoos. And both observed Ramirez-Jimenez during the initial
portion of the stop, devoted to tasks related to the traffic
violation, which Ramirez-Jimenez concedes was constitutional.
The jury also viewed substantial physical evidence from the stop
that linked Ramirez-Jimenez to the Silverado: footage from the
troopers’ in-car video systems depicting Ramirez-Jimenez and
still photographs of Ramirez-Jimenez and his identification
card. Again, all of that evidence was acquired while the
officers addressed the littering violation — the portion of the
stop that Ramirez-Jimenez leaves unchallenged.
Taken together, this independent evidence of
identification was overwhelming. We are confident that even if
the duration of Ramirez-Jimenez’s detention had crossed the
constitutional line, the suppression of any tainted
identification evidence would not have affected the outcome of
the trial.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the
district court.
AFFIRMED
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