United States v. Robert R. Williams ( 2005 )


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  •                      United States Court of Appeals
    FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
    ___________
    No. 05-2158
    ___________
    United States of America,                *
    *
    Appellee,             * Appeal from the United States
    * District Court for the District
    v.                                 * of Minnesota.
    *
    Robert Rydell Williams,                  *      [PUBLISHED]
    *
    Appellant.            *
    ___________
    Submitted: November 14, 2005
    Filed: December 9, 2005
    ___________
    Before WOLLMAN, FAGG, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.
    ___________
    PER CURIAM.
    After a trooper stopped a car for speeding and found cocaine inside, the
    Government charged the car’s owner and passenger, Robert Rydell Williams, with
    conspiracy to distribute cocaine and attempted distribution of cocaine. Williams filed
    a motion to suppress the drugs asserting the traffic stop was the product of racial
    profiling and violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights. Following three evidentiary
    hearings, a magistrate judge recommended that Williams’s motion to suppress be
    granted. The district court* disagreed, holding that even if the trooper engaged in
    *
    The Honorable James M. Rosenbaum, Chief Judge, United States District
    Court for the District of Minnesota.
    racial profiling as the magistrate concluded, there was no basis to suppress the cocaine
    because Williams voluntarily consented to the search resulting in the cocaine’s
    seizure, purging any taint that may have infected the original stop. Accordingly, the
    district court denied Williams’s motion to suppress. A jury convicted Williams.
    Williams now appeals the denial of his suppression motion. We affirm.
    A trooper stopped Williams’s car for speeding. During routine questioning of
    the driver and Williams, the trooper became suspicious based on their contradictory
    and vague answers about their trip. Nevertheless, the trooper gave the driver a
    warning ticket, returned her license and registration, and told her “to watch her speed
    and have a safe trip.” The trooper then asked the driver whether he could ask her a
    few more questions and search the vehicle, and she agreed. After informing Williams
    he was not required to consent to a search, the trooper also obtained Williams’s verbal
    and written consent. During the search, the trooper found some detergent boxes in the
    back of the vehicle that had been opened and resealed. About a half an hour after the
    initial stop, the trooper asked Williams whether he could open the boxes, and
    Williams agreed. Inside the boxes, the trooper found about five kilograms of cocaine.
    Williams was arrested and acknowledged the cocaine belonged to him.
    A traffic stop is constitutional, regardless of the officer’s subjective intent, if
    the officer had probable cause to believe a traffic violation occurred. United States
    v. Gomez-Serena, 
    368 F.3d 1037
    , 1041 (8th Cir. 2004) (defendant who conceded
    officer had probable cause to conduct traffic stop failed to show officer stopped him
    solely on account of race) (citing Whren v. United States, 
    517 U.S. 806
     (1996)). A
    trooper who sees a traffic violation has probable cause to stop the vehicle and conduct
    a reasonable investigation. United States v. Sanchez, 
    417 F.3d 971
    , 974 (8th Cir.
    2005). A reasonable investigation includes requesting asking the driver and
    passengers about their destination, route, and purpose. 
    Id. at 975
    . If an encounter
    after a traffic stop’s completion is consensual, then an officer may ask questions
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    unrelated to the stop and request consent to search the vehicle. United States v.
    Santos-Garcia, 
    313 F.3d 1073
    , 1078 (8th Cir. 2002).
    Here, the district court found the officer had a reasonable and articulable
    suspicion that a traffic violation occurred. This finding is not clearly erroneous.
    Thus, the initial stop was not unconstitutional as Williams contends. Gomez-Serena,
    
    368 F.3d at 1041
    . Further, even if it was, any taint of illegality was purged by
    Williams’s voluntary consent to search. See United States v. Moreno, 
    280 F.3d 898
    ,
    900 (8th Cir. 2002). The district court carefully analyzed the factors impacting the
    voluntariness of Williams’s consent. See 
    id.
     First, the court noted the temporal
    proximity between the alleged illegality and the consent weighed in favor of finding
    Williams’s consent was an act of free will because at least a half an hour elapsed by
    the time the officer reconfirmed William’s consent to search the boxes of laundry
    detergent. Second, the court concluded that intervening factors confirmed Williams’s
    consent was voluntary. Williams signed a consent form advising him of his right to
    refuse consent, and Williams studied the form carefully before signing it. Further,
    Williams was not in custody or being detained when he consented. The officer had
    already issued the warning ticket and told the driver she was free to leave. Last, the
    court stated the lack of purposefulness or flagrancy of the officer’s alleged misconduct
    weighed in favor of a finding of voluntariness. There was no evidence the officer
    stopped the car as part of a preconceived plan to obtain consent to search it, and the
    officer’s misidentification of the driver as white on the warning form was irrelevant
    to the voluntariness of Williams’s consent because the driver and Williams did not
    know a race-identifying box had been mismarked on the warning form. Having
    carefully reviewed the record, we agree with the district court’s analysis and conclude
    the court’s findings that Williams consented is not clearly erroneous. 
    Id.
    Williams argues the district court committed clear error in finding he did not
    withdraw his consent. Because the record supports the finding, it is not clearly
    erroneous. United States v. Gray, 
    369 F.3d 1024
    , 1026 (8th Cir. 2004). At the first
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    hearing, the trooper testified he obtained Williams’s written consent to search the
    vehicle and reconfirmed his consent before searching the detergent boxes. Williams
    did not contest this testimony in any way. Months later, Williams argued he withdrew
    his consent, and on cross-examination, his witnesses admitted they never mentioned
    this claim when they were interviewed immediately after their arrest. In any event,
    an officer who arrived on the scene as the trooper searched the detergent boxes
    testified he heard the trooper ask Williams whether he could search the boxes and
    Williams told the trooper he could. The district court credited this testimony.
    Williams last contends the racial profiling in this case was so outrageous that
    the district court should have dismissed the indictment. We disagree. As the district
    court stated, there is strong evidence to suggest racial profiling could not have been
    a motive for the traffic stop because the trooper could not see the race of the car’s
    occupants. In any event, there is no evidence of outrageous conduct that shocks the
    conscience of the court, necessary to establish a due process violation. See United
    States v. King, 
    351 F.3d 859
    , 867-68 (8th Cir. 2003). And, even if there was a due
    process violation, it is uncertain that dismissal is an appropriate remedy. See United
    States v. Armstrong, 
    517 U.S. 456
    , 461 n.2 (1996) (Court has not decided whether
    dismissal of indictment or other sanction is proper remedy if defendant has been
    victim of prosecution based on race); United States v. Chavez, 
    281 F.3d 479
    , 486-87
    (5th Cir. 2002) (Supreme Court has not ruled there is a suppression remedy for
    violations of Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause).
    We have considered the arguments in Williams’s pro se brief and reject them
    all. We thus affirm the denial of Williams’s motion to suppress.
    ______________________________
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