Criminal Practice – Search & Seizure – Traffic Stop – Vehicle Search — Consent

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U.S. v. Ortiz (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-054-12, 15 pp.) (Niemeyer, J.) No. 11-4193, Feb. 27, 2012; USDC at Baltimore, Md. (Motz, J.) 4^th Cir. Full-text opinion.

Holding: The 4^th Circuit offers a refresher course in assessing “probable cause” and reverses a district court order suppressing drugs found in a secret compartment of defendant’s car because the district court applied the wrong standards for determining whether police had defendant’s consent to search the vehicle and whether there was probable cause to search it.

Police found the drugs during a 34-minute stop. Defendant was stopped for speeding after police received a tip that the particular vehicle was being used to transport drugs.

The district court assumed the reasonable suspicion standard was a less demanding standard than the preponderance of the evidence standard and that the preponderance standard was a less demanding standard than the probable cause standard. On that assumption, the court concluded the Maryland State troopers had, by a preponderance of evidence, justified their belief that contraband was in the vehicle, but that the preponderance standard was insufficient to establish probable cause.

This ruling erroneously elevated the probable cause standard to one more demanding than a preponderance. Probable cause requires an officer to have a reasonable ground for belief of guilt, more than a “bare suspicion.” A “reasonable ground” for belief is less demanding than a standard requiring a preponderance of the evidence for the belief. Thus, when the district court concluded that a search of the vehicle would “more likely than not” have uncovered contraband, it reached a conclusion that satisfied the probable-cause standard and authorized the state police to search the vehicle.

The district court found as fact that the information available to the state police at the time of the search made it “more likely than not that drugs were located within the vehicle,” and we cannot conclude, on the evidence presented, that the finding was clearly erroneous.

From the evidence available to the troopers at the time of the traffic stop, a reasonable officer would have a “reasonable ground to believe” that drugs were in the vehicle. This standard is not particularly demanding, and the evidence need not provide the officers with an air-tight case, nor even a case satisfying the preponderance standard. Rather, the probable cause standard is recognized to be a flexible, common sense standard by which reasonable officers can conclude that what they see, in light of their experience, supports an objective belief that contraband is in the vehicle. The officers are, in forming their belief, given leeway to draw reasonable conclusions from confusing and contradictory information, free of the apprehension that every mistaken search and seizure issue will present a triable issue of probable cause.

We affirm the district court’s finding insofar as the court found the state troopers were certainly in possession of information that made it more likely than not that drugs were located in the vehicle, but we reverse its legal conclusion that such a finding was insufficient to give the troopers probable cause. We conclude it did and therefore the search of the vehicle was justified by probable cause.

We also conclude that the officers’ search was supported by defendant’s voluntary consent, given twice, to search the vehicle – once when he gave permission to search the vehicle for drugs and again when he gave consent to search the vehicle to determine whether it was stolen. The district court failed to recognize that once voluntary consent is given, it remains valid until it is withdrawn by defendant. The district court’s conclusion – that lifting up the rear seat to locate the concealed VIN exceeded the scope of defendant’s consent – substituted the court’s own notions about how to search for signs of vehicle theft for the undisputed testimony of experienced officers testifying as to how such a search should proceed.

Suppression order reversed and case remanded for further proceedings.