Friends Don't Let Friends Fall For "Drug Dog Ahead" Signs

UNITED STATES v. TEAGUE, USCA-1 No. 05-1789, 2006 U.S.App. LEXIS 29293, appeal from USDC-MAD, before Circuit Judges Torruella and Lynch and USDJ-MED Woodcock, opinion by Woodcock, filed 29 Nov 2006.

LONG STORY SHORT: A person caught unloading drugs from a vehicle cannot have the evidence suppressed on grounds that police discovered the trafficking scheme by illegally stopping that vehicle the day before. Binding in MA, ME, NH, RI.

FACTS: On 23 Oct 2003, Sugar and Stark were driving a 39-foot RV on I-44 in St. Louis County, Missouri when they saw a sign stating that a drug checkpoint, complete with drug-sniffing K9, was set up after Sugar Tree Road exit. Sugar and Stark exited there even though Sugar Tree Road has no gas, food, lodging, or other usual reasons to take an exit. However, it does have a convenient hiding place for police cars at the end of the off-ramp, and I-44 is a known drug conduit, so police frequently set up checkpoint signs and follow vehicles that take the exit. Inevitably, a subject vehicle will commit a traffic infraction, whereupon officers stop the vehicle and ask for consent to search; if consent is not forthcoming, police detain the vehicle until a (real) drug K9 arrives for a sniff test. Sugar and Stark were no exception, and after their RV veered over the fog line on a 2-lane road, police stopped them and found 27 bales of marijuana in a closet. Sugar and Stark decided to cooperate, and drove on to Marlboro, Massachusetts, where Defendant and two other men in a white Lexus met the RV in a Holiday Inn parking lot and began transferring the marijuana to the Lexus in broad daylight, until police arrested them.

PROCEDURE: The United States indicted all five men for possession with intent to distribute marijuana, 21 U.S.C. § 841, and conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, 21 U.S.C. § 846. Discontinuing further cooperation, Sugar and Stark moved to suppress the marijuana on grounds that the Missouri traffic statute that they supposedly violated only applied to roads with three or more travel lanes. The trial court agreed and ordered the evidence suppressed as to Sugar and Stark. Defendant then moved to suppress the same evidence, on grounds that using the fruits of the illegal stop violated his due process rights. The trial court ruled that the police conduct was not so egregiously illegal as all that. SUPPRESSION DENIED as to Defendant. A jury convicted Defendant as charged and the court sentenced him to 96 months. Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence.

DECISION: Defendant correctly conceded that the Fourth Amendment did not help him because he was not the one searched, and the vehicle did not belong to him, so he had no standing to assert someone else's rights to be free from unreasonable search. Instead, he argued that due process under the Fifth Amendment required the evidence to be suppressed. The First Circuit held that like Fourth Amendment rights, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment is personal to whoever suffered the violation of it. Trial courts may not dismiss a charge against a defendant because of an offense to a non-defendant's due process rights. No evidence of record showed that police were acting in bad faith or egregiously outside the law. Conviction and sentence AFFIRMED in all respects.

EDITORIAL: Our hero seems not to be a disciple of John Farnam, who is forever telling us not to do stupid things, go to stupid places, or associate with stupid people. Using a Lexus for a dope wagon, and loading it with bales of herb in a Holiday Inn parking lot in the middle of the day, is not what Chairman Mao would call swimming like a fish in the sea. But in the first place, somebody should have briefed Dumb and Dumberer about those "drug checkpoint and dog ahead" signs, which everybody knows are fake and are only there to get you to take that suspiciously convenient next exit, which is where the po-po's REALLY are. Notice how the opinion didn't say the fake checkpoint was wrong, just that narcs need to read the fine print in the traffic laws. Since the Fourth and Fifth amendments protect people, not places or property, this guy has six years to chill, which he will use to work up a plan to recruit brighter personnel for his next drug enterprise.