United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
March 18, 2005
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_____________________ Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
No. 03-51239
_____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
PATRICK ODELL WILLIAMS,
Defendant - Appellant.
__________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
USDC No. MO-03-CR-47-ALL
_________________________________________________________________
Before REAVLEY, JOLLY, and PRADO, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Patrick Odell Williams (“Williams”) pled guilty to two counts
of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base (crack). In
his plea agreement, Williams reserved the right to appeal the
district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained
in an April 21, 2003 detention of Williams and search of his car.
Williams now appeals the denial of that suppression motion.
We review the district court’s findings of fact for clear
error and its ultimate determination of Fourth Amendment
reasonableness de novo. United States v. Sinisterra, 77 F.3d 101,
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
104 (5th Cir. 1996). Williams raises two Fourth Amendment
challenges on appeal: (1) whether detaining Williams for 45
minutes pending the arrival of the canine unit to search his car
was an unreasonable seizure and (2) whether the warrantless search
of Williams’s car was unreasonable. Finding no error in the
district court’s denial of Williams’s suppression motion, we
affirm.
First, Williams argues that his detention was in violation of
the Fourth Amendment because officers either lacked reasonable
suspicion to detain him or because the detention was a de facto
arrest for which officers lacked probable cause. See Terry v.
Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968); see also Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491,
499 (1983). Assuming that Williams has properly preserved this
issue by raising it in his pre-trial suppression motion, we find
Williams’s detention did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights.
The officers had probable cause to actually arrest -- not simply
detain -- Williams during the 45-minute detention. Williams was
initially detained by the officers after they identified him as
Patrick Williams from Katy, Texas (near Houston). Several
informants had previously given the officers information
implicating a black male named “Pat”, “Patrick”, or “Patrick
Williams” from Houston in a drug trafficking operation to the
specific location at which the officers found Williams. Following
the initial detention, the officers questioned other individuals
who directly implicated Williams in drug trafficking to that
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location. At this time, the police clearly had probable cause to
arrest Williams. The 45-minute detention, therefore, did not
constitute an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
Next, Williams argues that the search of his car was
unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. We understand Williams to
be raising two separate challenges to the reasonableness of the
search of his car: (1) the search was unreasonable because it was
conducted without a warrant in the absence of exigent circumstances
and (2) the search was unreasonable because the failure of the drug
dog to alert resulted in a lack of probable cause. Williams first
argues that the automobile exception to the warrant requirement
does not apply. See Pennsylvannia v. LaBron, 518 U.S. 938, 940
(1996). Although some support exists for the proposition that the
automobile exception does not apply when a vehicle is parked in the
defendant’s private driveway, Williams’s car was parked in an
apartment complex parking lot, generally open to the public. Under
these circumstances, we are bound by our reasoning in Sinisterra,
in which we noted that “to the extent [our precedents] require . .
. a finding of exigent circumstances other than the fact of the
automobile’s potential mobility, they are inconsistent with more
recent Supreme Court jurisprudence.” 77 F.3d at 104. In
Sinisterra, we held that a warrantless search of a vehicle in a
mall parking lot did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Williams also argues that the failure of the drug dog to alert
deprived the officers of probable cause to search his car.
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Probable cause is to be determined by examining the totality of the
circumstances. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 233-39 (1983).
Examining the totality of the circumstances, including Williams’s
behavior, his dishonest responses to questions regarding the car,
information previously gathered from informants and information
gathered by the officers during their on-site interviews, the
officers had probable cause to search the vehicle prior to the
arrival of the drug dog. Under these circumstances, the failure of
the drug dog to alert did not deprive the officers of probable
cause to search the vehicle.
For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the district court
denying Williams’s suppression motion is
AFFIRMED.
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