Ornelas v. United States

Petitioners
Saul Ornelas, Ismael Ornelas-Ledesma
Respondent
United States
Petitioners' Claim
Police lacked probable cause to conduct a search of their vehicle.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Cornelia T. L. Pillard
Chief Lawyers for Respondent
Robert G. LeBell, Brian W. Gleason
Justices for the Court
Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor,William H. Rehnquist (writing for the Court), David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens, Clarence Thomas
Justices Dissenting
Antonin Scalia
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
28 May 1996
Decision
The decision of the lower court was vacated and remanded for a full review ofthe facts.
Significance
The case established that an appeals court, when reviewing a trial court's conclusions on reasonable suspicions by police and the existence of probable cause for a warrantless police search, must thoroughly review the trial court'sfactual findings rather than accept them at face value.
In December of 1992, Michael Pautz, a detective with the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was downtown, conducting surveillance for drug activity. In the early morning hours, Pautz spotted a 1981 two-door automobile with California license plates parked at a motel. Pautz felt suspicious because California is a "source state" for illegal drugs and because the automobile was of a kind favored by drug couriers for its many secret compartments. A check of the motel registry, the car's registration, and an inquiry to the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Information System revealed that the registered operators of the car, Saul Ornelas and Ismael Ornelas-Ledesma were considered by federal law enforcement officials to be known drug traffickers.
Accompanied by Merlin, a drug-sniffing dog, Milwaukee detectives waited outside the motel for the men to exit. When Ornelas and Ornelas-Ledesma approachedthe Oldsmobile to leave the motel, the detectives confronted them and askedif they had any illegal drugs in the car. Ornelas and Ornelas-Ledesma answered in the negative, so the detectives asked for permission to search. Ornelasand Ornelas-Ledesma consented, and a deputy performed the search. Some time into the search, the deputy noticed a rusty screw holding a door jam adjacentto a loose panel. The deputy removed the panel and found two kilograms of cocaine.
Ornelas and Ornelas-Ledesma were charged in federal court with trafficking incocaine. Before trial, they moved the court to exclude the cocaine evidence,arguing that it was obtained in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Ornelas and Ornelas-Ledesma pleaded guilty to the charges, but they reserved the right to challenge the decision to deny their motion. After a series of decisions and appeals between the magistrate judge, the district court, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ended in the federal government's favor, the men appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The defendants argued that the appeals court committed an error warranting reversal when it conducted a deferential review of the facts in the case. In an8-1 decision, the High Court agreed, and it vacated the holding of the appeals court and remanded the case. According to the majority, the appeals courtshould not have deferred to the factual findings of the trial court. Instead,it should have conducted a full, or de novo, review of the facts.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the majority, discussed the nature of Fourth Amendment claims of unreasonable search and seizure and concluded that it was not standard practice for appeals courts to defer to trial courts in reviewing the facts in such a case. Such a case usually requires a court to determine either: (1) whether a police officer who performed a limited patdown search for weapons without obtaining a warrant from a magistrate had reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity was afoot; or (2) whether a police officer who conducted a warrantless search of a person or place had probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. These questions are difficult questions for courts to answer because "[a]rticulating precisely what `reasonable suspicion' and `probable cause' mean is not possible." They are "fluidconcepts that take their substantive content from the particular contexts inwhich the standards are being assessed."
In order to achieve a more meaningful jurisprudence on the questions, the majority felt it best to require that appeals courts conduct de novo review in cases where the questions arise. The Court cited three main reasons forits decision. First, to hold otherwise would subject Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to the whims of trial court judges. Second, the legal rules for the issues of reasonable suspicion and probable cause "acquire content only through application." If appeals courts are to clarify and control the legal principles that guide those issues, they must be able to give meaning to the principles by thoroughly considering all of the facts on record. Third, full reviewby appeals courts unifies precedent, makes law enforcement more predictable,and generally stabilizes the law.
Scalia Dissents
Rehnquist defended the majority's decision against Justice Scalia's dissent.Scalia argued that the Court's holding accomplished nothing because the factual differences between cases will still make the opinions virtually worthlessas precedent. The majority maintained, though, that some cases could be considered factually similar to other cases. Finally, the Court listed a number of factors that it thought the appeals court should consider on remand. The majority emphasized that the weather in Milwaukee should be a factor in determining whether the Milwaukee detectives had reasonable suspicion to believe that the defendants were engaged in criminal activity, and whether the deputy'sclaim of probable cause to open the panel in the Oldsmobile was credible. "What may not amount to reasonable suspicion at a motel located alongside a transcontinental highway at the height of the summer tourist season," Rehnquist instructed, "may rise to that level in December in Milwaukee. That city is unlikely to have been an overnight stop selected at the last minute by a traveler coming from California to points east."
Justice Scalia dissented mainly because he thought that the decision would not provide any benefits. In Scalia's opinion, the de novo review of facts surrounding a police officer's reasonable suspicion and probable cause determination was unnecessary, and it would not provide meaningful precedent forfuture cases. Scalia reminded the majority that the trial court is in a muchbetter position to evaluate the facts of a case than is an appeals court because the trial court has the advantage of presiding over the trial. Appeals courts, by contrast, do not see or hear the witnesses and must confine their review to the trial court record. Scalia mocked the circular nature of the decision: the majority held that the appeals court should not give deference tothe trial court's interpretation of the facts, but at the same time the majority strongly suggested that the work of the Milwaukee detectives was reasonable. "This finding of `reasonableness' is precisely what it has told us the appellate court must review de novo; and in de novo review, the `weight due' to a trial court's finding is zero. In the last analysis, therefore, the Court's opinion seems to me not only wrong but contradictory."
Impact
The Ornelas holding increased the work load of appeals courts by requiring that they make a full examination of the facts as presented in certain trials, specifically, where a defendant claims that a warrantless search and seizure conducted by police officers was not supported by reasonable suspicionor probable cause. An appeals court, when presented with such a case, must review the entire record. The court should give due weight to the trial court's factual conclusions, but it must conduct a full review.
Related Cases

• Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).
  
• New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981).
  
• Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431 (1984).
  
• California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565 (1991).

Drug-Sniffing Dogs
Law-enforcement departments throughout the United States often make use of acanine (often designated as "K-9") unit. Dogs, with their highly developed sense of smell, can sniff out bombs or drugs that a human inspector might miss,and often a search by a dog with its handler can provide evidence that results in a conviction. Thus drug-detection dogs can often be found at airports,bus terminals, and rail stations--that is, in likely places for the transportof drugs--and they are often used on patrols or sweeps, or for inspections of postal packages.
In United States v. Place (1983), the Supreme Court ruled that a sniffis not a search, and therefore the Fourth Amendment requirements governing the use of drug-sniffing dogs are less stringent than those for human law-enforcement personnel. For instance, if a police officer stops someone for a traffic violation, it is permissible for a canine to sniff the exterior of the individual's vehicle--but only the outside. If a drug-sniffing dog is not present and an officer has reasonable suspicion of drug activity, he or she may detain the vehicle and driver while they wait for the dog to be brought to thescene.
Sources
Wallentine, Ken. "Introductory Canine Search and Seizure." http://www.minn.net/uspca.