United States v. Ahumada, No. 16-1391 (8th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseAfter defendant was convicted of two drug trafficking offenses, he appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence and the sufficiency of the evidence. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress, holding that the trooper had probable cause to seize defendant and another individual after he saw that the vehicle that they were in was speeding. Even assuming the trooper lacked reasonable suspicion to extend the stop under the rule announced in Rodriguez v. United States, the trooper's extension of the seizure comported with precedent where the trooper's dog was alerted to the presence of drugs in the car approximately eight-and-a-half minutes after the trooper issued a warning notice. The court also held that the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction for possession with intent to distribute heroin where intentional transfer of heroin was not an element of the charged offense that the government needed to prove.
Court Description: Colloton, Author, with Beam and Gruender, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. The state trooper's action in briefly detaining defendant after a traffic stop for a drug-dog sniff was objectively reasonable under then-binding circuit precedent, and the district court did not err in denying the motion to suppress the evidence seized following the sniff; evidence was sufficient to support defendant's conviction for possession of heroin with intent to distribute.
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