Consent and Suppression
Neguel Morris began a drive from South Texas to the East Coast with a kilogram of heroin in tow. One night, he stopped at the Wagin’ Cajun Truck Stop outside of Lake Charles, and parked his rental car behind the truck-stop casino and fell asleep. Two sheriff’s deputies noticed his car while patrolling the area on foot and just then Morris pulled away. They flagged Morris down, and asked him some questions. Some more deputies walked up, and one of them asked Morris to step out of the car.
“Here’s the deal, man. We’re trying to make sure there is no illegal activity here. This is a high drug area. The more you cooperate, the faster you cooperate, the faster we’ll be done, and let you go about your way.”
The questioning turned into searching Morris. Three times a deputy asked Morris to search his car. Morris declined each time.
“I already explained to you dude . . . This is a high drug area . . . We just want to make sure you’re not up to any type of shenanigans or shit. Like I said, the more you cooperate, the faster you cooperate, the faster we’ll be done with this. So, can we search your car?”
Morris said there wasn’t anything in the car.
“If you want to go back to sleep, let us . . . people who are innocent don’t—”
Exasperated, Morris opened the back door of his car and allowed the deputies to conduct their search. They eventually discovered a glass pipe and duck-taped package of about one kilogram of heroin.
A grand jury indicted Morris, and he moved to suppress the evidence. A magistrate denied the motion, holding Morris had not been stopped under the Fourth Amendment because the deputies had not physically blocked his vehicle and “nothing in the tone of the deputies or questions asked” would have made a reasonable feel he was not free to leave. The court said because there was no stop, the deputies did not need reasonable suspicion to justify their encounter with Morris. The court also held Morris’s consent to search his vehicle was freely and voluntarily give, validating the warrantless search.
Negeul Morris appealed a conditional plea. The question presented was whether evidence discovered after a consent search of his car should be suppressed because officers stopped him without reasonable suspicion or overbore his free will to obtain consent.
The 5th Circuit was convinced sheriff’s deputies effected a stop under the 4th Amendment. Because the district court held Morris had not been stopped, it did not determine whether the deputies had reasonable suspicion to do so. The 5th Circuit vacated the denial of Morris’s motion to suppress, and remanded the case for reconsideration of the motion.