Sergeant C. Thompson of the Nebraska State Patrol stopped a car near Omaha, Nebraska, because he believed that the car’s tinted windows violated Nebraska law. Sgt. Thompson asked the driver, Martin Palaeios-Suarez, for his license and registration. Mr. Palaсios produced a New Mexico driver’s license and a Texas registration for the car.
Sgt. Thompson directed Mr. Palacios to wаit in the passenger seat of the patrol car while he ran a computer check on Mr. Palac-ios’s license and criminal history. Sgt. Thompson then asked Mr. Palacios about his occupation and the nature of his trip; Mr. Palacios responded that he was a lаndscaper
Based on his suspiсion, Sgt. Thompson radioed for a canine unit. Shortly thereafter (approximately nine minutes after the initial stop), Omaha Police Offiсer Matthew Lippold arrived with a drug-sniffing dog. Sgt. Thompson asked Mr. Palacios several times for his consent to search the vehicle, and Mr. Pаlacios gave it. The dog soon alerted officers to the presence of drugs behind the driver’s-side door, where the officers loсated approximately ten kilograms of cocaine and one pound of amphetamine. The officers then arrested Mr. Pаlacios and his wife.
Mr. Palacios was indicted for conspiring to distribute cocaine and amphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), § 846. The district court denied a motion to suppress the drugs. After entering a conditional guilty plea under Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2), Mr. Palacios appealed. We affirm the judgment of thе district court. 1
I.
Mr. Palacios argues, first, that the initial stop was illegal since the Nebraska law that prohibits tinted windows applies only to vehiсles that are, or are required to be, registered in the state. Sgt. Thompson believed, incorrectly, that the law applied to Mr. Palac-ios’s vehicle and therefore, Mr. Palacios asserts, Sgt. Thompson had no objectively valid reason to stop the car in the first place. Mr. Palacios asks us to conclude that the district court should have suppressed the fruits of the subsequent search becausе the initial stop was illegal.
As the district court recognized, even if the initial stop of Mr. Palacios’s vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment, any evidence discovered in it thereafter is nevertheless admissible if Mr. Palacios’s consent to the search' was “ ‘sufficiently an act оf free will- to purge the primary taint.’ ”
United States v. Ramos,
We believe that the circumstances surrounding Mr. Palacios’s consent raise no inference that it was in any way coerced. To persuade us that his consent was not an act of free will, Mr. Palacios refers us to
Florida v. Royer,
In
Royer,
two plainclothes detectives believed that a suspect was carrying narcotics in his duffel bag when he checked in for a flight. Thе agents confronted the suspect and took his airline ticket and identification. They then asked him to follow them into a small room awаy from the passenger concourse, where they interrogated him and where he ultimately consented to the search of his bags. The Suрreme Court said that, for all practical purposes, Mr. Royer was under arrest. At the time that he gave his consent, therefore, the Court concluded, “any consensual aspects of the encounter had evaporated.”
Id.
at 503,
Here, the questioning and subsequent arrest оf Mr. Palacios were captured on video tape. After reviewing that tape (and the rest of the record), it is clear to us that the
Because Mr. Palacios consented knowingly and voluntarily to the search, the district court was correct in refusing to suppress the evidence that the search turned up.
II.
Mr. Palacios also asks us to find error in the fact that the district court fixed his sentence based on the amount of cocaine and amphetamine that the search of his car revealed. Mr. Palacios аrgues that he should have been sentenced according to his alleged belief that he was carrying only marijuana. The application of the federal sentencing guidelines to the relevant facts is an issue of law, and we review it
de novo. See United States v. Lopez,
Under U.S.S.G. § lB1.3(a)(l)(A), a district court determines relevant conduct for sentencing based on “all acts or omissions committed ... by the defendant.” Mr. Pa-lacios is therefore “accountаble at sentencing for the full quantity of all illegal drugs” in his possession.
United States v. Strange,
III.
Fоr the reasons indicated, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Notes
. The Honorable Ronald E. Longstaff, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa.
