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Criminal Law Keyed to Osler
United States v. Pendleton
Citation:
20 F. 3d 593 (5th Cir. 1994)Facts
Defendant and his co-driver were new truckers and just delivered a load from Miami, Florida to Laredo, Texas. They worked with their broker to get a new load in Rio Grande City of unglazed Mexican tile that needed to be shipped to Miami. The waited thirty minutes for the truck to be loaded. The trailer was empty and the defendants did not observe the entire loading process but never saw anyone load anything but Mexican tiles. The defendant and his co-driver then left for Florida. At a primary inspection area, they were stopped for being overweight, the first officer only saw tiles and did not smell anything. At the secondary inspection area a drug sniffing dog found marijuana in the truck, hidden behind the Mexican tiles. The defendant claimed they took no part in loading the truck and left it unlocked. Though the officers thought the defendants seemed nervous, they did not flee or have a lot of cash on them, but could not answer some of the inspectors questions.
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