United States of America v. Seneca Sandridge

*The Honorable Algenon L. Marbley, United States District Judge for
the So uthern District o f Ohio , sitting by designation.
1
RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206
ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2004 FED App. 0332P (6th Cir.)
File Name: 04a0332p.06
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
_________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
SENECA SANDRIDGE,
Defendant-Appellant.
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No. 03-6046
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
No. 02-00049—Curtis L. Collier, District Judge.
Argued: August 12, 2004
Decided and Filed: September 30, 2004
Before: MOORE and COLE, Circuit Judges; MARBLEY,
District Judge.*
_________________
COUNSEL
ARGUED: Nikki C. Pierce, FEDERAL DEFENDER
SERVICES OF EASTERN TENNESSEE, Greeneville,
2 United States v. Sandridge No. 03-6046
Tennessee, for Appellant. Steven S. Neff, ASSISTANT
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Chattanooga, Tennessee,
for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Nikki C. Pierce, FEDERAL
DEFENDER SERVICES OF EASTERN TENNESSEE,
Greeneville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Steven S. Neff,
ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Chattanooga,
Tennessee, for Appellee.
_________________
OPINION
_________________
R. GUY COLE, JR., Circuit Judge. Defendant-Appellant,
Seneca Sandridge, brings this appeal following his plea of
guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute
cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and
(b)(1)(B). Sandridge appeals the district court’s denial of his
motion to suppress evidence that was seized from his vehicle
and person pursuant to a traffic stop on March 27, 2002.
Sandridge also appeals the sentence imposed by the district
court; he contends that the district court erred when, for drug
quantity determination purposes, it converted $919 in cash
seized from him at the time of his arrest into an equivalent
amount of cocaine base.
For the reasons discussed below, we AFFIRM the denial
of Sandridge’s motion to suppress. However, we VACATE
the sentence imposed by the district court and REMAND the
case to that court for re-sentencing based on a base offense
level reflecting only the amount of drugs possessed by
Sandridge.
I. THE SUPPRESSION MOTION
On March 27, 2002, Officer Phillip Grubb of the
Chattanooga Police Department observed Sandridge driving
a yellow Cadillac in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. At
the first evidentiary hearing held by the magistrate judge,

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No. 03-6046 United States v. Sandridge 3
Officer Grubb testified that “a day or two” earlier, he had seen
Sandridge driving in the same vehicle and had run a license
check on the mobile data terminal (“MDT”) – a police-wired
laptop – in his patrol car. At a second evidentiary hearing,
Grubb testified that he was not sure of the exact day he
conducted the license check and that he might have conducted
it a few weeks before the March 27 stop, rather than a few
days earlier, as he previously testified. In any event, Grubb
testified that the license check revealed that Sandridge did not
have a valid driver’s license. Accordingly, when Officer
Grubb saw Sandridge driving in Chattanooga again, on March
27, 2002, he stopped him on the suspicion that he was still
driving without a valid license. At this point, Grubb ran
another license check, which confirmed that Sandridge was,
indeed, still driving without a valid license.
While Officer Grubb was checking Sandridge ’s license,
another officer arrived on the scene. The two officers then
approached Sandridge and asked him to get out of the car.
Sandridge refused and attempted to restart the engine and
drive off, at which point an altercation ensued between
Sandridge and the police officers. Eventually, Sandridge was
arrested for driving without a valid driver’s license and
resisting arrest. The officers then searched the vehicle and
Sandridge. In the car, they found 20.9 grams of cocaine base,
a set of electronic scales, and marijuana. (The marijuana
appears never to have been part of this federal action). In
addition, the officers found $919 in cash on Sandridge’s
person.
Sandridge attacked Grubb’s credibility with respect to
Grubb’s contention that he ran a license check on him prior to
March 27. Specifically, Sandridge contended that there was
no evidence that Grubb ran any license check prior to March
27. Brian Hackett, an investigator for the Federal Defender
Service of Eastern Tennessee, testified at the first evidentiary
hearing that he had obtained the MDT records from the
Chattanooga Police Department for a two-week period prior
to March 27, 2002, and that there was no record of a check on
4 United States v. Sandridge No. 03-6046
Defendant’s license during that time. Hackett also testified
that he had spoken with Shirley Varner, Technical Services
Operator for the Chattanooga Police Department, and that she
told him that any check on Sandridge’s license would have
appeared on the MDT records.
At the second evidentiary hearing, Sandridge presented
additional MDT records – this time, dating back to February
2002. These records, too, contained no indication that Officer
Grubb had run a check on Sandridge’s license prior to the one
conducted on March 27, 2002, the day of the stop. When
confronted with these computer records, Officer Grubb
insisted that he had made an inquiry on Sandridge’s license
prior to March 27, 2002, although he was not sure why there
was no record of it.
Despite the lack of evidence supporting Grubb’s testimony,
the magistrate judge found Grubb credible, and recommended
denial of Sandridge’s motion to suppress. The district court
adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation to deny the
motion to suppress, stating that “computers do make mistakes
as anyone who has worked with them is well aware.”
Sandridge then moved the district court to reconsider its
denial of his suppression motion and explained that he had
recently discovered new evidence – namely that, previously,
no MDT record was submitted for March 5, 2002; instead,
records for September 5, 2002 had been mistakenly
submitted. When a printout of the MDT records for March 5,
2002 was obtained, it showed that a license check had, in fact,
been run for Sandridge on March 5, 2002. There was no
dispute before the district court that Officer Grubb ran that
check.
Based on this new information, Sandridge renewed his
attack on Grubb’s credibility. He argued that the new
evidence proved Grubb’s lack of credibility, since Grubb
testified that he had performed a license check “a day or two”
before he stopped Sandridge on March 27, 2002, when the

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No. 03-6046 United States v. Sandridge 5
check was actually performed twenty-two days before.
(Puzzlingly, Sandridge fails to acknowledge Grubb’s
subsequent testimony that it may have been a few weeks
before March 27 that he ran the check). In addition to
attacking Grubb’s credibility, Sandridge also argued that the
March 5 license check was too “stale” to be relied on by
Officer Grubb three weeks later, on March 27, 2002, when he
pulled Sandridge over on the traffic stop.
The district court rejected both the credibility and staleness
arguments, and adhered to its decision to deny Sandridge’s
motion to suppress. After Sandridge pleaded guilty to one
count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, this
timely appeal followed.
At issue is whether Officer Grubb had reasonable suspicion
to stop Sandridge’s car on March 27, 2002. As explained
above, Grubb initially testified that he ran the license check
a day or two before the stop; but at the second suppression
hearing, Grubb testified that he was not certain of the date and
may have run the check a few weeks before. Although
initially, police records did not support Grubb’s testimony
that he ran a license check prior to March 27, 2002, the
subsequently-uncovered MDT record showed that a license
check was, in fact, run on Sandridge on March 5, 2002.
Before analyzing whether the March 5 check provided
Officer Grubb with reasonable suspicion on March 27, we
first address Sandridge’s request for a new evidentiary
hearing based on his insinuation – made for the first time on
appeal – that the March 5 check might not have been
conducted by Officer Grubb (but rather, by some other
officer). There was never any dispute in the district court that
Officer Grubb was the one to order the March 5 check.
Indeed, in his motion for reconsideration, Sandridge made
repeated representations that the March 5 license check was
run by Officer Grubb. The following excerpt from
Sandirdge’s motion for reconsideration is but one example of
that:
6 United States v. Sandridge No. 03-6046
Officer Grubb did not take steps to further investigate by
effecting a traffic stop on Mr. Sandridge on March 5,
2002. Prior to stopping Mr. Sandridge [on] March 27,
2002, Officer Grubb did not perform another license
inquiry to ascertain the status of his license, instead he
relied on the information from a check made three weeks
earlier. Officer Grubb knew from the inquiry on
March 5, 2002 that all Mr. Sandridge had to do was to
go get his driver’s license . . . .
The arguments in his brief on appeal are also based on the
fact that Officer Grubb was the one who ran the March 5
check. For instance, Sandridge renews his argument that
Grubb’s March 5 search did not provide reasonable suspicion
for the March 27 stop because, by March 27, the information
gleaned on March 5 was “stale.” Never does Sandridge
contend that anyone other than Officer Grubb conducted the
search. However, Sandridge’s brief makes several vague and
indirect references to the contrary, apparently to support his
request for a supplemental evidentiary hearing based on the
March 5 MDT record he presented in his motion for
reconsideration.
Because such references contradict other arguments that
Sandridge presents, we reject them as a basis for a new
evidentiary hearing. “The case precedent in this circuit
instructs courts to withhold judgment on issues not fully
developed by the briefs or in the record. Issues adverted to in
a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at
developed argumentation, are deemed waived. It is not
sufficient for a party to mention a possible argument in the
most skeletal way, leaving the court to . . . put flesh on its
bones.” Popovich v. Cuyahoga County Court of Common
Pleas, 276 F.3d 808, 823 (6th Cir. 2002) (internal quotations
and citation omitted). More importantly, as already
explained, the record leaves little question that it was Officer
Grubb who ran the March 5 license check on Sandridge’s car.

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No. 03-6046 United States v. Sandridge 7
We now turn to the central legal question: Whether Officer
Grubb had reasonable suspicion to stop Sandridge’s car on
March 27, 2002. This Court reviews de novo the district
court’s conclusion that the traffic stop was constitutional,
giving due weight to the factual inferences drawn by the
district court. United States v. Ridge, 329 F.3d 535, 540 (6th
Cir. 2003).
When a police officer conducts a brief investigatory stop of
a person in a vehicle, “the Fourth Amendment is satisfied if
the officer’s action is supported by reasonable suspicion to
believe that criminal activity may be afoot.” Id. (quoting
United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002)). When
Officer Grubb observed Sandridge driving on March 27,
2002, he reasonably suspected that he was driving without a
valid license because, just three weeks earlier, on March 5,
2002, Grubb ran a license check on Sandridge’s car and
learned that he did not have a valid license. With respect to
Sandridge’s argument that Officer Grubb was not a credible
witness because he first testified that the computer check was
run a few days prior to the stop, we agree with the district
court that the belatedly-discovered records of the March 5
check bolstered Officer Grubb’s credibility, since Grubb
testified all along that he ran a license check at some point
prior to March 27, and, at the second suppression hearing, he
specifically stated that the check might have occurred a few
weeks before the stop, rather than a few days before. The
documentary evidence, however, confirms that Grubb ran the
check on March 5, 2002.
Sandridge also argues that, even assuming that Grubb was
credible, any reasonable suspicion stemming from the
March 5 license check was “stale” by the next time Officer
Grubb saw Sandridge driving again, on March 27, 2002. We
reject that argument. In situations where the criminal activity
is of an ongoing nature, it will take longer for the information
to become stale. See United States v. Greene, 250 F.3d 471,
480 (6th Cir. 2001) (“Evidence of ongoing criminal activity
will generally defeat a claim of staleness.”). Driving without
8 United States v. Sandridge No. 03-6046
a valid license is a continuing offense – in contrast, say, to a
speeding or parking violation – and there are no facts in the
record suggesting that Officer Grubb should have assumed
that Sandridge’s ongoing offense had ceased between
March 5 and March 27, 2002. Accordingly, Officer Grubb
had a reasonable basis for suspecting that Sandridge still
lacked a valid license on March 27 and, therefore, Grubb was
permitted to stop Sandridge briefly to determine whether the
crime was still being committed. See United States v. Mans,
999 F.2d 966, 968 (6th Cir. 1993) (holding that an officer’s
stop of a defendant was reasonable, and not pretextual, where
the officer recognized the defendant from prior arrests and
knew that his driver’s license had been revoked).
For those reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of
Sandridge ’s motion to suppress evidence seized during the
traffic stop of March 27, 2002.
II. DRUG QUANTITY AND SENTENCING
Sandridge also challenges the sentence imposed by the
district court. He contends that the district court erred when,
for sentencing purposes and pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1, it
converted the $919 in cash seized from his person at the time
of his arrest into an equivalent drug amount – 21.71 grams of
cocaine base – and then added that to the 20.9 grams of
cocaine base found in his car, leading to a total drug quantity
finding of 42.61 grams of cocaine base. With that drug
quantity finding, Sandridge’s base offense level was 30.
Sandridge contends that he should have been sentenced
pursuant to a drug quantity finding of only 20.9 grams of
cocaine base – that is, only the amount of cocaine base found
in his car. This would have made his base offense level 28.
This Court reviews the district court’s drug quantity finding
– a factual finding – for clear error. United States v.
Keszthelyi, 308 F.3d 557, 576 (6th Cir. 2002). We have held
that when “the exact amount of drugs involved is uncertain,
the court may make an estimate supported by competent

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No. 03-6046 United States v. Sandridge 9
evidence,” but the evidence supporting the estimate “must
have a minimal level of reliability beyond mere allegation,
and the court should err on the side of caution in making its
estimate.” United States v. Owusu, 199 F.3d 329, 338 (6th
Cir. 2000) (quotation omitted). The commentary to § 2D1.1
of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines provides some guidance for
estimating drug quantity:
Where there is no drug seizure or the amount seized does
not reflect the scale of the offense, the court shall
approximate the quantity of the controlled substance. In
making this determination, the court may consider, for
example, the price generally obtained for the controlled
substance, financial or other records, similar transactions
in controlled substances by the defendant, and the size or
capability of any laboratory involved.
U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1, commentary, applic. note 12.
Applying those principles, we have previously approved the
conversion of seized funds into an equivalent amount of
drugs. See United States v. Samour, 9 F.3d 531, 537 (6th Cir.
1993), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Reed,
77 F.3d 139 (6th Cir. 1996); United States v. Jackson, 990
F.2d 251, 253 (6th Cir. 1993). In order to prove drug quantity
by such a method, the Government must prove by a
preponderance of the evidence both the amount of money
attributable to drug activity and the conversion ratio – i.e., the
price per unit of drugs. Jackson, 990 F.3d at 253.
A review of the sentencing transcripts reveals that the
district court decided to convert the cash into an equivalent
amount of cocaine base in reliance on information contained
in the probation office’s pre-sentence report (“PSR”) –
namely, that Sandridge is a “young man with no history of
gainful employment who was found in possession of
controlled substances plus a fairly large quantity of cash,” as
well as “some indications in his criminal history that he’s
been either charged [with] or convicted of drug offenses in the
10 United States v. Sandridge No. 03-6046
past.” In addition, the Government argued at sentencing –
and continues to argue on appeal – that the $919 in cash was
“about the same amount of money that could have bought
about as much crack as he had with him on that day,” and that
that proves the money was proceeds from Sandridge’s sale of
other cocaine base or money to buy more cocaine base.
The district court erred, for several reasons. Even
assuming, arguendo – based on Defendant’s lack of gainful
employment, his admitted drug dealing, and the sizable
amount of cash – that the $919 was connected to some sort of
drug business, the Government failed to show by a
preponderance of the evidence that the money was connected
to the purchase or sale of cocaine base other than the cocaine
base found in Defendant’s car. That is, the $919 in cash
cannot be used as a proxy for an additional quantity of
cocaine base above and beyond the quantity found in
Defendant’s car unless a preponderance of the evidence
shows that the cash was either proceeds from other cocaine
base that was just sold or money to purchase additional
cocaine base. Moreover, in this case, a preponderance of the
evidence would have to show that the money represented
proceeds from or money to purchase cocaine base, as opposed
to some other drug, such as marijuana, which was also found
in Defendant’s car.
At the sentencing hearing, the Government presented no
witnesses and entered no documents into evidence; it relied
entirely on the information in the PSR and asked the district
court to do the same. Defendant only pleaded guilty to
possessing with intent to distribute the 20.9 grams of cocaine
base found in his car; there was no allocution by Sandridge –
in either the plea agreement or at sentencing – concerning the
purpose of the cash. Accordingly, the information relied on
by the district court – i.e. that Defendant had no legitimate
source of income in the years prior to his arrest and that he
had a history of prior drug arrests – could suggest, at most,
that Defendant was engaged in drug dealing, which he
acknowledged in his guilty plea. But those facts shed no light

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No. 03-6046 United States v. Sandridge 11
on the question of whether the $919 was related to cocaine
base other than the cocaine base found in Defendant’s car.
Of significance here is the fact that the Government
believes that the $919 in cash was about the same amount of
money that could have bought the amount of concaine base
Sandridge had with him on March 27, 2002. Pursuant to the
Government’s logic, the almost-exact correlation between the
$919 and the 20.9 grams of cocaine base found in Sandridge’s
car means one of two things: either (a) that the cash was
proceeds from a previous sale of a similar quantity of drugs,
or (b) that Sandridge intended to use the cash in the near
future to purchase more drugs, of a similar quantity.
Although those hypotheses are plausible, it is equally
plausible that the cash was related to the 20.9 grams of
equivalently-valued cocaine base found in Sandridge ’s car:
the cash may have been from a buyer to whom he was about
to deliver the cocaine base or for a seller from whom he had
recently procured it. The Government provided no evidence
showing why its theories of the cash as a proxy for drugs-not-
found should trump a theory that the cash was related to the
equivalently-valued drugs found in Sandridge’s car.
There was also no evidence – and no explicit finding by the
district judge – that the drugs found in Defendant’s car did
not represent the full scale of the offense, as required by
U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1, commentary, applic. note 12. In addition,
no evidence was presented to show that the cash was related
to the sale of cocaine base, as opposed to marijuana, the other
drug found in Sandridge’s car. For those reasons, the district
court erred in converting the $919 in cash to 21.7 grams of
cocaine base and in adding that to the 20.9 grams found in
Sandridge ’s car, for a total 42.61 grams of cocaine base. We
hold that Defendant only should have been sentenced
pursuant to a drug quantity finding of 20.9 grams of cocaine
base.
Lastly, because this Court recently determined that Blakely
v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___ (2004) does not invalidate the
12 United States v. Sandridge No. 03-6046
sentencing scheme set forth in the U.S. Sentencing
Guidelines, see United States v. Koch, No.02-6278 — F.3d
—, 2004 WL 1899930 (6th Cir. Aug. 13, 2004) (en banc), we
reject Defendant’s Blakely-based arguments, which were
presented to the Court in a supplemental briefing. However,
Sandridge may, of course, raise any Blakely issues on remand
to the district court in the event that an intervening decision
from the United States Supreme Court renders them viable.
See United States v. Booker, 04-104, — S. Ct. —, 2004 WL
1713654 (U.S. cert. granted Aug. 2, 2004) (mem.) and United
States v. Fanfan, No. 04-105, — S. Ct. —, 2004 WL 171
3655 (U.S. cert. granted Aug. 2, 2004) (mem.).
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, we AFFIRM the district
court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress but
VACATE the sentence imposed by the district court and
REMAND for re-sentencing consistent with this opinion.

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