United States v. Juan Pablo Cedano-Arellano

Defendant-Appellant Juan Pablo Ceda-no-Arellano was indicted on charges of smuggling cocaine into the United States after a search at the Mexican border revealed packages of cocaine in the gas tank of his truck. Cedano-Arellano entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal the following issues: whether the district court erroneously denied him discovery on the narcotics detector dog that “alerted” on his gas tank, whether there was probable cause to support his initial and subsequent arrests, whether there was reasonable suspicion to support the Customs agents’ search of his gas tank, whether the federal drug statutes are constitutional under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 , 120 S.Ct. 2348 , 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), and whether the grand jury that indicted him was instructed properly. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

I. Discovery Issues

In a pretrial motion, defense counsel asked the district court to require discovery from the government about the narcotics dog that had alerted on Cedano-Arella-no’s gas tank. Counsel explained that he had retained an expert to review the dog’s performance and training records, and…