No Standing to Challenge Search of a Companion Vehicle; Unbriefed Good-Faith Reliance Waives Probable-Cause Attacks; Upward Variance Above a Statutory-Minimum Guideline Term Upheld

United States v. Michael Joe Green, II, No. 23-12377 (11th Cir. Nov. 12, 2025) (per curiam)

Introduction

In this non-argument calendar, unpublished decision, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the convictions and 360-month sentence of Michael Joe Green, II for drug-trafficking offenses arising out of a multi-jurisdiction investigation that included an intercepted parcel containing 5.3 pounds of cocaine, GPS cell-site tracking, search warrants executed at two Pensacola residences, and a Louisiana traffic stop yielding multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine pills.

The appeal squarely presented three clusters of issues: (1) Fourth Amendment challenges to the stop and search of a rental vehicle in a two-car convoy, to residence search warrants, and to a renewed cell-phone GPS tracking warrant; (2) sufficiency of the evidence for a distribution count tied to the intercepted parcel and a conspiracy count; and (3) procedural and substantive reasonableness of a 360-month sentence that exceeded the statutory-minimum guideline term.

The Court’s opinion is notable for three practical clarifications with recurring importance:

• Standing limits in convoy scenarios: a defendant not present in, not on the rental agreement for, and not the owner of a companion vehicle has no legitimate expectation of privacy to challenge its search, even if traveling “within seconds” of it and claiming luggage was inside.
• Appellate waiver and the good-faith exception: failing to brief the district court’s separate good-faith holding (Leon good-faith reliance) abandons an indispensable ground for reversal of a warrant-based search.
• Sentencing above a statutory-minimum guideline term: when a statutory minimum sets the guideline sentence under § 5G1.1(b), guideline-calculation errors are harmless, and an upward variance can be substantively reasonable based on criminal history and other § 3553(a) factors.

Summary of the Opinion

• Suppression denied:
  • No standing to contest the search of the Ford rental vehicle (the “companion car”) because Green was neither the owner nor on the agreement, and he was not present during the stop and search.
  • Residence warrants (Northpointe and Southbay) stand because Green abandoned on appeal any challenge to the district court’s independent good-faith ruling; that forfeiture obviated a need to reach probable cause.
  • Renewed cell-phone GPS warrant supported by probable cause under the totality of circumstances; information was not impermissibly stale given evidence of an ongoing trafficking operation and corroborated tips from informants of “un-tested reliability.”
• Sufficiency of the evidence affirmed:
  • Count Two (distribution via mailed parcel): circumstantial evidence—including Office Depot purchases (notably a distinctive “Vaultz” lockbox), communications with his mother about tracking and pickup, and a companion’s mailing activity—permitted the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Green knowingly distributed cocaine or aided and abetted it.
  • Count One (conspiracy): multi-kilogram drugs from the Louisiana stop, Green’s fingerprint on a cocaine brick, travel patterns between Pensacola and Houston, and drug-processing paraphernalia in residences tied to Green sufficed. The jury could disbelieve Green’s testimony and use that disbelief as substantive evidence of guilt.
• Sentencing affirmed:
  • Any guideline-calculation errors were harmless because the statutory minimum (300 months) displaced the lower calculated guideline range under § 5G1.1(b).
  • An upward variance to 360 months, grounded in the nature of the offense and Green’s extensive, violent criminal history, was substantively reasonable and below the statutory maximums.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and How They Shaped the Decision

• Standing and vehicle searches:
  • Rakas v. Illinois: Passengers without a property or possessory interest in the vehicle lack a legitimate expectation of privacy to challenge its search.
  • United States v. Gibson and United States v. Miller: A borrower/driver may have standing only when in possession or as a permissive driver; not when neither driver nor passenger at the time of search.
  • Byrd v. United States; United States v. Martinez-Fuerte: Vehicles receive diminished Fourth Amendment protections compared to dwellings, undercutting analogies to overnight house-guest privacy expectations.
• Appellate abandonment and good-faith:
  • United States v. King; United States v. Campbell; United States v. Castillo; Sapuppo v. Allstate: Issues not raised in the opening brief are abandoned; a failure to attack each independent ground for the district court’s ruling requires affirmance. Applied here to the district court’s Leon good-faith finding.
• Probable cause, staleness, and informants:
  • Florida v. Harris and United States v. Delgado: Probable cause is a flexible, common-sense, low-threshold standard requiring a fair probability of criminal activity.
  • United States v. Bervaldi: Staleness is fact-specific; older facts can support probable cause for ongoing conspiracies.
  • United States v. Martin: Corroboration by police can compensate for informants of unproven reliability.
• Sufficiency of the evidence:
  • United States v. Chafin; United States v. Holmes; United States v. Beach: De novo review, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict; circumstantial and direct evidence are treated alike.
  • McFadden v. United States: Knowledge-of-controlled-substance element for § 841(a)(1).
  • United States v. Tagg; United States v. Poole: Elements and proof of aiding and abetting and substantive drug offenses may be shown circumstantially.
  • United States v. Colston; United States v. Carrascal-Olivera: Conspiracy elements and permissible inference from coordinated conduct and large quantities.
  • United States v. Brown: A testifying defendant risks that the jury’s disbelief becomes affirmative substantive evidence of guilt.
  • United States v. Calderon; United States v. Ellisor; United States v. Broughton: The government need not exclude every hypothesis of innocence; appellate deference to reasonable inferences and credibility determinations.
• Sentencing:
  • Gall v. United States; Kimbrough v. United States: Abuse-of-discretion review; sentences must be sufficient but not greater than necessary, with consideration of all § 3553(a) factors.
  • U.S.S.G. § 5G1.1(b); Williams v. United States; United States v. Lebowitz; United States v. Sarras: When a statutory minimum exceeds the guideline range, it becomes the guideline sentence; guideline calculation errors are harmless if they do not affect the sentence selected.
  • United States v. Rosales-Bruno; United States v. Tome; 18 U.S.C. § 3661; United States v. Amedeo: District courts may place substantial weight on criminal history and consider broad information about the defendant’s background and conduct in varying upward.
  • United States v. Muho; United States v. Irey: Below-maximum sentences are generally reasonable; variance affirmed absent a clear error of judgment in weighing § 3553(a) factors.

Legal Reasoning

1. Standing to challenge the Ford search. The Court applied settled Fourth Amendment principles: to invoke the exclusionary rule a defendant must demonstrate a legitimate expectation of privacy in the place searched. Green had none with respect to the Ford. He was not the owner, was not on the rental agreement, and was not in the vehicle when it was searched. Mere assertions of prior use, traveling “within seconds” of the car, or placing luggage in it do not create a protectable privacy interest under Rakas and Gibson. The diminished privacy associated with automobiles further undermined analogies to home-guest privacy.

2. Residence search warrants. The district court alternatively held that even if probable cause were lacking, officers acted in good-faith reliance on the warrants. On appeal, Green did not challenge that independent ground in his opening brief. Under King, Campbell, Castillo, and Sapuppo, failure to attack each pillar of the district court’s ruling abandons the issue and requires affirmance. As a result, the panel declined to reach the underlying probable-cause arguments.

3. Renewed cell-phone GPS warrant. The probable cause showing cleared the low “fair probability” threshold when all facts were viewed in the totality. Although the initial parcel seizure occurred months earlier, the affidavit detailed a continuing trafficking operation—weekly Houston trips, brief turnarounds with stops near post offices, calls to a known distributor, and the hotel-room encounter—rendering earlier facts not stale under Bervaldi. The affiant acknowledged informants of untested reliability, but corroboration from surveillance, pen register data, and call records satisfied Martin. The panel thus sustained the renewed tracking order.

4. Sufficiency of the evidence. For Count Two, the government’s tapestry of circumstantial proof—Office Depot purchases including the distinctive “Vaultz” lockbox, coordinated mailing by Green’s girlfriend, and contemporaneous texts pressuring his mother to retrieve the parcel—supported findings that Green knowingly distributed cocaine or aided and abetted it. The government was not required to negate all innocent explanations or produce fingerprints on the packaging. For Count One, the conspiracy, multi-kilogram quantities seized from the convoy vehicle, Green’s fingerprint on a cocaine brick, matching candy-like meth pills in the car and at Northpointe (where Green stayed), drug-distribution paraphernalia at residences tied to Green, and his Houston travel pattern together permitted a reasonable jury to conclude there was an agreement to traffic drugs that Green knowingly and voluntarily joined. Green elected to testify; the jury was entitled to disbelieve his explanations and treat that disbelief as affirmative evidence of guilt under Brown.

5. Sentencing. Procedurally, any guideline-calculation errors were harmless because the statutory minimum of 300 months became the guideline sentence by operation of § 5G1.1(b), a point Green conceded below. Substantively, the upward variance to 360 months was justified by § 3553(a)’s aims: the seriousness of a long-running, multi-kilogram drug operation; Green’s extensive, violent criminal history that the court found underrepresented by the criminal history category; and the need for specific deterrence and public protection. The district court acknowledged mitigating considerations—family support, GED, treatment needs—and chose a sentence below the statutory maximums. Under Rosales-Bruno and Irey, assigning substantial weight to criminal history and imposing an above-guideline (above statutory-minimum guideline) sentence was within the court’s discretion.

Impact

• Fourth Amendment standing in convoy cases:
  • Defendants cannot leverage proximity, coordination, or asserted luggage placement to manufacture standing in a separate vehicle absent a concrete possessory or privacy interest. Defense strategy should focus on challenging the legality of the stop and search as to occupants or the vehicle’s renter, not non-occupant third parties.
• Appellate briefing discipline on good-faith reliance:
  • When a district court supplies both probable-cause and good-faith grounds for denying suppression, appellants must challenge both in the opening brief. Failure to brief Leon good-faith is typically fatal regardless of the strength of the probable-cause argument.
• Renewals of electronic tracking:
  • Renewed GPS or pen-register orders can rest on a blend of older and new facts when the investigation concerns an ongoing conspiracy; corroborated tips from informants of untested reliability may contribute to probable cause. Agents should expressly document corroboration and the continuity of suspected criminal activity to defeat staleness claims.
• Sufficiency: circumstantial mosaics and defendant testimony:
  • Circumstantial mosaics tied together by travel patterns, distinctive materials (like a unique shipping container), communications, and forensic links can sustain trafficking convictions. Defendants who testify should be counseled that implausible narratives can bolster the prosecution if the jury disbelieves them.
• Sentencing above statutory floors:
  • Where a statutory minimum sets the guideline sentence, potential guideline-calculation errors are often harmless. Defense efforts should pivot to § 3553(a) mitigation and present concrete, individualized reasons for a sentence at the floor. Conversely, district courts retain broad discretion to vary upward from a statutory-minimum guideline term, especially based on violent criminal histories and recidivism concerns.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Legitimate expectation of privacy (standing): To suppress evidence from a search, a defendant must show a personal privacy interest in the place searched. Being near a car or traveling in a convoy does not create that interest for a different car.
• Good-faith exception: Even if a warrant lacks probable cause, evidence may be admissible if officers reasonably relied on it in good faith. On appeal, you must challenge that good-faith finding or you lose the suppression issue.
• Probable cause and staleness: Probable cause requires a fair probability of finding evidence of a crime. Information can grow “stale,” but in ongoing conspiracies older facts may still support probable cause, especially when new corroborating facts appear.
• Aiding and abetting: You’re liable if you intentionally help commit a crime—by acts or encouragement—even if you didn’t commit every element yourself.
• Conspiracy: An agreement between two or more people to commit a crime. The government can prove it through coordinated actions and circumstances, not just explicit agreements.
• Converted drug weight: The Guidelines convert different drugs to a unified scale to calculate the base offense level; here it produced a high starting point before statutory minimums controlled.
• Statutory minimum and § 5G1.1(b): If the law mandates a minimum sentence higher than the calculated guideline range, that minimum becomes the guideline sentence.
• Upward variance: A sentence above the guideline term based on § 3553(a) factors. Courts can assign heavy weight to prior violent conduct and recidivism.
• Harmless error (sentencing): Even if a judge miscalculates guidelines, the error is harmless if it didn’t affect the chosen sentence—commonly true when a statutory minimum governs.

Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in United States v. Green is a comprehensive application of settled doctrine with practical, clarifying bite. It underscores that:

• Fourth Amendment standing is personal and context-specific; convoy coordination and claimed luggage alone do not create a privacy interest in another vehicle.
• Appellate success on warrant challenges demands confronting the district court’s good-faith determination in the opening brief.
• Probable cause for renewed GPS tracking can rest on corroborated tips and a pattern of ongoing trafficking, defeating staleness arguments.
• Well-integrated circumstantial evidence—and a jury’s disbelief of a defendant’s testimony—can sustain distribution and conspiracy convictions.
• At sentencing, statutory minimums can render guideline disputes academic, and district courts may vary upward in light of persistent, violent criminal histories, so long as they thoughtfully apply § 3553(a).

For practitioners, the case is a cautionary tale about preserving issues on appeal and a roadmap for both the government and defense on how to frame (and attack) probable cause for electronic surveillance renewals, litigate standing in multi-vehicle operations, and argue sentencing above or at statutory floors. Although unpublished, Green distills recurring federal criminal practice themes into a single, coherent affirmance.