Agent Cooke radioed the local police for assistance, and two officers from the Myrtle Beach Police Department arrived about 10 minutes later. Agent Cooke asked the Myrtle Beach PD to maintain the situation, then left to join the highway patrol officer who had successfully stopped the pickup truck one-half mile down the road. Agent Cooke arrived at the pickup truck about 15 minutes after it had been stopped. Agent Cooke twice asked for permission to search the camper, but Savage declined. Agent Cooke, however confirmed that the camper was overloaded with weight and smelled marijuana when he put his nose against the rear window. Based on this, Agent Cooke opened the trailer and observed large bales of marijuana in the camper. At this point, Agent Cooke arrested Savage. From the time Agent Cooke initially stopped the vehicles until the arrest of Savage, twenty minutes had passed. Agent Cooke returned to the Pontiac and arrested Sharpe 30-40 minutes after the initial stop. That evening, other DEA agents took the truck to a federal building in South Carolina. Several days later, Agent Cooke supervised the unloading of 2,629 pounds of marijuana. Sharpe and Savage were charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute it in violation of 21 U.S.C. Section 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. Section 2. The key issue the Supreme Court had to decide was whether the stop was unduly prolonged before the police had probable cause to arrest Savage. Specifically, the Supreme Court had to decide whether the twenty minutes that passed from the time Savage was pulled over until the moment Agent Cooke smelled the marijuana was an unjustified amount of time for the police to stop someone without probable cause of a crime. On March 20, 1985 the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision in favor of the United States that reversed the judgement of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and reinstated the convictions of Savage and Sharpe. Chief Justice Burger delivered the opinion of the Court. The Court noted at the onset that it need not decide whether Agent Cooke had reasonable articulable suspicion to initiate the traffic stop. The Court of Appeals had assumed that portion of the analysis, and the Court noted that assumption was "abundantly supported by the record." Next, the Court set aside the 30 - 40 minute detention of Sharpe as irrelevant to the legal analysis. That was because the Defendants were trying to suppress the discovery of the marijuana, but the marijuana was discovered as part of Savage's detention not Sharpe's detention. Therefore, it was only the 20 minute detention of Savage that was legally relevant to the Court.