case this morning is united states versus  is about seven hundred and twenty five it's a cold day but just cold for winter cold and they're traveling about thirty five miles an hour they're heading centrally southeasterly direction up west hopkins is one of monty's diagonal streets and this is undeniably a high crime area and they're approaching a particular hot spot called mother's food and liquor the driver officer ramirez slows his vehicle from up thirty five to about fifteen to twenty but they're still traveling at a pretty good rate in terms of the amount of time they had to see what happened next they see my client's car divine beings car about fifteen to twenty feet southeastward self southeast of mothers and they see the car when they're about twenty five to thirty feet away from others so you do the math they have a couple of seconds to make the observations that they did in this case and they see bean's car and this is what they see the cars attended in fact mr bean is driving the car the car is on it's running they can see the fumes emitting from the tailpipe it's near an open store and there's a pedestrian the area indeed a man is there and he's leaning into the car and they're looking at what may be some kind of contact between the two of them but what about in johnson where we said the police don't have to sort out whether the exceptions apply like a passenger being loaded  police see what looks like a non loading in a loading zone in even a brief period of time they've got probable cause the court rejected the notion as the your honor just alluded to that they that they have to sort out a wa confirm whether it's loading or not loading country to the government's arguments here being is you know being gets that you know we're arguing we accept that this initial view of this moving snapshot if you will  s is sufficient evidence for the officers if they see none loading but would you call that the stop not yet what they're what their initial seeing is is what leads to the stop but this other factors creates probable cause to ticket so loading of course is still legal in a loading zone and our position obviously is that when the police had this snapshot this moving snapshot view of beings car what lot more like probably because of that in that with that yes everything really rags on the path to estrange being right in the area that's the that's the one of the two main differences between being in johnson in johnson both in the the st decision and the  court went to some length to talk about the difference that the the fact that there was no driver there in the st case talking but given that there was no driver they could have just walked up and and seen what they saw and in the bok decision they talked about how this was there was a great deal of force that the officers us but given that there was no driver the car wasn't going anywhere it really did make any difference in being there are these differences beings there who's driving you obviously can just move away and i mean you know in a heartbeat and there's this person who would have looked like he might be doing one of those things and so it's not the instant moving image probable cause th officers had in johnson these are obviously a very fact specific situation johnson is clear what it says beans facts are not johnson's facts as i said you know and johnson the car is seventy eight feet from the crosstalk so it's within fifteen feet so it's right away it's in that it's in that area where the draws the police attention the car had it's all the stores close there's no pedestrians at all in the entire vicinity no one's in the driver's seat there's no evidence of loading or unloading anybody getting in or getting out and based on those facts the court said there's probable cause in other words there's there is a substantial chance that there's a violation going on here counsel so the government is not arguing that  stop kind of situation how would what response if if it were if we said that the government that the cops had reasonable suspicion that there might have been a parking violation because they weren't sure whether this was being loaded or unloaded what would be wrong with that well i guess i'm not going to try to bat that one down because i don't believe that is the state of the law and that's not what their argument i believe a traffic violation must be based upon probable cause so it would obviously chip away at the argument i'm making but i don't believe i have to make that i said terry doesn't apply in this situation well this court in johnson said both terry and run apply but that in in in traffic stops it sure it's in these types of traffic  parking ticket type situations it's probably cause more speeding case probable cause  so the what the police encountered with being in the moments before making the stop the snapshot view did not provide them with this notion that we have that there's a substantial chance of a violation going it would have shown there's a guy who looks like he might be getting and or getting out he might be a pastor loading something and i think you know what happens here is that they either stop or they drive right past but underlying this whole thing obviously it's it's not relevant because of the application of ren ironically is what they really were interested in the notion there might be a drug deal going on here and again they either drive by or stop so the circumstances compelled them to make this very quick decision and there were not grounds to placement my name is jonathan koenig i currently have the united states this morning i will get to the pedestrian and in a minute but i would like to begin by saying i think it's possible to overthink the parking violation aspect of this case the officers observed what appeared to be a violation and they issued a citation in order to do that they stopped or seized bean at least briefly this is not only commonplace it's also permissible under rand as interpreted by this court's recent decision in johnson it doesn't matter that it was a fine only offense it doesn't matter what the officers motivations may have been and probably to get to your question such barrier probably doesn't matter whether we apply a probable cause standard or reasonable suspicion standard there's no dispute about what the officers saw admittedly they had a brief period of time in which to make observations but they were consistent neither of the judges that looked at this question their credibility on what they saw which was a vehicle isn't a vehicle parked between two no parking signs no doors opening or closing and no deaths trains coming or are going away from coming to the car going away from the car  and that brings me to the pedestrian who is leaning deeply into the passenger side of the vehicle johnson holds that when when officers are presented with an apparent violation they don't have to investigate all the exceptions and defenses that might apply but i would just point out that the argument my opponent makes them which is  that his client may fall within the exception for receiving or just charging passengers is a very speculative argument again there was no  evidence presented that the pedestrian was a passenger and the nothing presented itself to the officers to suggest that he had either recently gotten out of the car or is about to get into the car  don't with respect to the neighborhood i would have served as this court if we simply in richmond that the fact with that they were in a high crime neighborhood is part of the overall analysis of itself it doesn't give rise to reasonable suspicion force and  the other thing that i would point out with respect to others is that this wasn't just a high crime neighborhood this was a very specific location that was known to the officers for drug dealing activity so that makes i think maybe a more of areas and it's actually looking out for the people who live there you know who they go to be on the lookout for some problem and i couldn't agree more your honor that the alternative was for them to keep driving and then or the situation which i think would have been bad police  as an aside i note that the the dean told the p s r writer that the man leaning into his car was quote someone he knew and that he merely quote linger too long in the loading zone to talk to them through an open window that obviously is not consistent with the passenger theory there's no mention in paragraph sixteen with p s r of this person being a passenger  so just to conclude on the parking violation as the magistrate judge understood we're dealing with probable cause which doesn't require a showing of illegal activity but merely a showing that there's a substantial chance the criminal activity is underway so moving to a reasonable suspicion part of our argument we have argued consistently that  the officers also had reasonable suspicion of drug dealing activity and the end disha drug dealing activity here would be the parking violation itself illegal the man leaning into the car what appeared to be a hand hand transaction of some kind the man on the sidewalk hightailing it out of there when the police showed up and a key and the location you know hot spot for agents in that case did not observe any illegal activity all they observed was what appeared to be a hand and transaction of some kind of cheer you had a parking violation which attracted the notice of the officers in the  instance and then they observe the hand to hand transaction and the fellows leaning into the car make a u turn and get out of so harris distinguishable but i would also point out that neither harris nor any other case i'm aware of from this circuit stablish is a bright line rule that you must see the substance being passed hand to hand in order to have reasonable suspicion i think there's more play in the th amendment law than that and under a totality of the circumstances test certainly if you did see cocaine or something or cash that might heighten the level of suspicion but i'm not aware of any requirement in the circuit that that you actually see something being transacted and soul and harris doesn't stand for that proposition either so to conclude we think that the court should affirm the denial of a motion to suppress because the conduct of the officers was reasonable either they had probable cause to for a parking violation or reasonable suspicion of drug dealing activity either way they were entitled to stop being ceases vehicle hope i wish to be clear as we were in our brief that we're not relying on anything that happened after they stopped the vehicle of course they did smell marijuana they did observe furtive gestures but we maintain that they possible violation traffic violation really want to call exactly so you can have any further questions if not i'm happy to rest on our free thank you very much thank you council it's a camp and thank you johnson did not establish a status offense for simply having your car parked in a there has to be something more i sought to give examples in my briefing about an obvious situation of loading kids with grocery bags a personal wheelchair those are obvious things of a police officer drives by and sees that that's abundantly clear loading is going on you know middle of being situation is not nearly as clear cut as that but it is not johnson situation there are there are differences no doors open but there's a window opened such that there's open communication fact the man is leaning in and again ironically the police are worried that there actually is some kind of loading or unloading going on the form of drug activity and  so respect your honor i don't believe that this is a situation of a of an apparent violation and i think we all know that's not was a st on their mind whether there's an apparent violation of the parking violation they thought there might be something else  what counsel states that there's no evidence of what the what the man was doing and then also states that in the in the p s r interview mr bean said he knew the man who just lingered those things or if i was to argue them now that this was something that that actually put on evidence that he had placed a bag in there if the officers didn't see that there wouldn't matter what matters is the snapshot this moving snapshot that they had in those few seconds that's what matters so anything beyond that is simply not relevant now briefly with regard to this this alleged hand to hand contact because that's what it what's that it's not an apparent transaction all three officers officers ramirez and ferguson and follow all said they did not see an exchange all of them said that this is a tactile greeting and to handshake it's whatever it is not a hand and exchange and harris is clear that the court wanted to see evidence of what their officer thought was being exchanged thank you very much