license in computer second the multiple visible modifications to the defendant's trailer amounted to reasonable suspicion sir the court ignored numerous other facts that contributed to reasonable to perform a number of tasks the officer can inspect the license in the registration the officer can ask questions of the driver about or the occupants about there are a temporary where they're coming from or they go on what they're doing and the officer can conduct licensing computer checks and all of those tasks are tied directly to the purpose of the traffic investigation here the district court found that the traffic stop ended at the eleven minute and fourteen second point on government exhibit one that's the video of the traffic stop and at the eleven minute fourteen second point corporal james woody a five year veteran of the west veteran sheriff's office is returning to his patrol and the district court questioned him and then on redirect the government clarified and that's it pages two thirty seven to thirty eight of the record whether or not corporal what he had initiated in completed his license and computer checked in he clearly testified at page two thirty eight that he had begun those checks but that he had not received any results that he not begin the license check until that eleven minute mark when i watch the video and he's basically out looking at the trailer talking to the defendant is it that point because he was asking questions about the defendant's attorney really and then he was asking questions about this visibly modified in the defendant was unable to clearly answer those questions and so corporal what he would follow asking about the modifications is really that's going to the suspicion of drugs which if there's reasonable suspicion of there you can do but it seems when the supreme court in that rodriguez case a few years ago says it you know it really has to be tightly tied to the traffic stop itself into a reasonable suspicion and he's a guy that uses this type of trailer as is he testified to on a regular basis he hunts with them his dad owns one he's very familiar with it and this thing looks off him so i think his questions are both related to his real suspicion of narcotics but i think the also is a safety basis there in that the state has an interest in people who are towing trailers down the highway that that trailer is safe that it's not going to fall off that it's it's not going to have the diamond plate metal that he'd never seen fly off the bat what  minute what time during the stop do you think reasonable suspicion of the drug use develop because in watching it i mean there's this debate that he noticed the modifications the first time he passed the trailer or when he went back but it's at least by the four minute mark from what i've seen that he does has to find suspicion in the government position of a hidden compartment and he testified that very early on as he exited his vehicle he noticed the modified tailgate and that he was suspicious of that vehicle and i think that brings us to my second point which  the visible modifications to this vehicle and when you look at the tailgate that's what jumps out to corporal woody and based on his training experience and also jumped out importantly to turn green who has twenty four years of experience and teaches classes on how to detect these types of compartments because he he's been doing this for multiple decades and when these gentlemen looked at that tailgate it didn't make sense to them because the vehicle had been modified in and frankly people modify their vehicles and innocent ways every day right i can add a turbo to my engine i can paint my car crazy car to make my centers look different those are all innocent in here the defendant could modify his tailgate and that could be innocent but in light of all the other facts about that trailer i didn't believe that modification was innocent because the tailgate had been cut in really well and he could see that and it's it's clear in the video in the pictures because the reflective tape on the back of the trailer was caught and when you when he looked at it he could see that when the tailgate was lowered the trailer was no longer a roll on rol was so the the question is why would someone modify a vehicle to make it work less well and that really piqued corporal what he suspicion and that's important because when you look at some of the vehicle modification cases suspicious so if you watch the video you see it in a green exit the patrol car and he walks up and down the vehicle and he testified that he found the bed of the trailer to be to fit that metal had been added to the top which adds weight but doesn't make the trailer work more  going to get the sequence in which this occurred and while the time clock is running i think the modified tell it is the first thing that jumped out and then when he went up and looked at the bed he was able to confirm his suspicions about the bed and the metal on top questioning was a graduated response to emerging facts and there certainly could come a time where one officer to be questioning someone on the side of the road for unrelated things that would be an so long is because mr belafonte i was unable to answer some of these questions affectively when asked where he was going he said i'm going to gonzales and he said well what are you doing there what are you going to get it and they proceed to have a conversation where it studies of that in the record i want to ask you your challenge you're talking about the length of the stop which is what you lost on below so that makes sense but i want to ask you about the stop itself because the officer says there are two reasons for the stop one following too closely two i think the car went outside the lane the video is the district court found doesn't really show that but she ends up the judge ends up finding that he observed before the video started what's the best record representation for you but i know it was it was right at the start of his direct examination because we proceeded directly to what was the basis for the study and i know he does say where you can't even go to see them outside the lane but you can see the car swerving moving because it's back  don't really see that either but you think anything is shown in terms of the traffic stop on the video not really on it because the couple will testify that the way that traffic camera war or the way that the camera in his car works is it is it's activated within the car lights right so i think it's common in a lot of traffic stops that the actual violation is not observed because the lights are initiated following the you know i understand i just didn't see clear testimony though from him saying that and i did understand coming back a four hour drive from houston which could be a day trip could be done in a day or maybe an overnight he had what appears to be a multi day amount of luggage and additionally he had a security measures that corporal what he found suspicious because the trailer had three locks and also locked but the safety chains in the trailer hitch itself which based on corporal what is experienced as a as a guy who uses these trailers he found suspicious and that's the first slide like to just point out briefly on the standard of review the court looks at the district court's findings of fact for clear clear air and the application of the law is reviewed de novo i believe that the law is clear in this case it's another prolonged detention case this court has ruled on many of these i know that judge  opinions on this issue he's offered opinions on every issue i think by now that's true that's true and so i mean the the test is clear about prolonged detention and the i believe that the district court correctly applied to walk to the facts what changes from case to case because the fifth circuit rules on so many of these problem detention cases are the facts and the last days the same it's just whether or not the district judge applied the law correctly to obviously the facts of the yes or i'll focus on that in this case unlike some of the precedent the government relies on first of all you have an officer who receives a bolo report from his supervisor just a license plate and a description of the vehicle he testified that once he got that bodo he was going to stop the vehicle and he was going to search the v him start slowing down and then the officer says well now it's following too closely which is what he created the vehicle the trailer tire strikes the fog line maybe one time just barely strikes the line and apparently that's enough for a traffic violation the district judge gave corporal woody the benefit of the doubt on that and found that there was a valid traffic stop i disagree with that i don't think there was but once he makes the traffic stop he approaches the  statement of what he says happened he then immediately prox me one minute into the stop completely stops his investigation of the purpose of the initial traffic stop from the one minute mark he gets mr v a from the wow and then he tells him hey that's a pretty tight trailer he didn't see anything wrong with the trailer later he said he noticed as he was walking to the trailer i don't believe that was true either he's looking for a reason to search the vehicle he's manufacturing something that he can say is reasonable suspicion of the district show him in just three or four minutes and he walks he's up at the front talking to your client then he walks back or doesn't the video show him looking pretty closely at the trailer at that point exactly yes sir your honor what hatchets reaffirms its for what he's already completed the purpose of the stop he has a driver's license he makes no good question in my opinion the officer the he testified that he's never read me take it he doesn't write tickets that was his testimony i don't write tickets i'm a drug interdiction i do searches he testified my intention from the beginning was to search this vehicle and i was going to create a way that i could have a reason to search the vehicle that was his testimony so he says you were following too closely back there one thousand one one thousand two ok get out of the car let's go talk any holes mr via franco first thing he says a that's a nice tight trailer then he starts he doesn't go to the vehicle the radio dispatch he starts the fishing expedition he starts picking at little innocuous details and there's a metal floor here where you have a metal floor and though the welds look week later he testified don't know anything about welding it doesn't look as if the tailgate would open flush if you open it he didn't open the tailgate to see how the operation of the tailgate where he's he's over there are three locks on the chains one lock on on each chain and one lock on the receiver so these issues the district judge pointed to all of those in her findings and her rationale for granting the motion to suppress that all of these things could have been true in a thousand different trailers nothing that the officer pointed to in and of itself was unique and could have been true of any trailer going down the road on i ten what about what about o c agree officer green apparently arrived and observed and move the camera around and then at some point after corporal would he went into the vehicle which is i think around the eleven minute mark he talked to greene he turned his audio was throughout the video corporal woody turns his video off or i mean is a so he can hear what they're saying and then he turned it back on but again i believe that the decision had been made to search the vehicle and they were just looking for some excuse for  watch the video and if you've seen the photos there were two channels i don't know if they're not troll voids but that were part of the frame but there are two channels underneath the trailer where alternately two or three hours later cocaine was revealed those two voids run from the front to the back of the trailer kind of toward the center of the trailer and you can see on the video where lieutenant green operates the backscatter he never goes over to the area where the boys i didn't test to he testified that he discovered anomalies but it's a mystery what the anomalies could have been we don't know if there were any anomalies or not he said that there were a that the stop had been prolonged prior to lieutenant green's involvement in the stop so i don't believe she addressed that portion of it she found that the latest at the eleven fourteen mar acquiesces they handcuffed him put him in the back trail car then lieutenant green starts doing the inspection the two officers are on top the trailer they're under they're crawling under they're all over it and then at some point between the fifteen minute mark in the forty five minute mark when they run the dog so for approx me actually it's forty minute mark for about twenty five minutes they're crawling all around the trailer looking twenty five minutes before depth because it's during that twenty five interrogation well your honor the district court finds that at the eleven fourteen mark the purpose of the initial stop has concluded and so her focus is on what suspicious in any manner his demeanor was not suspicious none of that is borne out in the record so then to focus bases for the time clock to be extended answers were non responsive our roots are in turn raise another problem actually what the findings were by the district judges that the responses were responses that there was no nervousness that there was no a base of ms that there was nothing i demeanor that would support reasonable suspicion for those first eleven minutes so she looks at the other issues that the government would rely on which is anomalies with the trailer and she points to each one of the suggested anomalies and says it's not really anything suspicious about that and then she cites the madra both opinion words order model vehicle and the the officer in that case pointed to some of the actually the  all of these prolong the changing cases i think is the closest on point to the facts we were no modifications to the vehicle observed in that case right in my brain go right now it's just an old can you cite it's a case where officers had observed modifications and yet the courts still found there was no reasonable suspicion of drugs being in those compartments and i cite one right is there a case out there that says i can't cite one your honor but i can tell you that what judge dictated in this case is she found that there were no modifications that trailer that trailer was ordinary that was not in that a and errant fact finding i don't know if it's a fact finding that we review and can't overturn because it's not errant enough but it does seem to me based on the expertise of these witnesses the modifications i mean you have a response to it but their suspicions were aroused by the nature of these modifications where you have a dropdown ramp that no longer is nearly as usable as it would have been if it had been in the place and should have been over the floor and up and raise whatever caused alteration she sort of looked at those factual statements by the officer officer serves and rejected is this court in a position on our review standard to look at those same modifications and say we see them much more so as a basis for suspicion than judge dick did and we reviews the case giving which didn't have any facts that said modifications like this are in trailers every day which is more or less what she found these are the kinds of unsuspicious modifications a lot of trailers had there was no facts to support that so at least there she was speculating your honor of the issue with the tailgate for example that was cited as a possible reason for suspicion the tailgate wasn't lowered to determine whether or not it functioned properly until much later long after the district judge was he like even in the upright position you could tell where the floor of that would be if lower and i don't know if that if the officer said that did you check to see the operation of the tailgate to see whether it was the type that goes down and then lifts in like a u haul trailer where you pull the ramp down and then you lift it up and clip it on he said no we did not until  after they checked the ramp but i believe that reviewed in the light most favorable to the prevailing party which is the standard of review that the district judge as facts should be dispositive here  i think that she did have a very thorough job of listing each fact as far as the prolong the change in the reasonable suspicion the consent whether or not the consent was  color i don't believe that he has not having an address memorized of a place where he's going he went to look for the paperwork to give the officer the address where he was going he just didn't have it memorized just the district judge didn't find that to rise to the levels or evidence of what the paperwork showed did he actually have any paperwork that showed in addressing gun violence we didn't get to that point in the detention your honor the officer just turned his attention to the trailer and never really would back the vehicle but never produced any paperwork that was looked at by the officer i don't believe so it's not the record the officer didn't do that he just turned his attention to the trailer and again your honor i i can't attest to the price or whether or not mr v a from what was just getting a good deal from salvage dot com you can go on craigslist or trash to treasure there are all kinds of generators and equipment for sale use that you can get the deals but based on the totality of the circumstances here your honor i believe given the fact that corporal woody admitted that he was going to create manufacture a basis to stop the vehicle several it is just the first one the first one it shows what the officer was really trying to do here what his agenda was and then when he does say a questionable traffic stop within a minute or so he leaves the traffic stop and starts the fishing expedition starts trying to list things that the district judge found to be neutral that she believed didn't rise to the level of suspicion to prolong the detention then she found again that the consent was tainted by that unlawful detention i believe that all of that is supported by the record and with the standard of review did the government meet their burden of proof at the suppression hearing the judge found that they did not on appeal was the judge clearly erroneous the judge was not clearly erroneous these just caso i think you've kind of pointed to two new issues that the government really flagged in the district court's ruling and that's the court's reliance on united states versus medical and that case is clearly distinct is distinguishable from this case because magic wall is not of vehicle alterations case it's not a case that involves a truck that has or a trailer in this case that has been physically altered in some way but what this court does have is a long line of cases  in a sense you know a straw to and united states versus bams all of which have facts in them that suggest a hidden compartment and every single time the court finds that those modifications and know already have a good twenty five thirty minutes or so well your honor i think the time on here is is crucial and i would disagree that it came along after corporal when he asked a number of questions about the trailer that demonstrate that he had questions about the factual when they do the density test after the defendant provided consent at approximately the fifteen minute mark but importantly before he did the density test they lowered that tailgate in they can see this simply what they could see before because of the obscured reflective tape that it didn't it didn't line up right so they could tell that it had been cut and rewelded in lieutenant green testified that he observed bonded dust on the the new welds on the the back of that trailer and then  experience bonded does suggest that a vehicle has been altered and they put bond on it and they sent it down to make it look like metal and they paint over which is exactly what happened here let me ask you about consent the consent was given fourteen fifty miranda warnings you could certainly restrain someone whose own investigation terry stop or whatever else but once you put the handcuffs on him around a warning to seems to me that you have gone to the level of an actual arrest and seems to be at that stage the idea that  a consensual search that he's got any right to withdraw his consent is very questionable after the predicate is that you position that consent takes you all the way you know you know taken the trailer away from the highway to wherever it was taken to do the more intensive search well you're out of the senate did never withdraw his concern he was in handcuffs and he was given the miranda warnings i don't know what right somebody recently would think he would have to withdraw consent of that stage you have to tell me necessary beyond the time that he was going to once that our position is once the tailgate is down and the density meters use problem was absolutely exist officer lieutenant green sees the bonded dust he confirms th suspicion zz and he he actually he determines that the there are nominees in the trailer bit but when you look at the district court's opinion and you look at the defendant's brief they're doing exactly what the supreme court and what the district court might find innocent but say hey i'm out here on the road performing thousands of traffic stops over the course of my career and while this may appear in of itself innocent but under a tally of the circumstances i am suspicious of 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