Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-14-30249/USCOURTS-ca9-14-30249-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Hector Magallon-Lopez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

HECTOR MAGALLON-LOPEZ,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 14-30249

D.C. No.

1:13-cr-00090-SPW-2

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Montana

Susan P. Watters, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

November 3, 2015—Portland, Oregon

Filed March 31, 2016

Before: Raymond C. Fisher, Marsha S. Berzon,

and Paul J. Watford, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Watford;

Concurrence by Judge Berzon

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2 UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ

SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion

to suppress drugs found in a car that officers stopped and

seized based on information learned through wiretap

intercepts while investigating an interstate drug-trafficking

ring.

The defendant, who did not and could not seriously

contest the existence of reasonable suspicion for stopping the

car, contended that the stop violated the Fourth Amendment

because the officer who pulled him over deliberately lied

when stating the reason for the stop, and the reason the officer

gave was not itself supported by reasonable suspicion. 

Rejecting this contention, the panel wrote that so long as the

facts known to the officer establish reasonable suspicion to

justify an investigatory stop, the stop is lawful even if the

officer falsely cites as the basis for the stop a ground that is

not supported by reasonable suspicion. The panel concluded

that in light of the information obtained during the stop, the

officers had probable cause to seize the car.

Judge Berzon concurred because the line of cases that

begins with Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996),

seems to lead ineluctably to the conclusion that it is fine for

police officers to tell drivers that they observed—or thought

they observed—a traffic violation when they did not. Noting

that the defendant did not make the argument here, Judge

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ 3

Berzon would not foreclose holding, in another case, that

there is a due process based right to be informed of the true

basis for a stop or arrest.

COUNSEL

Michael J. Donahoe (argued) and Mark S. Werner, Assistant

Federal Public Defenders, Federal Defenders of Montana,

Billings, Montana, for Defendant-Appellant.

Michael W. Cotter, United States Attorney, Brendan P.

McCarthy (argued), Assistant United States Attorney, United

States Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana, Billings,

Montana, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

OPINION

WATFORD, Circuit Judge:

Officers investigating an interstate drug-trafficking ring

learned through wiretap intercepts that a shipment of

methamphetamine would be traveling by car from

Washington to Minnesota. They stopped the car en route in

Montana; the car belonged to appellant Hector MagallonLopez, who was driving. Officers seized the car and, after

obtaining a search warrant, discovered approximately two

pounds of methamphetamine hidden in an area beneath the

trunk. That discovery formed the basis for Magallon-Lopez’s

drug-trafficking convictions following a jurytrial. On appeal,

he challenges only the district court’s denial of his motion to

suppress the drugs found in his car.

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4 UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ

I

The relevant facts are not in dispute. Officers working

with a Drug Enforcement Administration task force obtained

authorization to wiretap a suspected drug trafficker’s

telephone. From the wiretap intercepts, the officers learned

that: (1) on September 27, 2012, a man named Juan Sanchez

would be transporting methamphetamine from the Yakima

Valley in Washington to Minneapolis, Minnesota;

(2) Sanchez would be accompanied by another Hispanic male

who had a tattoo on his arm of a ghost, skull, or something

else related to death and went by the nickname “Chaparro”

(meaning short); and (3) the two men would be traveling in

a green, black, or white passenger car with Washington

plates. Based on cell site location information obtained from

Sanchez’s cell phone, the officers estimated that the car

would be traveling through Bozeman, Montana, sometime

between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. on September 28.

The officers set up a surveillance operation near Bozeman

on Interstate 90, the main east-west highway through

Montana. Around 3:00 a.m. on September 28, they spotted

a green Volkswagen Passat with Washington plates traveling

eastbound. An officer dispatched to follow the car confirmed

that two men were inside and that both appeared to be

Hispanic and short in stature. The officer relayed the car’s

license plate number to another officer, who determined that

the car was registered to a man named Hector Lopez at an

address in Toppenish, Washington, a town in the Yakima

Valley associated with the investigation.

After obtaining this information, the officers decided to

conduct an investigatory stop. The officer following the car

pulled it over as if making a routine traffic stop. Although

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UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ 5

the officer had not observed any traffic violations, he told

Magallon-Lopez that the reason for the stop was MagallonLopez’s failure to signal properly before changing lanes. The

officer knew this was not the real reason for the stop, but he

did not want to disclose at that point the true nature of the

investigation.

Officers questioned both occupants of the car. They

asked for identification and confirmed that the passenger was

a man named Juan Sanchez. They also confirmed that the

driver was Magallon-Lopez, the registered owner of the car. 

After asking Magallon-Lopez to pull up his sleeves, the

officers observed a tattoo of a ghost or grim reaper on his

right forearm. Both Magallon-Lopez and Sanchez said they

were traveling from the Yakima Valley to Minnesota to work

in a restaurant.

While Magallon-Lopez and Sanchez were detained on the

side of the highway, the officers summoned a drug-detection

dog from a nearby sheriff’s office. The dog positively alerted

to the presence of drugs in the car. At that point the officers

seized the car and took it to the sheriff’s office for

safekeeping while they obtained a search warrant. The

validity of the warrant is not at issue, other than the

lawfulness of the stop and subsequent seizure of the car that

led to its issuance.

II

The first question is whether the officers lawfully stopped

the car. The Fourth Amendment permits investigatory stops

if the facts known to the officers established “reasonable

suspicion to believe that criminal activity may be afoot.” 

United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (internal

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6 UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ

quotation marks omitted). Magallon-Lopez does not

seriously contest the existence of reasonable suspicion, nor

could he.

Based on the wiretap intercepts, the officers knew (or at

least had probable cause to believe) that Juan Sanchez would

be leaving the Yakima Valley on September 27 and traveling

by car to Minneapolis with a shipment of methamphetamine. 

The officers’ information about this trip—including the

identifying details of the car and Sanchez’s traveling

companion—came not from an anonymous tip but straight

from the conspirators themselves. Officers overheard

members of the conspiracy discussing details of the planned

trip in real time, during conversations that the conspirators

did not know were being intercepted by law enforcement. 

That information, like information received from a victim or

citizen witness, is presumptively reliable absent

circumstances suggesting that the conspirators might be

lying. See Ewing v. City of Stockton, 588 F.3d 1218, 1224–25

(9th Cir. 2009); 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure

§ 3.4(a), at 274–75 (5th ed. 2012). Here, there were no such

circumstances. The officers therefore had probable cause to

believe that methamphetamine would be found in the car

transporting Juan Sanchez through Bozeman on the date and

during the time frame in question. To justify stopping a

particular vehicle, however, the officers needed reasonable

suspicion to believe they had identified the right car.

The details that the officers confirmed before making the

stop sufficed to establish reasonable suspicion. Green, black,

or white passenger car with Washington plates? Check. 

Traveling eastbound through Bozeman, Montana, on the

correct date and during the predicted, quite narrow time

frame? Check. Occupied by two Hispanic males? Check. 

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UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ 7

Registered to an owner who lived in a town associated with

the investigation and who, at least in terms of stature, fit the

description of the person expected to be accompanying

Sanchez? Double check. Verification of these details, taken

together, established reasonable suspicion to believe that the

green Passat was the car transporting Juan Sanchez as

discussed in the wiretap intercepts.

Unable to contest the existence of reasonable suspicion,

Magallon-Lopez challenges the legality of the stop on a

different theory. He contends that the stop violated the

Fourth Amendment because the officer who pulled him over

deliberately lied when stating the reason for the stop, and the

reason the officer gave was not itself supported by reasonable

suspicion.

That the officer lied about seeing Magallon-Lopez make

an illegal lane change does not call into question the legality

of the stop. The standard for determining whether probable

cause or reasonable suspicion exists is an objective one; it

does not turn either on the subjective thought processes of the

officer or on whether the officer is truthful about the reason

for the stop. If, for example, the facts provide probable cause

or reasonable suspicion to justify a traffic stop, the stop is

lawful even if the officer made the stop only because he

wished to investigate a more serious offense. Whren v.

United States, 517 U.S. 806, 812–13 (1996). Likewise, if the

facts support probable cause to arrest for one offense, the

arrest is lawful even if the officer invoked, as the basis for the

arrest, a different offense as to which probable cause was

lacking. Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153–55 (2004);

United States v. Ramirez, 473 F.3d 1026, 1030–31 & n.2 (9th

Cir. 2007). The Court in Devenpeck emphasized that the

objective facts are what matter in situations like these:

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8 UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ

While it is assuredly good police practice to

inform a person of the reason for his arrest at

the time he is taken into custody, we have

never held that to be constitutionally required. 

Hence, the predictable consequence of a rule

limiting the probable-cause inquiry to

offenses closely related to (and supported by

the same facts as) those identified by the

arresting officer is not . . . that officers will

cease making sham arrests on the hope that

such arrests will later be validated, but rather

that officers will cease providing reasons for

arrest. And even if this option were to be

foreclosed by adoption of a statutory or

constitutional requirement, officers would

simply give every reason for which probable

cause could conceivably exist.

543 U.S. at 155 (footnote omitted).

The same principle—that the objective facts are

controlling in this context, not what the officer said or was

thinking—applies here. So long as the facts known to the

officer establish reasonable suspicion to justify an

investigatory stop, the stop is lawful even if the officer falsely

cites as the basis for the stop a ground that is not supported by

reasonable suspicion. We emphasize, however, that although

our focus is on the objectively reasonable basis for the stop,

not the officers’ subjective intentions or beliefs, the facts

justifying the stop must be known to officers at the time of

the stop. See Moreno v. Baca, 431 F.3d 633, 639–40 (9th Cir.

2005).

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UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ 9

The only remaining question is whether, in light of the

information obtained during the stop, the officers had

probable cause to seize Magallon-Lopez’s car. We think they

did. As discussed above, given the reliability of the

information gleaned from the wiretap intercepts, the officers

had probable cause to believe that Juan Sanchez would be

transporting methamphetamine by car on the date and during

the time frame in question. That, in turn, gave the officers

probable cause to believe that methamphetamine would be

found inside the car in which Sanchez was riding, assuming

they could identify the correct car.

As we have said, even before the officers stopped

Magallon-Lopez’s car, the facts known to the officers

provided reasonable suspicion to believe they had identified

the correct car. The investigatory stop eliminated virtually

any doubt on that score, as the stop confirmed that a man

named Juan Sanchez was indeed a passenger in the car. Sure,

he could have been a different Juan Sanchez, not the one

mentioned in the wiretap intercepts, but the likelihood of that

was minuscule given all the other details that matched,

including the tattoo on Magallon-Lopez’s arm and the fact

that both he and Sanchez admitted they were traveling to

Minnesota. In light of these and the other details the officers

were able to corroborate, there was “a fair probability” that

the officers had stopped the right car and that drugs would be

found inside. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983). 

That gave them probable cause to seize the car.

Because the officers had probable cause to seize the car

even without the drug-detection dog’s positive alert, we need

not address Magallon-Lopez’s argument that the dog’s lapsed

certification rendered his alert insufficiently reliable under

Florida v. Harris, 133 S. Ct. 1050 (2013).

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10 UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ

* * *

The district court correctly denied Magallon-Lopez’s

motion to suppress. The judgment is AFFIRMED.

BERZON, Circuit Judge, concurring:

Is it fine for police officers flatly to tell the drivers they

stop that they observed—or thought they observed—a traffic

violation when they really did not? We hold today that it is. 

And I cannot disagree, as the line of cases that begins with

Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996), seems to lead

ineluctably to that distressing conclusion. But lying to

government officials can lead to lengthy prison terms. See

U.S.S.G. § 2J1.3(a) (providing a base offense level of

fourteen for perjury-type offenses, which, at criminal history

category I, results in a recommended sentence of fifteen to

twenty-one months). One would expect that lying by police

officers to citizens would have consequences as well.

Whren and the other cases the majority cites do not deal

directly with flat out lies about what police officers saw. 

Instead, Whren dealt with pretextual stops—that is, instances

in which the officers did perceive actions that violated the

traffic laws, but were really using the traffic violations as a

basis for investigating some other crime. Perhaps there was

no reasonable suspicion as to the real reason for the stop, just

a hunch. Or perhaps the officers did not want to reveal the

real reason for the stop, as the underlying criminal

investigation was still ongoing. United States v. Evans noted

that law enforcement terms this type of stop a “wall

stop”—that is, “the traffic stop [i]s to be independent and

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UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ 11

clear from the [ongoing] investigation to protect [law

enforcement’s] information and the data and identities of the

sources of information.” 786 F.3d 779, 781 n.2 (9th Cir.

2015) (alterations omitted). In either instance, police officers

are usually confident that they can “develop . . . probable

cause” of a traffic violation. Id. at 781. The traffic laws are

sufficiently comprehensive, as well as general, that almost all

drivers violate at least one whenever they are on the road. 

See Whren, 517 U.S. at 810 (noting the defendants’ argument

to this effect).

But what if the driver is very careful not to break any

laws, as one might be if carrying a cargo of illegal drugs?

And what if the police officers are intent nonetheless on

catching their targets, without revealing that they are pretty

sure what is in the car? Here, the law enforcement solution

was to flat out lie. Not just about why the car was being

stopped (as in Whren and its progeny), but also about what

they had seen—the purported traffic violation.

As I read Whren, 517 U.S. 806, and Devenpeck v. Alford,

543 U.S. 146 (2004), there is no plausible argument for

treating this sort of lie differently from the lie involved in

Whren—as to why the officer is actually stopping the

suspect—or the misstatment in Devenpeck—as to the offense

as to which the officer had probable cause for an arrest. In

both instances, the Supreme Court found no Fourth

Amendment violation as long as there was indeed a proper

basis for the stop or arrest on the facts known to the officers. 

As a result, the suspect in both instances had no useful

opportunity verbally to explain why he should not be cited or

arrested, as the purported basis for the police action was not

binding on law enforcement anyway. That any such

explanation would have been similarly futile here, this time

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12 UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ

because the police were lying about what they saw, does not

distinguish Whren and Devenpeck.

The upshot is that approving the practice used in this case

is the inevitable result of the Whren/Devenpeck line of cases. 

But as countless commentators have warned, Whren and

related cases “hint[] to law enforcement that it can escape the

Fourth Amendment’s restrictions if it offers phony

explanations for [its] actions.” Wayne R. LaFave, The

“Routine Traffic Stop” from Start to Finish: Too Much

“Routine,” Not Enough Fourth Amendment, 102 Mich. L.

Rev. 1843, 1904 (Aug. 2004). The Whren-type precedents

are especially troubling in that they enable artifice and abuse

by law enforcement, with disproportionate effect on racial

minorities; “[i]ndeed, as the recent debate over racial

profiling demonstrates all too clearly, a relatively minor

traffic infraction may often serve as an excuse for stopping

and harassing an individual.” Atwater v. City of Lago Vista,

532 U.S. 318, 372 (2001) (O’Connor, J., dissenting). At least

in part because of these considerations, I would not foreclose,

in another case, holding that there is a due process (not Fourth

Amendment) based right to be informed of the true basis for

a stop or arrest. Devenpeck, I note, left open that possibility. 

See 543 U.S. at 151, 155. But no such argument was made

here.

Many states find the officers’ conduct here concerning,

for the same reasons I do. For that reason, many jurisdictions

require law enforcement officers to inform detainees of the

reasons for custodial arrests, and some hold them responsible

for misstatements. While Magallon-Lopez does not argue in

this case for a constitutionally-based requirement that police

officers identify some basis for a stop or arrest, it is good

police practice to inform a detainee of the basis of a

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UNITED STATES V. MAGALLON-LOPEZ 13

detention, as Devenpeck acknowledges. See 543 U.S. at 155. 

The non-exhaustive list of states that have adopted such a

requirement includes New York, California, Massachusetts,

and North Carolina, all of which have enacted statutes to this

effect. See N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 140.15(2); Cal. Penal

Code § 841; Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 263 § 1; N.C. Gen. Stat.

§ 15A-401(c)(2)c. The Massachusetts statute—perhaps to

impose the same standard of truthfulness on both law

enforcement and everydaycitizens—specificallyrequires that

an officer’s statement be true, and punishes an officer’s false

statement by a fine of up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment for

up to one year. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 263 § 1. Georgia’s

courts have also established, by precedent, the requirement

that an officer inform an arrestee of the cause of his or her

arrest. See Dorsey v. State, 66 S.E. 1096, 1097–98 (Ga. Ct.

App. 1910); see also Bashir v. Rockdale Cnty., 445 F.3d 1323

(11th Cir. 2006) (reversing summary judgment for officers on

the plaintiff’s state-law unlawful arrest claim because the

officers did not inform the plaintiff of the crime for which he

was arrested).

Most relevant here—as Magallon-Lopez was stopped in

Montana by a Montana officer—Montana requires an

arresting officer to “inform the person to be arrested of the

officer’s authority, of the intention to arrest that person, and

of the cause of the arrest.” Mont. Code Ann. § 46-6-312

(emphasis added). Magallon-Lopez has not asserted that his

arrest was unlawful under this provision, and Montana’s

courts have not extended the statute, applicable only to

“arrests,” to Terry-type stops premised on reasonable

suspicion, as occurred here. Nonetheless, that Montana and

other states have such laws in place may guard against the

frequent use of stops similar to the one here.

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