United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit

No. 20-2031

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

ARTHUR MILES,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE

[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Kayatta, Selya, and Barron,

Circuit Judges.

Heather Clark and Clark Law Office on brief for appellant.

Donald E. Clark, Acting United States Attorney, and Benjamin 

M. Block, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee. 

November 17, 2021
- 2 -

SELYA, Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from the denial 

of a motion to suppress evidence recovered during a traffic stop. 

Defendant-appellant Arthur Miles argues that the stop flouted the 

Fourth Amendment because the officer's stated reason for making 

the stop was pretextual and his real reason was based on nothing 

more than a hunch. The appellant's argument runs headlong into 

Supreme Court precedent holding that the Fourth Amendment calculus 

depends on objective reasonableness, not subjective intent. See

Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 812-13 (1996). Accordingly, 

we affirm the district court's denial of the appellant's motion to 

suppress.

We rehearse the relevant facts, drawing heavily on the 

district court's supportable findings following the suppression

hearing. See United States v. Simpkins, 978 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 

2020). We supplement those facts, as necessary, with uncontested 

facts extracted from the record. 

On December 12, 2017, a Maine state trooper, Thomas 

Pappas, was patrolling the Maine Turnpike. See United States v. 

Miles, No. 18-00144, 2019 WL 3220574, at *1 (D. Me. July 17, 2019). 

At around 10:30 pm, Trooper Pappas saw a car driven by the 

appellant traveling approximately thirty miles per hour in the

southbound right-hand lane. See id. The car moved into the left 

lane and — with Trooper Pappas trailing — proceeded in that lane 

for approximately two miles without passing any other vehicles. 
- 3 -

See id. Trooper Pappas ran the license plate and learned that the 

car was registered to a woman named Wilkerson at a street address 

in Dorchester, Massachusetts. See id. The combination of that 

name and street rang a bell: as Trooper Pappas later testified, 

he recalled participating — a few years earlier — in a drug arrest

of a man named Wilkerson on that particular street.

While Trooper Pappas was following him, the appellant 

passed a road sign reading "Keep Right Except to Pass." See id. 

Even though he did not pass any other vehicles, he nonetheless 

continued driving in the left-hand lane. See id. Trooper Pappas

then signaled the appellant to pull over to the side of the road. 

See id. The trooper stated in a post-incident report that he 

stopped the appellant for operating in the left lane without 

passing. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, he added that 

he had planned to make the stop even before he saw the highway 

sign.

When Trooper Pappas approached the stopped car, he 

smelled marijuana and observed a bottle of champagne on the back 

seat. See id. Upon requesting the appellant's license, Trooper 

Pappas learned that it was suspended. See id. Following further 

questioning, Trooper Pappas also learned that the appellant was in 

contravention of probation conditions in Massachusetts and was on 

bail in Maine. See id. at *1-2. Based on the appellant's bail 

conditions and the totality of the circumstances surrounding the 
- 4 -

stop, Trooper Pappas handcuffed him and searched the car. See id.

at *2. The search revealed the presence of contraband. See id.

The appellant's statements, together with physical 

evidence recovered by Trooper Pappas, led to federal charges — an 

indictment for possession of a controlled substance with the intent 

to distribute. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). The appellant 

maintained his innocence and, in due course, moved to suppress 

both the statements that he had made at the scene and the physical 

evidence obtained during the traffic stop. See Miles, 2019 WL 

3220574, at *3. He argued (as relevant here) that the stop was 

"improper" because it was not based upon reasonable suspicion of 

a crime or traffic infraction.1 The district court found the stop 

objectively reasonable and denied the appellant's suppression 

motion. See id. at *3-4.

The appellant subsequently entered a conditional guilty 

plea, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2); see also United States v. 

Adams, 971 F.3d 22, 30 (1st Cir. 2020), reserving the right to 

appeal the district court's denial of his motion to suppress. The 

district court sentenced him to serve a thirty-five-month term of 

immurement. This timely appeal followed. 

1 In the court below, the appellant also objected that his 

statements were obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 

U.S. 436, 444-45 (1966), and that the car he was driving was 

subjected to an unreasonable search. The district court overruled 

these objections, see Miles, 2019 WL 3220574, at *3-4, and the 

appellant does not renew them on appeal.
- 5 -

In this venue, the appellant advances only a single 

assignment of error. He argues that the district court erred in 

concluding that the trooper had reasonable suspicion to stop his

car. We therefore train the lens of our inquiry on the stop itself 

and do not discuss the interactions that followed.

In reviewing a district court's decision on a motion to 

suppress, we scrutinize findings of fact for clear error and 

conclusions of law de novo. See Simpkins, 978 F.3d at 6. "Absent 

an error of law, we will uphold a refusal to suppress evidence as 

long as the refusal is supported by some reasonable view of the 

record." United States v. Lee, 317 F.3d 26, 29-30 (1st Cir. 2003); 

see United States v. Arthur, 764 F.3d 92, 96 (1st Cir. 2021).

Here, however, the government submits that the appellant 

has forfeited any entitlement to the traditional standard of 

review. In its estimation, appellate review should be limited to 

review for plain error because the argument that the appellant 

makes on appeal was not made in the court below. See United States

v. Rivera-Morales, 961 F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir. 2020) (holding that 

forfeited claims are reviewed only for plain error). We need not

resolve this contretemps because even if we assume, favorably to 

the appellant, that the traditional standard of review applies, 

his argument nonetheless fails.

It is common ground that the Fourth Amendment's 

protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to 
- 6 -

traffic stops. See Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54, 60 

(2014); United States v. Chhien, 266 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2001). 

Such a stop requires, at a bare minimum, "'reasonable suspicion'

— that is, 'a particularized and objective basis for suspecting 

the particular person stopped' of breaking the law." Heien, 574 

U.S. at 60 (quoting Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 396 

(2014)). The existence vel non of reasonable suspicion "must be 

determined case by case." Chhien, 266 F.3d at 6. Such an inquiry 

"entails broad-based consideration of all the attendant 

circumstances." Id.

Before us, the appellant eschews any challenge to the 

district court's conclusion that the traffic stop was justified 

under the Fourth Amendment by the appellant's disregard of the 

"Keep Right Except to Pass" rule.2 See United States v. Rivera, 

988 F.3d 579, 582 (1st Cir. 2021) (holding that left-lane violation 

supported reasonable suspicion to initiate traffic stop). 

Instead, he contends that the trooper's real motivation for 

2 In the district court, the appellant disputed the efficacy 

of the signage that advised motorists to "Keep Right Except to 

Pass." The district court expressed skepticism about the 

appellant's position, noting that Maine law requires drivers to 

"obey a traffic-control device" — a category that includes road 

signs. Miles, 2019 WL 3220574, at *3 n.3 (quoting Me. Rev. Stat.

Ann. tit. 29-A, §§ 2057, 101(84)). To cinch the matter, the court 

held that the trooper's stated belief that the appellant was 

required to obey the sign was objectively reasonable, even if 

mistaken, and that the Fourth Amendment tolerates a "reasonable 

mistake of law." Heien, 574 U.S. at 61.
- 7 -

initiating the traffic stop was a "mere hunch" arising from the 

trooper's knowledge that an individual having the same last name

as the registered owner of the car had previously been arrested

for drug activity on the very street where the registered owner 

lived. In support, the appellant relies on elements of the 

trooper's testimony, such as his affirmation that he "intend[ed] 

to stop [the appellant] even though [the appellant] hadn't reached" 

the sign that instructed drivers to "Keep Right Except to Pass." 

To like effect, the appellant cites the trooper's testimony that 

even if the appellant "had pulled back over into the right lane,"

he (the trooper) would have stopped the car for "[t]he same thing."

This contention is untenable. Courts have long 

"foreclose[d] any argument that the constitutional reasonableness 

of traffic stops depends on the actual motivations of the 

individual officers involved." Whren, 517 U.S. at 813; see, e.g., 

United States v. Gates, 709 F.3d 58, 63 (1st Cir. 2013) (applying 

Whren); cf. United States v. Ruidíaz, 529 F.3d 25, 29 (1st Cir. 

2008) (noting that, in context of brief investigatory stops, 

reasonableness "must be judged according to objective criteria; it 

is not dependent on an individual officer's subjective motives"). 

Whren illustrates the point. There, officers asserted 

that they pulled over a motor vehicle for suspected traffic 

violations before observing drugs in the vehicle and arresting its 

occupants. See Whren, 517 U.S. at 808-09. The defendants moved 
- 8 -

to suppress the evidence seized, challenging the legality of the 

stop. See id. at 809. They argued that the purported 

justification for the stop — traffic violations — "was pretextual." 

Id. The Supreme Court rejected the defendants' argument, holding 

that the officers' "[s]ubjective intentions play no role in 

ordinary . . . Fourth Amendment analysis." Id. at 813.

Whren remains good law, and the Court more recently has

reaffirmed that the appropriate test is "objective." Heien, 574 

U.S. at 60 (quoting Navarette, 572 U.S. at 396). As long as a 

traffic stop is warranted by objectively reasonable facts, a claim 

that the officer making the stop was acting in accordance with 

some hidden agenda will not ground a successful Fourth Amendment 

challenge.

Applying an objective standard, the result that we must 

reach is plain. As in Whren, the appellant was stopped for a 

suspected traffic violation — a violation borne out by objective 

facts. He nonetheless invites us to suppress evidence due to the 

allegedly pretextual nature of the stop. Whren and its progeny 

require us to decline the invitation: under Whren, an officer's

subjective motivations for making a traffic stop are ordinarily 

beside the point when conducting a Fourth Amendment analysis. See

Whren, 517 U.S. at 813. So it is here.

We need go no further. Objectively viewed, Trooper 

Pappas had a reasonable basis to believe that the appellant had 
- 9 -

committed a traffic infraction and, thus, to perform a traffic 

stop. Under Whren and its progeny, no more was exigible. The 

district court, therefore, did not err in denying the appellant's 

motion to suppress.

Affirmed.