Opinion ID: 586409
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was there founded suspicion for the stop?

Text: 17 The determination whether founded suspicion 2 existed must be based on the totality of the circumstances--the whole picture. 3 United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981). [T]he detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity. Id. at 417-18, 101 S.Ct. at 695; see also United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (Fourth Amendment requires 'some minimal level of objective justification' for making the stop.) (quoting INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 217, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1763, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984)). 18 When the point of seizure is relocated to the time that Santamaria was pulled from his car, the totality of circumstances known to the agents presents such a compelling justification for the stop that we find no need to require the district court to address the motion again on remand. No rational trier of fact could find that the agents lacked a founded suspicion. The circumstances were: (1) the first border patrol agent, alerted by radio that pedestrians were heading north across the border, saw a group of people cross Interstate 5 on foot, and the agent's experience was that only illegal aliens did so; (2) the suspected illegal aliens entered a notorious smuggling staging area and then disappeared from view; (3) Santamaria's Ford Maverick left the staging area soon afterward; (4) Santamaria's car waited 20-30 seconds before entering traffic, in a pattern that the agents identified as a counter-surveillance technique; (5) Santamaria took a circuitous route before heading north on Interstate 5, which was also known by the agent to be a counter-surveillance technique; (6) Santamaria accelerated and began weaving in and out of traffic after he appeared to notice the border patrol car behind him; (7) after the border patrol agent activated his siren and emergency lights, he saw three heads pop up in the back seat of the car from where the persons had apparently been hiding; (8) Santamaria did not stop in response to the emergency lights, but rather turned around and began proceeding south toward Mexico at 70-80 miles per hour; (9) Santamaria stopped his car only when it was blocked at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. In light of all of these factors taken together, the agents indisputably had founded suspicion that Santamaria was engaged in criminal activity by the time they pulled him from his car. 4