Opinion ID: 518495
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Initial Investigatory Stop

Text: 13 Before initiating the stop at issue here, Officer Keene was notified by a third party that Mr. Rivera was tailgating and Officer Keene then observed the illegal driving conduct. These facts provided an objective basis for the district court's finding that the stop was based upon probable cause and not upon pretext. We do not agree with Mr. Rivera that a necessary inference of pretext can be drawn from the presence of working arrangements between the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency and the New Mexico State Police nor from evidence that Officer Keene made similar stops and seizures on other occasions. Officer Keene could legitimately ask questions relating to the identity and travel plans of Mr. Rivera and Ms. Jones and the ownership of the car Mr. Rivera was driving, regardless of Officer Keene's underlying motivation. 14 In Guzman, we explained that [i]f police officers in New Mexico ... routinely stop most cars they see in which the driver is not wearing his seat belt, then this stop was not unconstitutionally pretextual at its inception, even if [the officer] subjectively hoped to discover contraband during the stop. 864 F.2d at 1518. Since police officers routinely stop cars that are tailgating, the stop in this case was not unconstitutional, even if Officer Keene suspected that Mr. Rivera was transporting drugs. [T]he legality of his actions [was] not affected by his subjective beliefs, Sirimarco v. United States, 315 F.2d 699, 702 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 374 U.S. 807, 83 S.Ct. 1696, 10 L.Ed.2d 1032 (1963), but was justified through the presence of probable cause. Thus, Officer Keene lawfully stopped Mr. Rivera's vehicle and conducted an initial investigation while issuing a traffic citation.