Opinion ID: 204528
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Instant Stop

Text: The continuum demonstrated by the foregoing review of our case law convinces us that, if we were to affirm the district court in this case, we would be doing so based on facts of an unprecedented suspicionless nature. Of the cases in which we affirmed that could plausibly be said to have facts similar in suspicion to the ones here  Zapata-Ibarra, Muniz-Ortega, Galvan-Torres, and Samaguey, being generous to the government  none involved stops far from the border (or contained strong reason to believe that the vehicle had come from the border). In the instant case Olivares-Pacheco was stopped more than 200 miles from the border, and there was no plausible indication that he had traveled from the border. Proximity to the border is a paramount factor, and, again, we must look at the other evidence charily if such proximity is not present. Even if we assume arguendo that the facts in the instant case are as suspicious as in any of the cases cited above in which we affirmed  and we are convinced that they are not  the fact that Olivares-Pacheco was no where near the border makes our decision a much easier one. Indeed, of the cases in which the vehicle was stopped far from the border, the articulated reasons for suspicion were far greater than in the instant case. The only credible basis for suspicion here is the experience of two dedicated border patrol agents, who sniffed out the alien smuggling here on the basis of nothing more than intuition gained over the years (we will not accuse these agents of ethnic profiling simply because they made a U-turn and then stopped a completely unremarkable truck with nothing more apparent than the presence of six Hispanic passengers). Indeed, the facts in this case demonstrate less suspicion than many other cases in which we reversed the district court's denial of suppression or affirmed the grant of suppression. The facts in Rangel-Portillo (set forth above) are certainly more suspicious. We are satisfied that, if we were to side with the government in this case and affirm the district court's denial of the defendant's motion to suppress, we would be doing so on the barest articulation of facts that we have ever credited as constituting reasonable suspicion. This we are unwilling to do.