Opinion ID: 708240
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standing to Challenge the Arrest

Text: 18 Our conclusion that Ms. Eylicio-Montoya lacks standing to directly challenge the search of the Dodge does not end our inquiry. In her motion to suppress, Ms. Eylicio-Montoya challenged not only the search but also the initial stop and subsequent arrest. Our prior decisions distinguish passenger standing to directly challenge a vehicle search from passenger standing to seek suppression of evidence discovered in a vehicle as the fruit of an unlawful stop, detention, or arrest. That distinction is important to this case. 19 The distinction inheres in Rakas. As scholars and subsequent decisions have noted, the passengers in Rakas challenged neither the initial traffic stop nor their arrests. See Rakas, 439 U.S. at 130, 99 S.Ct. at 423 ([W]e are not here concerned with the issue of probable cause.); see also Kimball, 25 F.3d at 5-6 n. 3 (1st Cir.1994) (discussing Rakas ); Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment Sec. 11.3(e), at 324-25 (2d ed. 1987). As a result, Rakas does not foreclose a passenger's Fourth Amendment challenge to the seizure of her person: 20 Does [Rakas ] mean that persons who are merely passengers (i.e., asserting neither a property nor a possessory interest in the vehicle, nor an interest in the property seized) will never have standing? Although Justice Rehnquist's opinion unfortunately does not even hint at a stopping point short of such an absolute rule, thus prompting some courts to give Rakas such an interpretation, it does not seem that Rakas goes this far. For one thing, it is important to note, as the concurring opinion in Rakas takes great pains to emphasize, that the petitioners do not challenge the constitutionality of the police action in stopping the automobile in which they were riding; nor do they complain of being made to get out of the vehicle, so that the question before the Court was a narrow one: Did the search of their friend's automobile after they had left it violate any Fourth Amendment right of the petitioners? This would indicate, as two-thirds of the Court (the two concurring justices and the four dissenters) recognize, that a passenger does have standing to object to police conduct which intrudes upon his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable seizure of his person. If either the stopping of the car or the passenger's removal from it are unreasonable in a Fourth Amendment sense, then surely the passenger has standing to object to those constitutional violations and to have suppressed any evidence found in the car which is their fruit. 21 LaFave, supra, Sec. 11.3, at 324-25. (final emphasis added) (footnotes omitted). 22 This Circuit has read Rakas as Professor LaFave suggests. In United States v. Hill, 855 F.2d 664 (10th Cir.1988), we rejected the government's argument that a defendant who did not own a boat lacked standing to seek suppression of the evidence discovered in a search. The defendant had argued that his warrantless arrest violated the Fourth Amendment and that the evidence discovered in the subsequent search of the boat was the fruit of that unlawful arrest. In spite of the fact that he had no possessory or ownership interest in the boat, we concluded that the defendant had standing to challenge his own arrest and that the evidence discovered in the boat could be suppressed if the defendant established that the evidence was the fruit of his unlawful arrest. Although the Hill opinion did not discuss Rakas, it cited with approval several decisions interpreting Rakas to allow passengers to challenge traffic stops and to argue that evidence obtained from these stops should be excluded as fruit of the poisonous tree. See id. at 666 (citing United States v. Williams, 589 F.2d 210, 214 (5th Cir.1979), aff'd en banc, 617 F.2d 1063 (5th Cir.1980) and State v. Epperson, 237 Kan. 707, 703 P.2d 761, 770 (1985)). 23 Similarly, in Erwin we concluded that a passenger had standing to challenge a traffic stop. We reasoned that the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizures and that, in challenging a stop, the defendant was objecting to the seizure of his person. We saw no reason why a person's Fourth Amendment interests in challenging his own seizure should be diminished merely because he was a passenger, and not the driver, when the stop occurred. Erwin, 875 F.2d at 270; see also United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 226, 105 S.Ct. 675, 679, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985) (noting that stopping a car and detaining its occupants constitute seizures under the Fourth Amendment); Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 436, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3148, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984) (acknowledging that a traffic stop significantly curtails the 'freedom of action' of the driver and the passengers, if any, of the detained vehicle); Kimball, 25 F.3d at 5 (observing that during a traffic stop, the passenger is subjected to the demands and control of the police officer, just as the driver is). We also concluded that if the defendant could establish that the initial stop of the car violated the Fourth Amendment, then the evidence that was seized as a result of that stop would be subject to suppression as fruit of the poisonous tree. Erwin, 875 F.2d at 269 n. 2 (citing Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 484, 83 S.Ct. at 415); see also United States v. King, 990 F.2d 1552, 1564 (10th Cir.1993) (upholding district court's suppression of evidence as to passenger and driver because the evidence--which was discarded by the passenger while outside the vehicle--was the fruit of unlawful detention of the passenger and the driver). 24 Numerous federal and state courts have agreed with Erwin 's89074873 conclusion that a passenger may challenge a stop of a vehicle on Fourth Amendment grounds even if she has no possessory or ownership interest in the vehicle. See, e.g., Kimball, 25 F.3d at 5; United States v. Roberson, 6 F.3d 1088, 1091 (5th Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1230, 127 L.Ed.2d 574 (1994), and cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1322, 127 L.Ed.2d 671 (1994), and cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1383, 128 L.Ed.2d 58 (1994); United States v. Rusher, 966 F.2d 868, 874 n. 4 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 926, 113 S.Ct. 351, 121 L.Ed.2d 266 (1992); State v. Haworth, 106 Idaho 405, 679 P.2d 1123, 1123-24 (1984); State v. Eis, 348 N.W.2d 224, 226 (Iowa 1984); Epperson, 703 P.2d at 770; State v. Brickhouse, 20 Kan.App.2d 495, 890 P.2d 353, 359 (1995); State v. Harms, 233 Neb. 882, 449 N.W.2d 1, 4 (1989) (collecting cases). In cases subsequent to Erwin, this Circuit has allowed passengers to challenge both vehicle stops and subsequent detentions. See, e.g., Lewis, 24 F.3d at 82 (noting that a challenge to the passenger's own detention would of course be personal to [him], unaffected by any question as to his standing to complain about the search of the car); United States v. Gonzalez-Lerma, 14 F.3d 1479, 1483 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1862, 128 L.Ed.2d 484 (1994); Martinez, 983 F.2d at 974. 25 Although many of these passenger standing cases involve challenges to stops and investigative detentions, their reasoning applies to allegedly unconstitutional arrests as well. Stops, detentions, and arrests all constitute seizures under the Fourth Amendment and differ primarily in the degree to which they restrict the individual's freedom of movement. See generally United States v. Muldrow, 19 F.3d 1332, 1335 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 175, 130 L.Ed.2d 110 (1994); United States v. Seslar, 996 F.2d 1058, 1060 (10th Cir.1993). A passenger's personal interest in challenging an arrest on Fourth Amendment grounds is just as significant as her interest in challenging a stop or an investigative detention. Accordingly, we conclude that a passenger has standing to challenge a constitutionally improper traffic stop, detention, or arrest on Fourth Amendment grounds even though, when the seizure occurs, she has no possessory or ownership interest in either the vehicle in which she is riding or in its contents. A passenger does not relinquish her Fourth Amendment interest in protecting herself from unlawful seizures merely because she chooses to ride in a vehicle in which she has no possessory or proprietary interest. See Erwin, 875 F.2d at 270. 26 In this case, the government has not challenged the district court's finding that Agent Vogrinec ordered Ms. Eylicio-Montoya out of the Dodge and arrested her before he saw the burlap bags through the car's rear window. See Appellant's Br. at 10 n. 4. Therefore, we must accept the district court's finding that Ms. Eylicio-Montoya's arrest was not supported by probable cause. See Eylicio-Montoya, 18 F.3d at 849 (concluding that evidence obtained by the government prior to espial of the burlap bags fell short of probable cause). Accordingly, Ms. Eylicio-Montoya was arrested in violation of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Cooper, 733 F.2d 1360, 1364 (10th Cir.) (An arrest is justified only when there is probable cause to believe that a person has committed or is committing a crime.), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1255, 104 S.Ct. 3543, 82 L.Ed.2d 847 (1984). Therefore, the only remaining question is whether the evidence obtained from the search of the Dodge was the fruit of Ms. Eylicio-Montoya's unlawful arrest. See Eylicio-Montoya, 18 F.3d at 849. 27