Opinion ID: 165698
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Locked Bag

Text: 49 The final factor the district court considered in holding that Trooper Peech had reasonable suspicion sufficient to detain Mr. Santos was that the suitcase in which methamphetamine was subsequently discovered had a lock on it. Neither the district court nor the government has offered any case law in support of the proposition that a lock on a suitcase may be a factor creating reasonable suspicion, or any empirical support for such an inference. The government properly reminds us that officers often possess expertise permitting them to understand the criminal connotations associated with facts that may seem innocent to the untrained. See Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744. Deference to law enforcement officers becomes inappropriate, however, when an officer relies on a circumstance incorrigibly free of associations with criminal activity. See United States v. Mendez, 118 F.3d 1426, 1431 (10th Cir.1997) ([S]ome facts are so innocuous and `so susceptible to varying interpretations' that they carry little or no weight.) (quoting United States v. Lee, 73 F.3d 1034, 1039 (10th Cir.1996)). In light of the many wholly innocent explanations for locking a suitcase during car travel, the locked suitcase adds nothing to the calculus.