Opinion ID: 3030141
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reasonableness of the stop under fourth

Text: AMENDMENT STANDARDS The district court held that the rangers’ suspicion of trespassing upon the Indian Nation justified the stop. Following the stop, the rangers detained Becerra-Garcia, conduct that fell squarely within their authority, and the Border Patrol made the actual arrest. Becerra-Garcia does not contest the finding with respect to reasonable suspicion. The sole argument he offers for why the stop was unreasonable is that the rangers lacked authority under tribal law to effectuate the stop. 1450 UNITED STATES v. BECERRA-GARCIA Before we address Becerra-Garcia’s argument, we take a detour to examine the authority of the Tohono O’odham rangers. Becerra-Garcia has not offered proof of any statute or regulation that circumscribes the rangers’ powers. Instead, Becerra-Garcia relies entirely on testimony that the rangers had been told they lacked authority to stop vehicles. The source of this directive—whether statute, rule, fiat, or policy —was never explored. Despite the murkiness surrounding the scope and source of the rangers’ powers, the evidence that the rangers lacked authority to stop drivers was uncontested. Consequently, for the purposes of this opinion, we assume that although the rangers had authority to detain individuals on the reservation, they were not authorized to stop Becerra-Garcia. We also consider the source of the limits on the rangers’ authority—whatever it may be—to be the equivalent of tribal law. But, as we discuss below, the rangers’ authority under tribal law is not the linchpin for determining the admissibility of the evidence obtained as a result of the stop.
THE REASONABLENESS OF THE SEIZURE [4] We start with the proposition that “[t]he general rule . . . is that evidence will only be excluded in federal court when it violates federal protections, such as those contained in the Fourth Amendment, and not in cases where it is tainted solely under state law.” United States v. Cormier, 220 F.3d 1103, 1111 (9th Cir. 2000). We have extended this principle to the context of tribal law, holding that the admissibility of evidence in federal court is determined without regard to tribal law. Male Juvenile, 280 F.3d at 1023 (“[W]e reject the contention that tribal law should govern the admissibility of statements in federal court. Federal law governs federal proceedings.”); see also United States v. Hornbeck, 118 F.3d 615, 617 (8th Cir. 1997) (“Federal, not tribal or state, law governs the admissibility of evidence” in the district court). UNITED STATES v. BECERRA-GARCIA 1451 [5] For many years, we left unresolved the question whether state or federal law governed the reasonableness of seizures, see, e.g., United States v. Clawson, 831 F.2d 909, 913 (9th Cir. 1987) (holding that the stop of a car was permissible regardless of whether state or federal law applied); United States v. Contreras-Diaz, 575 F.2d 740, 744 (9th Cir. 1978) (holding the federal and state tests to be the same), but we have now firmly come down on the side that the reasonableness of a seizure depends exclusively on federal law.3 In the oft-cited case of United States v. Chavez-Vernaza, 844 F.2d 1368 (9th Cir. 1987), we held that “evidence seized in compliance with federal law is admissible without regard to state law.” Id. at 1374; see also United States v. Bynum, 362 F.3d 574, 582-83 (9th Cir. 2004). Of particular significance to the resolution of this case is the well-established proposition that an arrest in violation of state law may still be constitutionally reasonable. Barry v. Fowler, 902 F.2d 770, 773 (9th Cir. 1990) (no Fourth Amendment violation in § 1983 case when plaintiff arrested in violation of a state law). In Barry, we observed that “[w]hile Barry may have a remedy under state law, she has failed to allege a federal constitutional . . . violation.” Id.4 3 We have not deemed state law wholly irrelevant to Fourth Amendment analysis. Our precedent supports at least two exceptions to the principle that compliance with state law does not determine constitutional reasonableness, searches incident to arrest and inventory searches. See Cormier, 220 F.3d at 1111-12 (reasonableness of search incident to arrest depends on legality of arrest under state law and reasonableness of inventory search depends on compliance with state and local procedures). The stop of Becerra-Garcia does not fall under either of these exceptions, nor does the federal test for its validity incorporate state or tribal law. BecerraGarcia was the subject of an investigatory traffic stop, the reasonableness of which depends only on reasonable suspicion, not on compliance with state or tribal law. See Haynie v. County of Los Angeles, 339 F.3d 1071, 1075 (9th Cir. 2003) (investigatory stops require only reasonable suspicion). 4 We acknowledge some inconsistency in our cases on this broad issue. See, e.g., Bingham v. City of Manhattan Beach, 341 F.3d 939, 950 (9th 1452 UNITED STATES v. BECERRA-GARCIA We note that the question of whether and how state law affects the constitutional reasonableness of a seizure has long troubled courts and has produced inconsistent results. See Santoni v. Potter, 369 F.3d 594, 598 (1st Cir. 2004) (stating that the circuits are split on whether “an arresting officer’s lack of authority under state or federal law to conduct an otherwise constitutionally valid arrest constitutes an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment”); Jackson v. Louisiana, 980 F.2d 1009, 1011 n.9 (5th Cir. 1993) (citing conflicting cases to show that whether the unauthorized use of police powers violates the Fourth Amendment is unresolved). The weight of authority establishes that the test of whether a search or seizure violates the Fourth Amendment “is one of federal law, neither enlarged by what one state court may have countenanced, nor diminished by what another may have colorably suppressed.” Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 224 (1960); see also Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 61 (1967) (whether a search is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment is a different question than whether a seizure was authorized by state law). Accordingly, we and several of our sister circuits have declined to consider state law in determining the reasonableness of seizures. See United States v. Bell, 54 F.3d 502, 504 (8th Cir. 1995) (“[W]e do not think Fourth Amendment analysis requires reference to an arrest’s legality under state law . . . . An arrest by state officers is reasonable in the Fourth Amendment sense if it is based on probable cause.”); Fields v. City of South Houston, 922 F.2d 1183, 1189 (5th Cir. 1991) (“[A] civil rights action [under § 1983] Cir. 2003) (“in evaluating a custodial arrest executed by state officials, federal courts must determine the reasonableness of the arrest in reference to state law governing the arrest”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Pierce v. Multnomah County, 76 F.3d 1032, 1041 (9th Cir. 1996) (holding, in a § 1983 case, that city policy that authorized officers to detain people for nonarrestable offenses violated state law and therefore violated the Fourth Amendment); Reed v. Hoy, 891 F.2d 1421, 1427 n.5 (9th Cir. 1990) (stating that state law is often relevant in analyzing the reasonableness of police conduct). UNITED STATES v. BECERRA-GARCIA 1453 will not lie for a warrantless misdemeanor arrest in violation of state law.”); Chavez-Vernaza, 844 F.2d at 1374 (“evidence seized in compliance with federal law is admissible without regard to state law”); Street v. Surdyka, 492 F.2d 368, 372 (4th Cir. 1974) (“Even if Officer Surdyka violated Maryland arrest law, he cannot be liable under section 1983 unless he also violated the federal constitutional law governing warrantless arrests.”).
[6] Having established that, in this case, the legality of the seizure does not depend on the rangers’ authority under tribal law, we turn to the question whether, under Fourth Amendment standards, the stop was reasonable. “The Fourth Amendment requires only reasonable suspicion in the context of investigative traffic stops.” Haynie v. County of Los Angeles, 339 F.3d 1071, 1075 (9th Cir. 2003) (citation and internal quotations omitted). Because Becerra-Garcia did not challenge the district court’s finding that the rangers had reasonable articulable suspicion to investigate for criminal trespass until his reply brief, we leave that finding undisturbed. See Indep. Towers of Wash. v. Washington, 350 F.3d 925, 929 (9th Cir. 2003). Notably, the scope of the rangers’ intrusion was minimal: they merely turned their jeep around, followed the van, and turned on their emergency lights. Thus, the stop was reasonable. Becerra-Garcia urges us to hold otherwise, suggesting that we adopt what, at bottom, is a bright-line rule for determining reasonableness: that a stop is automatically unreasonable if the officers lacked authority to conduct the seizure. The difficulty with this argument is that it seeks, in effect, to undo the general principle that federal law, not state or tribal law, governs the inquiry. [7] The reasonableness of a seizure is generally analyzed on a case-by-case basis, not according to bright-line rules. 1454 UNITED STATES v. BECERRA-GARCIA See, e.g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 17, 20-21 (1968) (rejecting a “rigid all-or-nothing model of justification and regulation under the [Fourth] Amendment” in favor of a flexible model that considers the scope of the intrusion and its justification); Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 344, 357 (1931) (“There is no formula for the determination of reasonableness. Each case is to be decided on its own facts and circumstances”). Following the longstanding principle that reasonableness cannot be reduced to per se rules, we have never held that a stop that exceeds an officer’s tribal authority is automatically unreasonable. We decline to embrace Becerra-Garcia’s sweeping rule because it runs counter to the flexible notion of reasonableness. The claim that the rangers lack specific tribal authority to stop vehicles does not transform this otherwise reasonable stop into an unreasonable one. Our holding is consistent with our general recognition that Indian tribes are sovereigns with the power to enforce internal laws. See, e.g., United States v. Enas, 255 F.3d 662, 666 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc). Intrinsic in tribal sovereignty is the power to exclude trespassers from the reservation, a power that necessarily entails investigating potential trespassers. See Ortiz-Barraza v. United States, 512 F.2d 1176, 1179-80 (9th Cir. 1975); State v. Schmuck, 121 Wash.2d 373, 381 (Wash. 1993) (relying on Ortiz-Barraza to hold that tribal authorities have the power to stop vehicles to investigate violations of tribal law). Holding that the minimally intrusive investigatory stop was reasonable evinces our respect for both the Fourth Amendment and tribal sovereignty. AFFIRMED.