Court Opinion

ID: 9380696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-21 00:00:24.04951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:26.855731
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-50320          Document: 00516682458              Page: 1       Date Filed: 03/20/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                                              United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                               Fifth Circuit

                                                                                             FILED
                                                                                       March 20, 2023
                                          No. 22-50320
                                                                                        Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                             Clerk
   United States of America,

                                                                         Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                               versus

   Kim Dung Thi Lee,

                                                                     Defendant—Appellant.

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                           for the Western District of Texas
                               USDC No. 3:21-cr-1246-1

   Before Wiener, Stewart, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
          Defendant-Appellant Kim Dung Thi Lee was convicted of crimes
   related to trafficking undocumented noncitizens. She now appeals the district
   court’s decision not to hold an evidentiary hearing on her motion to suppress
   evidence from a vehicle stop. She contends that facts material to the officer’s
   probable cause were disputed on the existing record—specifically, (1)
   whether the location where an off-duty officer spotted someone board the

          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-50320       Document: 00516682458         Page: 2    Date Filed: 03/20/2023

                                    No. 22-50320

   vehicle was a “known stash house” and (2) whether the vehicle’s “rear
   suspension was heavily laden.” We agree that an evidentiary hearing was
   necessary here.
                                I. BACKGROUND
          In June of 2021, an off-duty border patrol agent observed someone get
   into a parked Dodge Journey at a place the Government refers to as a “known
   stash house used for smuggling undocumented noncitizens.” The agent was
   not surveilling the “known stash house” at the time—he simply observed
   that incident by chance. He later saw the same vehicle at a nearby gas station,
   where he noticed that its “rear suspension was heavily laden.” This was also
   by chance. The off-duty agent relayed his observations to other federal
   immigration law enforcement agents in the area, sharing the vehicle’s license
   plate number and a photograph of the vehicle.
          Shortly thereafter, an on-duty border patrol agent, Pedro Gutierrez,
   located the vehicle and ran its license plate, discovering that it was a rental.
   Agent Gutierrez also observed that the vehicle was “riding low on its
   suspension,” and proceeded to stop it on I-10. After performing an
   immigration inspection, Agent Gutierrez determined that seven of the
   vehicle’s nine occupants were undocumented noncitizens. All nine of the
   occupants, including Lee, were arrested.
          The next day, Homeland Securities Investigations Special Agent
   Patrik Pinon interviewed Lee and the vehicle’s driver. Lee admitted to Agent
   Pinon that she was attempting to transport the undocumented noncitizens to
   Dallas for which she expected to receive pay. Agent Pinon’s affidavit is the
   only record evidence that recounts the foregoing events.
          On July 28, 2021, a Grand Jury indicted Lee for conspiring to transport
   illegal aliens and transporting illegal aliens for financial gain. Lee filed a
   motion to suppress the evidence obtained during the vehicle stop, contending

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   that the stop was “not [made] pursuant to any traffic violation, nor based on
   any probable cause or suspicion developed by the arresting officers” and
   therefore violated her Fourth Amendment rights. Lee requested an
   evidentiary hearing on her motion. The Government opposed Lee’s motion
   and responded that Lee did not raise issues worthy of a hearing. The
   Government’s opposition largely restated the facts contained in Agent
   Pinon’s affidavit without any further evidence, such as affidavits, sworn
   statements, or investigative reports. The district court denied Lee’s motion
   to suppress and request for an evidentiary hearing on the ground that Lee did
   not present material disputed facts.
          The parties proceeded to a bench trial on the following stipulated
   facts: Agent Gutierrez had conducted the stop that resulted in Lee’s arrest,
   and Lee confessed to the elements of her offenses the next day. Lee did not
   stipulate the facts leading up to the vehicle stop because she contested the
   evidence and contended that it was irrelevant to the trial. Lee maintained,
   however, that such evidence was relevant to her motion to suppress.
          Lee was found guilty of the crimes charged in the indictment and was
   sentenced to three years of probation including eight months of home
   confinement. Lee timely appealed the district court’s decision on her request
   for an evidentiary hearing. Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A)(i).
                          II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
          We review a district court’s decision not to hold an evidentiary
   hearing for abuse of discretion. United States v. Harrelson, 705 F.2d 733, 737
   (5th Cir. 1983). An evidentiary hearing is required on a motion
   to suppress “only when necessary to receive evidence on an issue of fact.”
   Id. If an abuse of discretion is determined, it is examined for harmless error.
   United States v. Clark, 577 F.3d 273, 287 (5th Cir. 2009) (citing United States
   v. Sanders, 343 F.3d 511, 517 (5th Cir. 2003)).

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          The Government contends that this appeal should be reviewed for
   plain error, but we find that Lee took sufficient steps to preserve this issue.
   She requested an evidentiary hearing on her motion to suppress and later—
   both before and during trial—she made continued references to the need for
   an evidentiary hearing. See United States v. Rogers, 481 F. App’x 157, 158 n.2
   (5th Cir. 2012) (“Under these circumstances, we are persuaded that the issue
   regarding the failure to conduct an evidentiary hearing is sufficiently
   preserved for appellate review.”). Here, Lee clearly identified this issue in
   the district court and explained that she would want full cross-examination
   of any relevant witnesses so that this court could rely on that evidence in
   conducting this appeal. A review for abuse of discretion is proper here. See
   Harrelson, 705 F.2d at 737.
                                 III. DISCUSSION
          Lee appeals the district court’s denial of her request for an evidentiary
   hearing on the Government’s assertions that (1) the location where someone
   entered the vehicle was a “known stash house” and (2) that vehicle was
   riding low. We agree with Lee on the stash house issue. This aspect of the
   record was adequately disputed, underdeveloped, and material to the motion
   to suppress.
          Key to the district court’s decision was the fact that the “parties do
   not dispute that a person was seen boarding the SUV at a known stash house
   for undocumented aliens.” However, the briefs on the motion to suppress
   clearly establish a dispute on the nature of that location as a “known stash
   house” and the underlying rationale for that designation. But the record
   provides no evidence on the truth of this designation beyond one affidavit’s
   retelling of the off-duty agent’s observations.
          In her motion to suppress, Lee challenged the legality of the stop that
   led to her arrest. She insists that the stop was not based on a reasonable

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   suspicion that the vehicle carried any undocumented noncitizens. Lee clearly
   disputed the pick-up location’s status as a stash house in that motion.
   However, the district court limited its findings to what was “seen” at the
   location without addressing the nature of the location itself. The court then
   relied on the location’s status as a stash house to determine that there was
   reasonable suspicion for law enforcement’s performance of a vehicle stop.
          A location’s likelihood of criminality can factor into an officer’s
   reasonable suspicion. See Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000)
   (“[T]he fact that the stop occurred in a ‘high crime area’ [is] among the
   relevant contextual considerations in a Terry analysis.”). But here, the
   Government provided no additional information regarding the location’s
   status as a stash house. Agent Pinon’s affidavit provides no answer to such
   status beyond his conclusional statement to that effect. Perhaps an affidavit
   from the off-duty agent who witnessed the location first-hand, or any number
   of hypothetical affidavits or reports, might have sufficiently bolstered the
   record to avoid an evidentiary hearing here. But the record before us is scant.
          Lee has alleged “sufficient facts which, if proven, would justify
   relief,” and the existing record renders it “necessary [for the court] to
   receive evidence on an issue of fact.” Harrelson, 705 F.2d at 737. Although
   “[h]earings on motions to suppress are not discovery proceedings,” id. at
   738, “[d]emonstrating reasonable suspicion is the Government’s burden,”
   United States v. McKinney, 980 F.3d 485, 491 (5th Cir. 2020) (citing United
   States v. Hill, 752 F.3d 1029, 1033 (5th Cir. 2014). Lee cannot be expected to
   prove a negative based on the contents of Agent Pinon’s affidavit. A hearing
   could allow the off-duty agent to “explain further what” he or she “observed
   or knew.” Id. at 496.
          As for the parties’ dispute over whether the “vehicle was riding low,”
   the district court acted within its discretion when it decided not to hold an

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   evidentiary      hearing     on     this    issue.    See    Harrelson, 705 F.2d at 737
   (“Evidentiary hearings are not granted as a matter of course, but are held
   only when the defendant alleges sufficient facts which, if proven, would
   justify relief.”). The low suspension alone would not have generated cause
   for a stop. Any number of groups could have occupied such a van at capacity,
   rendering its suspension to ride low. It was only that fact, coupled with the
   observation of an individual entering the vehicle at a “known stash house,”
   that would have triggered reasonable suspicion here. The district court
   remains within its discretion to decide whether to hear this issue on remand.
           The Government offers only cursory briefing on harmlessness, 1
   contending that “the characteristics of the vehicle, the characteristics and
   significance of the location first observed, the time of night, the distance traveled,
   the direction of travel, in combination, provide adequate reasonable
   suspicion.” As discussed, we agree that “the characteristics and significance
   of the location first observed”—i.e., the alleged “known stash house”—
   played an integral role in the district court’s denial of Lee’s motion to
   suppress all evidence from the vehicle stop. The existing record renders it
   impossible for us to decide that such error was harmless.
                                     IV. Conclusion
           Defendant-Appellant Lee’s conviction is VACATED, and this case is
   REMANDED to the district court with instructions to hold an evidentiary
   hearing on Lee’s motion to suppress, all in accordance with this opinion.

           1
           Government counsel offered additional unbriefed reasons for harmlessness at oral
   argument—to which, Lee’s counsel graciously offered a response—but that argument was
   improper, and thus inadmissible before this court, because it lacked briefing by either party.

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