Court Opinion

ID: 9470817
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:16:44.463045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:07.086930
License: Public Domain

POLITZ, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
As the district court so aptly observed at the close of the suppression hearing, “... what this case boils down to in the end is that [Agent Molina] ... doesn’t have anything really exceptional to go on except the posture of those four people that were bent over in the car.” Because Fifth Circuit jurisprudence militates against a conclusion that this factor gives rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, whether considered alone or in conjunction with the passengers’ unkempt hair, shabby clothing, and avoidance of eye contact, I most respectfully dissent.
We have repeatedly held that a vital element of the Brignoni-Ponce test is whether the detaining officers had reason to believe that the suspect vehicle’s journey had originated at the border. See United States v. Orona-Sanchez, 648 F.2d 1039 (5th Cir.1981), and cases cited therein. Where the stop occurs a substantial distance from the border, this element has been found lacking. See, eg., Orona-Sanchez (100 miles); United States v. Lamas, 608 F.2d 547 (5th Cir.1979) (190 miles); United States v. Lopez, 564 F.2d 710 (5th Cir.1977) (55 miles); United States v. Escamilla, 560 F.2d 1229 (5th Cir.1977) (70 miles). Here, Agent Molina testified that he had no grounds for believing that defendant’s vehicle had recently crossed the border. Nor can such a belief be presumed, defendant having been interdicted on a heavily-traveled interstate highway, at a distance of 165 miles from the border and a mere 15 miles from one of the largest metropolitan areas in Texas.
Despite its central role in the Brignoni-Ponce calculus, the element of proximity to the border is not essential if other articulable facts give rise to the requisite reasonable suspicion. United States v. Lamas; United States v. Escamilla. Absent proof of the agent’s reasonable belief that the vehicle had entered this country from Mexico, however, we are compelled “to examine charily the remaining facts marshalled by the government to support the agent[’s] suspicions.” United States v. Pena-Cantu, 639 F.2d 1228, 1229 (5th Cir.1981). When subjected to this exacting scrutiny, the remaining circumstances motivating Agent Molina to intercept defendant’s automobile did not reasonably warrant his suspicion that criminal activity was in progress.
As the district court pointed out, and Molina testified, there was no connection between the anonymous tip and the fortuitous arrival of defendant’s Lincoln on the scene. Since it was not the type of vehicle generally employed to transport illegal aliens, bore Texas plates, and did not appear heavily loaded, the characteristics of the vehicle itself did not provoke suspicion.
Thus the basis for Molina’s suspicion of wrongdoing related exclusively to the Lincoln’s passengers. It is now well-settled that a person’s failure to establish or maintain eye contact with a surveilling agent is of no relevance whatsoever to the BrignoniPonce analysis. United States v. Orona-Sanchez; United States v. Pacheco, 617 F.2d 84 (5th Cir.1980); United States v. Escamilla. Nor do the driver’s two brief and nervous glances at Molina over a prolonged period furnish a reasonable predicate for the agent’s suspicion. Compare United States v. Barnard, 553 F.2d 389, 391-92 (5th Cir.1977) (court deemed suspicious the fact that the driver “glanced repeatedly and nervously at [an agent] as he *1091passed”). A speeding driver would be expected to look anxiously at a vehicle positioned alongside the highway. And any driver who persists in driving in close proximity to another vehicle should expect that the other driver will glance, whether nervously or otherwise, in his direction. One could hardly expect less. It is for precisely these reasons that we have held, “ ‘[Reasonable suspicion should not turn on the ophthalmological reactions of the ... [suspect].’ ” United States v. Pacheco, 617 F.2d at 87 (quoting from United States v. Lopez, 564 F.2d at 712).
Finally, the peculiar posture of several passengers and the shabby, rumpled appearance of all occupants of the Lincoln, whether viewed individually or in the aggregate, do not justify the officer’s action. Albeit relevant, the three passengers’ unusual method of travel does not alone, or in combination with Agent Molina’s other observations, reasonably warrant a suspicion of illegal activity, United States v. Orona-Sanchez; United States v. Pacheco; United States v. Lamas, particularly in light of Molina’s admissions that he was unfamiliar with this form of concealment, and that these individuals could have more effectively escaped detection by crouching on the floor of the car. See United States v. Pena-Cantu (that (1) travelers were proceeding in a northerly direction away from Mexico toward Houston; (2) passengers were adult males of Hispanic appearance and did not look like tourists; (3) passengers in back seat were sitting low as if to avoid detection; and (4) subject vehicles were of a type often used in smuggling, deemed insufficient to justify investigatory stop); United States v. Lamas, (that a 1966 Ford, a vehicle not generally driven by tourists, with Colorado plates traveling north on Highway 180 in New Mexico, approximately 190 miles north of the Mexican border, appeared heavily loaded, and that the back-seat passengers crouched down as the agents’ car passed, even when examined in light of the latters’ knowledge that Highway 180 was a major smuggling route between Mexico and Colorado and was visited infrequently by tourists, and that 48% of the vehicles in which aliens had been discovered in this area bore Colorado plates, did not reasonably warrant agents’ suspicion that vehicle contained illegal aliens).
Although the majority posits substantial reliance on Agent Molina’s testimony that, based on his four years with the INS’s anti-smuggling unit, the unwashed, unkempt and uncombed appearance of the Lincoln’s passengers signaled their undocumented status, this factor does not serve to tip the balance in favor of a finding of reasonable suspicion. Persons returning home on a busy interstate highway after working or engaging in such legitimate recreational activities as hunting or camping might well present an equally disheveled mien. That the vehicle’s occupants appeared to be of Latin origin is likewise of little or no significance in an area where a large percentage of the population is Hispanic. See Orona-Sanchez.
Upon consideration of the totality of the circumstances confronting Agent Molina, therefore, I cannot conclude that he could have reasonably entertained a suspicion that the Lincoln was used to transport undocumented aliens. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court suppressing evidence obtained as a result of the investigatory stop.