Court Opinion

ID: 9497939
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:04:13.95109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:31.156445
License: Public Domain

WARD LAW, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
The government concedes that the officers’ sole purpose for following, stopping, and searching the car in which the gun was found was to investigate Pulliam. Although the district court found that the officers lawfully stopped the car, it held- — • and the government concedes — that the officers unlawfully detained the car and its passengers, and unlawfully searched the car. The district court suppressed Pul-liam’s statements made while he was de*792tained, the cash found in his pocket, and the gun,1 ruling:
[The officers had] a valid reason for stopping[the car], which was the taillight being out. I think everything after that was manufactured, however, including this rolling stop, thinking that the car was trying to get away from them and all that. None of that is reasonable.
Indeed, the district court found that all of the reasons proffered by the officers to support reasonable suspicion for the detention of Richards and Pulliam and the subsequent search of the car were lies, holding:
Everything that these officers have come up with in order to provide what they have considered to be reasonable suspicion is manufactured in my mind. They started out by even saying what it is that they wanted. And they were after that. And they had a basis for stopping the vehicle. There is no doubt about it. But they had no reasonable basis for then going farther.2
Therefore, the only issue we are confronted with is whether a defendant may successfully move to suppress evidence found in a car in which he was a passenger where the car and its occupants were legally stopped but unlawfully detained.
Although this is an issue of first impression in our circuit, our vehicular stop cases provide a framework for resolving it. Those cases hold that although a defendant may lack the requisite possessory or ownership interest in a vehicle to directly challenge a search of that vehicle, the defendant may nonetheless contest the lawfulness of his own detention and seek to suppress evidence found in the vehicle as the fruit of that illegal detention. See, e.g., United States v. Colin, 314 F.3d 439, 442-43 (9th Cir.2002) (“[O]ccupants of a vehicle have standing to challenge on Fourth Amendment grounds an officer’s stop of their vehicle even if they have no possesso-ry or ownership interest in the vehicle.”). To successfully suppress evidence as the fruit of an unlawful detention, a defendant must establish that the detention violated his Fourth Amendment rights, and that, “but for the illegal actions of the police,” Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), the evidence would not have been discovered. See United States v. Twilley, 222 F.3d 1092, 1095-96 (9th Cir.2000).
Here, the government concedes that the officers lacked authority to detain the car and its occupants. In addition, it is clear that, but for the illegal actions of the police in detaining the car and its passengers, the gun would not have been discovered. Therefore, the district court correctly granted Pulliam’s motion to suppress.
The majority goes astray because instead of viewing the concededly illegal detention of the car and its occupants as the “primary illegality,” it narrowly construes the law to require a showing that the gun was the product of “[Pulliam’s], and only [Pulliam’s], unlawful detention.” Ante at 790; see United States v. DeLuca, 269 F.3d 1128, 1146 (10th Cir.2001) (Seymour, J., dissenting). Contrary to the majority’s analysis, in our vehicular stop cases we have repeatedly focused on the illegal detention of the vehicle and its occupants as the unconstitutional police conduct and examined whether the illegally seized evidence is the fruit of that detention. See, e.g., Colin, 314 F.3d at 446 (“In sum, we *793conclude Carmichael did not have reasonable suspicion to stop Estrada-Nava and Colin based on lane straddling or driving under the influence. As a result, the methamphetamine he seized through the search of their vehicle should have been suppressed.”). In those cases, we have held that the “but for” link between the illegal conduct and discovery of evidence in the car was apparent given the proximity in time and location of the events, and the unbroken link between them. See, e.g., United States v. Arvizu, 232 F.3d 1241, 1252 (9th Cir.2000) (reversing district court’s denial of motion to suppress, stating that “ordinarily, when a car is illegally stopped, the search that follows will be a product of that stop”), rev’d on other grounds, 534 U.S. 266, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002); Tivilley, 222 F.3d at 1097 (reversing defendant’s conviction, stating that “[t]he government has not shown that there was a break in the chain of events sufficient to refute the inference that the search and the resulting seizure of the cocaine were products of the stop”); United States v. Millan, 36 F.3d 886, 890 (9th Cir.1994) (reversing district court’s denial of motion to suppress, stating that “[b]ecause the interrogation and search were a direct result of the illegal stop, we hold that all of the evidence must be suppressed”). None of our vehicular stop cases analyzes the stop of the vehicle and the unlawful detention of its occupants as discrete, independent actions, as the majority does here. They have instead uniformly considered the illegal detention of the vehicle and its occupants together in their fruits analysis.
The majority reasons that “when, as here, the initial stop is lawful, the situation is different” because “[t]he continued detention of the vehicle does not necessarily entail the detention of its occupants; they could simply be permitted to walk away.” Ante at 788. But this is too fine a line to draw in our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
Passengers in vehicles that are unlawfully stopped also “could simply be permitted to walk away.” Ante at 788. However, because “[c]ertainly few motorists would feel free ... to leave the scene of a traffic stop without being told they might do so,” the Supreme Court has long acknowledged that “ ‘stopping an automobile and detaining its occupants constitute a “seizure” within the meaning of [the Fourth] Amendmen[t], even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief.’ ” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 436-37, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984) (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979)) (alterations in original). For this reason, we have focused on the detention of the vehicle and its occupants as the “primary illegality” in our vehicular stop cases.
Like illegally stopping an automobile, unlawfully detaining a vehicle after a legal stop “significantly curtails the ‘freedom of action’ of the driver and the passengers, if any, of the detained vehicle.” Id. at 436, 104 S.Ct. 3138. This is especially true in this case, where the government admits that once the car stopped, “the officers got out of their patrol car and, with their guns drawn and aimed low, ordered the driver and Pulliam out of the car” for a pat down search. Even short of the overt threat of force in this case, and the unlawful detention that followed, it is illogical to assume that any passenger would walk away from a vehicle and driver that have been stopped and detained by the police.
Therefore, there is no principled reason to distinguish between a situation involving an illegal stop, in which case a passenger may suppress evidence found as a result of the illegal stop, see, e.g., Colin, 314 F.3d at *794442-43, and a situation involving a legal stop but illegal detention, in which case, according to the majority’s analysis, a passenger may not suppress evidence found as a result of the illegal detention. For purposes of the fruits analysis here, we must focus on the detention of the vehicle and its occupants as the “primary illegality,” for they all stemmed from the officers’ single decision to detain and search the car, Pulliam, and the driver. The detention of the vehicle and the detention of its occupants are part of a single, integrated instance of unconstitutional police conduct.
The Circuits appear to be split on this question. The Fifth Circuit has assumed that the primary illegality is the detention of the vehicle and its occupants. See United States v. Jones, 234 F.3d 234 (2000). But see DeLuca, 269 F.3d at 1130-35; United States v. Carter, 14 F.3d 1150, 1151-55 (6th Cir.1994). As in this case, the defendants in Jones did not challenge the initial stop of the vehicle, but rather asserted that the officers’ continued detention of the vehicle was unreasonable under the circumstances and exceeded the scope of the initial stop. Jones, 234 F.3d at 240. In contrast to the majority in this case, however, the Fifth Circuit analyzed the district court’s suppression ruling in the exact same manner with respect to both defendants, even though one of the defendants did not own or possess the vehicle. Finding that the prolonged detention of the vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment and the driver’s consent did not cure the violation, the Fifth Circuit held that the evidence found in the vehicle should have been suppressed in both defendants’ cases. Id. at 244. Unlike the majority, the Fifth Circuit did not require the passenger to demonstrate that, but for his, and only his, illegal detention, the evidence would not have been found. Even the dissent in Jones assumed that both the driver and passenger could challenge the admissibility of the drugs as fruits of the poisonous tree. Id. at 244 (Garza, J., dissenting).3
Perhaps the majority’s error lies in confusing standing analysis with “fruit of the poisonous tree” analysis. See DeLuca, 269 F.3d at 1145-46 (Seymour, J., dissenting).4 An owner of a vehicle must be distinguished from a passenger or driver for purposes of determining standing because generally only an owner has standing to directly challenge the illegal search of his vehicle. See Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 148-49, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1987) (holding that a passenger who asserts neither a possessory nor a property interest in a vehicle lacks standing to challenge the illegal search of the vehicle). Once the issue of standing has been resolved, however, we have conducted the fruits analysis in the identical manner regardless of whether the defendant was the owner of the car or a passenger. Our vehicular stop cases have uniformly considered passenger, driver, and owner together for purposes of analyzing whether evidence is fruit of the illegal detention of the vehicle and its occupants. See Colin, 314 F.3d at 442-43; Twilley, 222 F.3d at 1095.
The majority reasons that to amalgamate the police actions of detaining the car *795and detaining each of its occupants would be inconsistent with our decision in United States v. Martell, 654 F.2d 1356 (9th Cir.1981). Martell is not a vehicular stop case, however, and thus is distinguishable on its facts alone. Moreover, the Martell majority’s “fruit of the poisonous tree” analysis is seriously flawed, as Judge D. Nelson pointed out in her dissent in that ease. Like the majority here, the Martell majority disconnected the dots between the challenged evidence and the illegal detention that gave rise to it. See LaFave, § 11.4(d), at 313 (criticizing Martell for “avoiding] a ‘fruits’ connection between the challenged evidence and the preceding illegal detention of the defendant^] by disconnecting that detention from the larger illegality of which it [was] a part”).
In Martell, the defendants were detained at an airport just as they were to board a flight. Twenty minutes after their initial detention, the defendants were escorted to a police office, where a narcotics detector dog was allowed to “sniff’ their luggage. After the dog gave a positive alert for narcotics in the suitcases, the defendants were transported to a narcotics task force office in another end of the airport. The trial court held that probable cause first arose at the time of the alert. The defendants were detained in the narcotics office for four hours until a search warrant was obtained, at which time the suitcases were searched, a large quantity of cocaine was found, and the defendants were arrested.
We affirmed the denial of the defendants’ motion to suppress, reasoning that the detention of the luggage was reasonable even if the detention of the defendants was not, so that any illegal detention of the defendants “would not taint the search and seizure of the suitcases.” Id. at 1361. As here, the dissenting opinion criticized the majority for slicing and dicing the unlawful police conduct, stating:
Here, the seizures of the individuals and suitcases were part of a single, unified police action. The majority chooses to slice a lesser included intrusion (seizure of the suitcases) from the simultaneous greater intrusion (unlawful arrest) that began at the inception of contact with the defendants. This is a unique approach to fourth amendment adjudication. ... The majority cites no precedent for fragmenting a unified, simultaneous action into isolated parts for analysis. Such an approach would seem to be contrary to the deterrent policy behind the exclusionary rule. In light of that policy, I cannot approve the judicial technique of winnowing a fortuitous “lawful” facet out of an otherwise unlawful incident. I see no reason for courts artificially to bifurcate police actions on a post hoc basis in an attempt to evade the exclusionary rule.
Id. at 1370 (citation omitted).
The majority opinion also finds no support in the logic of the Fourth Amendment. See DeLuca, 269 F.3d at 1146-48 (Seymour, J., dissenting). The core rationale for extending the exclusionary rule to evidence that is the fruit of unlawful police conduct is that “this admittedly drastic and socially costly course is needed to deter police from violations of constitutional and statutory protections.” Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 442-43, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). The Supreme Court has accepted the argument “that the way to ensure such protections is to exclude evidence seized as a result of such violations notwithstanding the high social cost of letting persons obviously guilty go unpunished for their crimes.” Id. at 443, 104 S.Ct. 2501.
The majority undermines this rationale. Indeed, it “provides positive encourage*796ment for Fourth Amendment violations by telling [police officers] that there are potential law enforcement benefits to be derived, at least against passengers, in [unlawfully detaining vehicles and their passengers] even when, as [here], such action is flagrantly illegal.” LaFave, § 11.4(d), at 315 (stating that the Tenth Circuit’s decision in DeLuca, which the majority follows here, “is ludicrous”). The majority opinion invites police officers to engage in patently unreasonable detentions, searches, and seizures every time an automobile contains more than one occupant. Should something be found, only the owner of the vehicle will be able to successfully move to suppress the evidence; the evidence will be admissible against the other occupants. After this decision, police officers will have little to lose, but much to gain, by legally stopping but illegally detaining vehicles occupied by more than one person.
Indeed, the policy considerations for excluding evidence seized as a result of constitutional violations is particularly strong here, where the officers admitted that their reasons for pursuing the vehicle were merely pretext to investigate Pulliam. Although I agree with the majority that Pul-liam should not be able to successfully seek suppression simply because he was the “target” of the search, it is undeniably true that the officers achieved their sole goal of identifying and ultimately arresting Pulliam through unconstitutional means. The majority’s logic is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s teaching that “the prosecution is not to be put in a better position than it would have been in if no illegality had transpired.” Nix, 467 U.S. at 443, 104 S.Ct. 2501.
The majority’s rule is also arbitrary. It creates situations where a person’s ability to challenge illegally obtained evidence will turn on the fortuity of whether he is the owner of the vehicle in which he was a passenger. “There is no difference from a policy standpoint between permitting the police to use unconstitutionally seized evidence against an illegally detained passenger and using it against an illegally detained automobile owner.” DeLuca, 269 F.3d at 1147 (Seymour, J., dissenting).
Finally, the majority “comes dangerously close to creating a right without a remedy, something which is strongly disfavored in American jurisprudence.” Id. at 1148. Under the majority’s holding, while a passenger may theoretically challenge his illegal detention, he will have no remedy because he will be unable to satisfy the implausible requirement that he prove that had he requested to leave the scene of the traffic stop, he would have been able to do so in the car in which he was a passenger. See ante at 786-87.
Despite the majority’s opinion, most police officers will continue to do their jobs as best they can in accord with the Fourth Amendment. But, as Justice White stated in Rakas:
[T]he very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to answer the justified fear that governmental agents cannot be left totally to their own devices, and the Bill of Rights is enforceable in the courts because human experience teaches that not all such officials will otherwise adhere to the stated precepts. Some policemen simply do act in bad faith, even if for understandable ends, and some deterrent is needed.
Rakas, 439 U.S. at 169, 99 S.Ct. 421 (White, J., dissenting). Because I cannot go along with the majority’s parsimonious approach to the Fourth Amendment, I would affirm.

. The government appealed only the suppression of the gun.

. The majority disregards this factual finding by the district court, and thus errs when it treats the officers’ "manufactured” statements as true. See ante at 784-85.

. In addition to the Fifth Circuit, a respected treatise supports the view that in the circumstances presented here, courts should focus on the detention of the car and its occupants as the “primary illegality.” See Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 11.4(d), at 313-15 (4th ed.2004).

. This confusion is further illustrated by the majority’s response to this dissent, which again reverts to standing analysis rather than the "fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine upon which the majority relies.