Court Opinion

ID: 9487418
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:16:03.132292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:15.498978
License: Public Domain

CYNTHIA HOLCOMB HALL, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the panel’s conclusion that Perez’s conviction should be affirmed. I write separately to express my concern that Part I of the panel opinion, while it reaches the correct result, misstates the law of the Ninth Circuit on pretextual searches. I therefore concur in the panel opinion with the exception of Part I.
The majority’s statement that “[o]ur circuit’s caselaw has not been entirely consistent in the test it has applied to determine pretext,” Majority Opinion at 12034-35, is accurate only up to a point. It is true that some Ninth Circuit cases have in the past been interpreted as mandating a subjective inquiry into police officers’ intentions when analyzing a pretextual stop claim, whereas *517others applied an objective, “reasonable officer” test. Any inconsistency, however, was reconciled by United States v. Cannon, 29 F.3d 472 (9th Cir.1994).
Cannon surveyed the Ninth Circuit pre-textual stop cases, as well as those of other circuits. The opinion noted that “[s]ome of our language has implied that [the] subjective inquiry is required,” id. at 475, but went on to hold that the prior cases were in fact consistent with the objective test. Specifically, Cannon squarely held that when faced with a claim that a traffic stop was pretextual, “courts should inquire whether a reasonable officer “would have’ made the stop anyway, apart from [his or her] suspicions about other more serious criminal activity.” Id. at 476 (internal quotes in original). This objective test limits our inquiry in the present ease.
Cannon is the law of the Ninth Circuit on this issue. Unless and until it is overturned by the en banc court, we are bound to apply the objective test that it mandates. I cannot agree, therefore, with the majority’s analysis of the present case, which uses both the objective and subjective tests. After Cannon, the subjective analysis is simply irrelevant.
Under the objective test, the stop in the present case unquestionably passes muster. A reasonable officer who viewed the erratic manner in which Perez was driving clearly would have pulled the van over. The stop here therefore was not pretextual.
For the above reasons, while I concur in the judgment and the remainder of the panel opinion, I cannot concur in Part I of the panel opinion.