Court Opinion

ID: 9494521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:39:25.080322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:27.071616
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the district court correctly held that Trooper Koltz’s immigration status questions unreasonably expanded the scope of the traffic stop because he had no reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity. Therefore, all information obtained from Rodriguez after the inception of this questioning should be suppressed.
During a lawful traffic stop, law enforcement officers may engage in an investigation reasonably related to the stop. See United States v. Ramos, 42 F.3d 1160, 1163 (8th Cir.1994). “[A] reasonable investigation of a traffic stop may include asking for the driver’s license and registration, requesting the driver to sit in the patrol car, and asking the driver about his destination and purpose.” U.S. v. Foley, 206 F.3d 802, 805 (8th Cir.2000) (citation omitted). If such questioning produces inconsistent answers, or if the license and registration are not in order, a trooper’s suspicions may be raised so as to enable him to expand the scope of the stop and ask additional, more intrusive questions. Ramos, 42 F.3d at 1163. If, however, no answers are inconsistent and no objective circumstances supply the trooper with additional suspicion, the trooper should not expand the scope of the stop. See id.
The majority concludes, on the basis of United States v. Payner, that Rodriguez cannot establish a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights because he had no legitimate expectation of privacy in Molina’s knowledge that he was illegally present in the United States, and therefore cannot contest Molina’s statements. See United States v. Payner 447 U.S. 727, 731, 100 S.Ct. 2439, 65 L.Ed.2d 468 (1980). This reasoning condones Trooper Koltz’s improper expansion of the scope of the traffic stop in order to elicit incriminating information about Rodriguez’s alienage, and ignores Rodriguez’s right to challenge the scope and duration of the stop.
While it is true that Rodriguez does not have standing to contest the statements made by Molina, he can contest his own statements if they were the product of an unreasonably protracted traffic stop. The right to be free from unnecessarily prolonged traffic stops applies to both drivers and passengers. See U.S. v. Jones, 234 *620F.3d 234, 241 (5th Cir.2001) (because continued detention of driver and passenger was improper after routine questions failed to create reasonable suspicion, both were entitled to suppress evidence obtained as a result of a subsequent search). A law enforcement official may not unreasonably expand the scope of a routine traffic stop in order to obtain incriminating information about the passenger of a vehicle without violating that passenger’s right to be free from unnecessary governmental detention. See id.; U.S. v. Mesa, 62 F.3d 159, 162 (6th Cir.1995) (once the purpose of an initial traffic stop is completed, an officer cannot further detain a vehicle or its occupants unless something that occurred during the traffic stop generated the necessary reasonable suspicion to justify a further detention) (emphasis added).
Trooper Koltz stopped Molina for speeding. Neither Molina’s nor Rodriguez’s immigration status was relevant to this traffic violation. Therefore, without a reasonable suspicion of additional criminal activity, the traffic stop and Trooper Koltz’s attendant investigation should have concluded before either Molina or Rodriguez were questioned about immigration issues. See U.S. v. Restrepo, 890 F.Supp. 180, 195 (E.D.N.Y.1995)(“Unnecessarily prolonging a traffic stop for the purpose of eliciting information about a suspected unconnected violation for which there is no objective basis is not acceptable.”).16
To justifiably expand the scope of the traffic stop, Trooper Koltz was required to observe particularized, objective facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warranted suspicion that a crime was being committed. See United States v. Beck, 140 F.3d 1129, 1136 (8th Cir.1998). Trooper Koltz listed several factors to support his suspicion of criminal activity, including: the nervousness of Molina and Rodriguez; the failure of Molina and Rodriguez to make eye contact; the age difference between Molina and Rodriguez; the lack of a familial relationship between Molina and Rodriguez, a car interior devoid of luggage and debris, and license plates from the State of Washington.17 I agree with the magistrate judge, and the district court judge, that these factors do not support Trooper Koltz’s suspicion of drug trafficking activity, nor do they support his suspicion that Molina and Rodriguez were illegal aliens.
As we noted in Beck, factors such as the absence of luggage in the interior of a vehicle, and the presence of out-of-state plates from alleged “source” states are insufficient to support reasonable suspicion. See id. at 1137-39. Also, failing to make eye contact with a questioning police *621officer, and traveling with an individual of a different age and familial background, does not indicate that criminal activity is afoot. The government has failed to cite any authority, nor have I discovered any, to support the proposition that these factors were adequate to provide reasonable suspicion. The initial stop by Trooper Koltz in this case was proper. However, he should have completed the stop by issuing a citation for speeding and returning Molina’s driver’s license. After that point, Trooper Koltz needed a reasonable articu-lable suspicion to detain Molina and Rodriguez for additional investigation. The factors cited by Trooper Koltz as providing reasonable suspicion, however, do not differ from those that would be expected from law abiding travelers. By the time Trooper Koltz asked Molina about Rodriguez’s immigration status, the scope of the traffic stop had been impermissibly expanded and any information obtained af-terwards could not be used to justify further inquiry. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

. Trooper Koltz was entitled to conduct a reasonable investigation related to the traffic stop by asking Molina about the identity of his passenger, and questioning the passenger to verify the information provided by the driver. United States v. Edmisten, 208 F.3d 693, 694 (8th Cir.2000). In this case however, Trooper Koltz did not even bother to ask Molina about Rodriguez's identity. Instead he first asked Molina whether his passenger was "a legal alien”, and whether his passenger had "a green card.” United States v. Rodriguez-Arreola, No. CR 00-40071 (D.S.D. Nov. 21, 2000)(appendix A to Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation).

. Trooper Koltz stated that Molina appeared nervous and failed to make eye contact during the traffic stop, even after he was informed of the reason for the stop. This cannot be considered suspicious because during the traffic stop, Molina was confronted by a suspecting law enforcement officer who was accompanied by a large barking police dog. Although under certain circumstances nervousness may be considered suspicious, under the facts presented here, such nervousness was not unusual. See United States v. Beck, 140 F.3d 1129, 1139 (8th Cir.1998)("It certainly cannot be deemed unusual for a motorist to exhibit signs of nervousness when confronted by a law enforcement officer.”).