Court Opinion

ID: 9472124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:50:13.008281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:45.449728
License: Public Domain

FLETCHER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
I concur in the majority opinion upholding the convictions of Hillison and Jacobson, but I respectfully dissent from section II B, which upholds the conviction of Mansfield. The majority finds probable cause to arrest Mansfield based simply on his association with Jacobson and Hillison and little else. The agents saw Mansfield with Hillison and Jacobson in Mansfield’s car and around the motel where they all were staying. They also had some information Mansfield had rented a car in a different name from the name he used to rent his motel room. This was the sum of the arresting officers’ knowledge about Mansfield when they stopped him in the McDonald’s parking lot. On the basis of this information, they held him for five hours awaiting a warrant to search the trunk of his car.
The majority acknowledges, as it must, that “a person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause.” Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 91, 100 S.Ct. 338, 342, 62 L.Ed.2d 238 (1979); see also United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 593, 68 S.Ct. 222, 228, 92 L.Ed. 210 (1948). In United States v. Vaughan, 718 F.2d 332 (9th Cir.1983), “the only suspicion the agents had of Vaughan’s criminal activity was his presence in the car with Otero and Lahodny.” 718 F.2d at 335 n. 7. We held this “insufficient under Ybarra ” to constitute probable cause for a full scale search. Id.
The majority, struggles to elevate the significance of Mansfield’s possible use of a false name to justify the five hour detention and subsequent search. But the use of two names is not illegal and the agents could articulate no common sense basis for believing that Mansfield was breaking any specific law. On the contrary, Mansfield’s conduct was perfectly consistent with the common situation where friends or acquaintances, traveling in the same part of the country, arrange to meet in order to enjoy each other’s company. The agents had reason to believe that Hillison and Jacobson possessed drugs, but they had no knowledge of facts that Mansfield had other than ordinary social purposes in mind. Even if I were to agree with the majority that Mansfield was likely to become aware of Hillison’s and Jacobson’s possession of drugs, during the course of their visiting together at the motel, there was no evidence whatsoever that Mansfield was, himself, involved in the criminal activity of the others.
The majority suggests that an important consideration is whether the nature of the criminal activity is such that it could not normally be carried on without the knowl*699edge of persons present. I agree. Here, the crimes committed by Hillison and Jacobson were possession of and conspiracy to possess narcotics. A visitor to their hotel room would not know that these crimes were being committed unless informed by one of the occupants. And, even if he knew, he need not be involved in the crime.
Other factors that courts have identified as sufficient, when added to association with criminals, to provide probable cause to arrest or search are not present here. The agents did not know the content of conversations among Mansfield and the others, and they saw nothing pass among them. See Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 62, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 1902, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968). The agents had not previously observed drug transactions between Hillison, Jacobson and others at the motel. See Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 35, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1630, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963). At no time was Mansfield observed to be within plain view of contraband. See United States v. Vilhotti, 323 F.Supp. 425, 432 (S.D.N.Y. 1971). Under the circumstances of this case, we cannot say that Mansfield was “inextricably enmeshed” with the others in a drug-related venture. See United States v. Baker, 567 F.2d 924, 926 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 818, 99 S.Ct. 80, 58 L.Ed.2d 109 (1978).
The majority opinion is at odds with United States v. Chamberlin, 609 F.2d 1318 (9th Cir.1979), where we invalidated a 20 minute detention of the defendant by a police officer who had more cause to suspect the defendant than did the officers in this case. In Chamberlin, an officer observed two individuals with known criminal records late at night in a bad area of San Diego. They quickened their pace when the officer drove by and when he returned they fled. The officer caught one and held him while searching for the other. We held a Terry stop justified but no more, relying on Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), as did the Ybarra court. See Vaughan, 718 F.2d at 335. The officers’ conduct here is much like that of the officers in United States v. Beck, 598 F.2d 497 (9th Cir.1979), in which our court held illegal the arrest of Beck and others suspected of drug activity. We observed, “that the stop and detention [of the individuals on the way to the airport after four days surveillance that gave rise to suspicions but no more] was a pretext or subterfuge to enable the officers to conduct a warrantless search ____ The stop ... did not occur under the usual exigent circumstances ... it was simply the last chance the officers had.” Id. at 502.
I would hold that Mansfield’s five hour detention following an investigatory stop was an unlawful arrest requiring suppression of the evidence seized in the subsequent search of the automobile.
Mansfield’s conviction should be reversed.