Court Opinion

ID: 9488728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:54:19.342479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:04.489280
License: Public Domain

LUCERO, Circuit Judge,
with whom SEYMOUR, Chief Judge, and HENRY, Circuit Judge,
join, dissenting:
I join in the dissent of Chief Judge Seymour.
I take this opportunity to author these published remarks, my first since joining the court, to express my strong opposition to the rule which my colleagues in the majority announce today. I suggest an alternative approach.
The majority holds that in cases involving Fourth Amendment stops, federal trial courts may not inquire whether the initial traffic stop was a pretext. The pretext doctrine is expressly abandoned. Instead, the sole inquiry will be whether a traffic or equipment violation had occurred or there was a reasonable suspicion that one was occurring at the time of the stop. Further inquiry as to the reasonableness of the stop is deemed irrelevant. The message to law enforcement officers is clear: “You may stop motorists on a subterfuge; we don’t care and we won’t ask.”1
I do not question the depth of the frustration which drives my colleagues in the majority to abandon the reasonable officer standard; nor do I doubt their sincerity in articulating the alternative path which they select. Nevertheless, their action will not stand the test of time, and it does not pass constitutional scrutiny today.
*796The right of the people to be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion into their lives has always been an aspirational goal of a free society. In America, freedom is not an allegory, it is a right. The Framers enacted the Fourth Amendment to protect against two particular devices by which the British crown had perpetrated widespread infringement on individual liberty. These devices — general warrants and writs of assistance — gave government officials power to find and shut down “libelous printers” and search colonists’ homes for smuggled goods. See Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment, § 1.1(a) (2d. ed. 1987). They embodied “‘a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.’ ” Id. § 1.4(e), at 95 (citation omitted). The Fourth Amendment was framed in response to this unacceptable governmental intrusion.
The Amendment does not prevent all searches and seizures; it prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. It is intended to protect the innocent from unreasonable police conduct. We, the independent judiciary — as guardians of the Constitution — determine whether a seizure is reasonable. Reason is the conscience of the Fourth Amendment.
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) controls the judicial reasonableness inquiry. The language adopted by the Court today presents an express conflict with the language of Terry. What are the trial courts to do when faced with such an irreconcilable conflict?
I understand the desire of the majority to correct the perceived difficulties which require it to modify the Guzman standard, but that presents no basis for insulating the first step of Terry from any reasonableness inquiry whatsoever, save for asking whether an officer had a reasonable “articulable suspicion” that a traffic violation may be occurring. The policy arguments which are advanced in support of the majority’s action are not an acceptable substitute for the clear language of the Fourth Amendment or of Terry.
I do not understand why the majority appears to have more confidence in the police than in the trial courts to make a comprehensive reasonableness analysis. If it is the use of the term “reasonable officer” that genuinely troubles the majority, then we should clarify the Guzman standard rather than abandon it altogether. We could align Guzman even more closely with Terry by adopting the Terry standard almost verbatim.
Under such an approach, the appropriate inquiry would be: Under the totality of the circumstances of any given stop, “would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search “warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief that the action taken was appropriate?” Terry, 392 U.S. at 21-22, 88 S.Ct. at 1879-80 (emphasis added); see also United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S.Ct. 690, 694-95, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981) (“the totality of the circumstances — the whole picture must be taken into account”) (emphasis added).
I have every confidence in the ability of the trial courts to determine whether Fourth Amendment-related traffic stops are reasonable under a totality of the circumstances test. I do not agree that merely asking whether an officer could have made a stop is an objective standard for reasonableness; rather I see it as a warrant for arbitrary exercise of police power.
Using the Constitution as our navigational chart, our duty as a court is to steer an independent course, staying clear of any pressures of the day. Because I perceive that my colleagues in the majority are pushing the tiller and steering us far away from our historical mission, I respectfully dissent. The rights of the people of this country as assured in the Bill of Rights have been achieved and maintained at a high cost. I would not dilute those rights by judicial fiat.

. The consequence of such a message is also clear. An example of how innocent ordinary highway travellers have been stopped by profiling is described in Whitfield, v. Board of County Commissioners, 837 F.Supp. 338, 340, 344 (D.Colo.1993). Under today’s standard one driver — out of a string of hundreds of commuters hurrying home, each travelling three miles over the speed limit — could be stopped on the basis of constitutionally impermissible subjective motives. Inquiry about such subjective motives is branded irrelevant.