Court Opinion

ID: 9495947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:14:04.590841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:16.977471
License: Public Domain

FERGUSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Without ever announcing that it is doing so, the majority’s opinion effectively overrules a significant portion of our prior Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The majority finds that an essentially anonymous tip of allegedly “erratic driving,” “corroborated” only by an officer’s observation of arguably innocent and certainly non-criminal behavior, is suf*1124ficient to support a finding of reasonable suspicion. In coming to this conclusion, the majority systematically brushes aside our precedent and misstates the facts of this case. In particular, the majority (1) misconstrues our prior case law which requires that when a dispatch does not provide information about the factual underpinnings of a tip, the tip must be treated as anonymous; (2) allows a dispatcher to instruct an officer to stop anyone, at any time, without any stated basis, even if the dispatcher does not have a legally sufficient reason for asking her or him to do so; (3) implies that any state employee, regardless of training or expertise, may be accorded the same deference as law enforcement personnel provided she or he lives in a sparsely populated area; and (4) fails to abide by our prior case law which instructs that neither minor weaving within one’s lane nor sitting close to the steering wheel, either together or separately, constitute conduct that supports a finding of reasonable suspicion.
“The Fourth Amendment allows government officials to conduct an investigatory stop of a vehicle only upon a showing of reasonable suspicion: ‘a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.’” United States v. Thomas, 211 F.3d 1186, 1189(9th Cir.2000) (quoting United States v. Jimenez-Medina, 173 F.3d 752, 754 (9th Cir.1999)). Although reasonable suspicion is determined under the “totality of the circumstances,” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002), officers must still have an objectively reasonable basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing; “a mere ‘hunch’ is insufficient to justify a stop.” Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 274, 122 S.Ct. 744. “Courts will uphold an investigatory stop based on a tip or other secondary information only when the information possesses sufficient indicia of reliability that are independently corroborated by the police.” Thomas, 211 F.3d at 1189. In the instant case, none of these requirements are met and, as a result, the stop in the instant case must be held to be unconstitutional.
I. Factual Background
I begin with a brief recitation of the facts that are relevant to our determination of this matter. On the afternoon of September 18, 2000, two Montana Department of Transportation (“MDOT”) employees, Harvey and Omland, called in a report of “erratic driving” to their main office in Miles City. The Miles City office then relayed the report to the Montana Highway Patrol dispatcher (“MHP Dispatch”). The exact specifics of what Harvey and Omland reported to their headquarters is not recorded and was never transmitted to the Montana Highway Patrol.1 What is re*1125corded is the transmission from the Miles City MDOT to MHP Dispatch, and MHP Dispatch’s subsequent call to Officer Schock. As the majority acknowledges, Maj. Op. at 1116, based on these calls, all that Officer Schock knew at the time that he made the stop was that MDOT had called in a report to his dispatch of an “erratically” driven black Monte Carlo with North Dakota plates, traveling eastward on a particular stretch of highway.
II. The Majority’s Holding Directly Conflicts with our Decisions in United States v. Morales and United States v. Thomas
The majority begins from the flawed assumption that the “tip” had such indi-cia of reliability that only minimum, if any, corroboration was required in order to allow Officer Schock to find reasonable suspicion. However, under our prior precedent, the “tip” must be treated as anonymous and cannot form even a partial basis for finding reasonable suspicion in the instant case.
In United States v. Thomas, we held that a tip from the FBI was not sufficiently rehable to serve as even a partial basis for reasonable suspicion when the information was “devoid of specifics” relating to criminal conduct and was “entirely conjectural and conclusory.” Thomas, 211 F.3d at 1189-90. In United States v. Morales, we articulated the test succinctly: if a dispatch does not contain information about the tip’s source, “the tip should be treated as anonymous.” 252 F.3d 1070, 1074 (9th Cir.2001) (holding that tip provided to an officer by another police department via an “Attempt to Locate” dispatch, that did not include information about the tip’s source, is treated as anonymous). The majority’s attempt to distinguish the tip in this case from those we determined to be anonymous in United States v. Morales and United States v. Thomas is entirely unpersuasive.
The facts surrounding the tip in the instant case are virtually indistinguishable from those at play in Thomas. At the suppression hearing, Schock testified that he knew nothing about the reliability of the person who made the report and that, for all he knew at the time of the stop, the tip could have come from an anonymous caller to the MDOT. More importantly, Schock admitted he lacked any information about the basis of the informant’s assessment of the car’s driving. Schock testified that the dispatch contained no details about the car’s driving other than it being “erratic” and no allegation that it had violated any traffic laws. Schock was not informed that Harvey had witnessed the vehicle straddle the center lane or cross the fog lane, nor was he informed that Harvey had made his observations contemporaneously with his report. Schock’s position is thus indistinguishable from that of the officers in Thomas, who knew that the FBI had provided the tip, but who knew none of the facts upon which the tip was based.2 As a result, the tip in the instant case must be treated as anonymous.
The majority cites United States v. Hensley, United States v. Robinson, and Easyriders Freedom F.I.G.H.T. v. Hannigan for the proposition that “the dispatcher’s knowledge is properly considered as part of our analysis.” Maj. Op. at 1118. This is beside the point. Of course trained and experienced officers are entitled to *1126rely on one another’s inferences to establish reasonable suspicion.3 However, the majority’s reasoning creates a broad proposition that dispatchers no longer have to communicate the basis for the information they are conveying or even base their own dispatches on reasonable suspicion. Nothing in the holdings of any of these cases provide support for such a proposition. While Hensley and Robinson permit an officer to rely on a dispatcher’s instructions, this is so only if “the dispatcher himself had[ ] founded suspicion, or ... information from a reliable informant who supplied him with adequate facts to establish founded suspicion.” Robinson, 536 F.2d 1298, 1300 (9th Cir.1976). In the instant case, the dispatcher had only a bare allegation of erratic driving, not “ar-ticulable facts supporting! ] reasonable suspicion that the wanted person has committed an offense.” Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 232, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985).
The majority’s reasoning would allow dispatcher to instruct an officer to pick up anyone, at any time, without any stated basis, even if the dispatcher does not have a legally sufficient reason for asking her to do so. This is exactly the kind of behavior which the Fourth Amendment was created to guard against and exactly the behavior to which Morales and Thomas respond by imposing a more stringent requirement. Thomas and Morales instruct that the basis for law enforcement inferences must be explicitly communicated, regardless of whether one lives in a small town or a huge metropolis, and regardless of whether a police officer has previously worked with the agency providing the tip. There is no doubt that police officers frequently work closely with the FBI, the cooperative agency in Thomas, yet the presence of this kind of relationship does not and must not eliminate the requirement that an officer have an objective, factual basis to support a finding of reasonable suspicion.4
The majority attempts to bolster its argument by relying on Florida v. J.L. for the proposition that because Officer Schock lived in a small town and could easily locate the party who called in the tip, it need not be treated as anonymous. Maj. Op. at 1118-1119. First, the majority’s suggestion that the Fourth Amendment protections are lessened for those who live in or travel through sparsely populated areas is completely untenable. “The search and seizure protections of the Fourth Amendment [do not vary from place to place and from time to time.]” Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 815, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). Second, nothing in the J.L. decision suggests such a broad exception to its general holding that an “anonymous call ... [that] providefs] no predictive information and therefore [leaves] the police without means to test the informant’s knowledge or credibility” does not provide the “moderate in-dicia of reliability” required for reasonable suspicion. Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000). The point is not whether the police can potentially find the informant and interrogate him to determine if he is telling the truth, the point is that officers must have sufficiently specific information, relating to criminal conduct, that they can use to independently corroborate the tip. *1127The fact that an informant’s identity is eventually ascertained is completely irrelevant. It is established beyond question that the focus of a fourth amendment intrusion analysis is “whether the officer’s action was justified at its inception.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (emphasis added). The majority’s position would allow law enforcement to evade this requirement by “cleaning up” unconstitutional searches and seizures through subsequent investigation.
We have previously held that in order for an anonymous tip to serve as the basis for reasonable suspicion, it: “must include ‘a range of details’ ... [that] cannot simply describe easily observed facts and conditions, but must [provide predictive information that is] ... corroborated by independent police observations.” Morales, 252 F.3d at 1076. In addition, reasonable suspicion requires that a tip be “reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person.” J.L., 529 U.S. at 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375.
In the instant case, none of the details provided in the tip provided grounds for believing that illegal conduct had occurred. Nor did they provide sufficient predictive information from which Officer Schock could have tested the tip’s reliability. See id. The only possible “assertion of illegality” contained in the MDOT tip was the allegation of “erratic driving.” As a threshold matter, such a vague and totally unspecific allegation of “erratic driving” cannot legitimately be equated with an allegation of criminal activity.5 More importantly, because it lacked any detail, the allegation of “erratic driving” in the instant case was too subjective and too vague to provide any type of meaningful predictive information. See id. What remains is the identifying information relied on by Schock in locating the car, information whose only value was its “tendency to identify a determinate person.”
The majority appears to give the tip unwarranted credence because it came from a government agency (regardless of the fact that Officer Schock did not, in fact, know that it came from an employee of the agency). However, we have held that “an officer cannot simply defer to [another] agency’s suspicion without establishing the articulable facts on which that suspicion was based.” Thomas, 211 F.3d at 1189; see also Morales, 252 F.3d at 1076 n. 5. In the instant case, such unquestioning reliance on the tip is particularly troubling because MDOT is not a law enforcement agency, nor do its employees have the “experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that ‘might well elude an untrained person.’ ” Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744(quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981)). Harvey testified only that he had experience and training resurfacing roads and clearing debris, not identifying inebriated drivers.6 The fact that *1128Officer Schock “worked closely” with MDOT does not render this presumption of reliability permissible. No doubt police officers work closely with many state agencies, in many contexts, but this, in and of itself, simply does not give those agencies carte blanche to direct the activities of law enforcement, nor does it give police officers permission to stop people without independently establishing the facts necessary to support reasonable suspicion.
III. Officer Schock’s Observations Neither Corroborated the Tip Nor Provided Independent Reasonable Suspicion for the Stop
Even if the tip in the instant case can form a partial basis for Officer Schock’s reasonable suspicion — and under our prior caselaw it does not — Schock was required to independently corroborate the facts upon which the tip was based. Officer Schock’s own observations, however, neither corroborated the MDOT tip nor provided an independent basis for reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle, as our recent cases make clear.
The majority concludes that Officer Schock “corroborated” the tip by matching the license plate state, model and color of the car, its direction of travel on the interstate, and, allegedly, its “erratic driving.” Maj. Op. at 1120. Even if Officer Schock correctly confirmed the presence of a particular black Monte Carlo on a highway in Montana, however, this does not give rise to reasonable suspicion. At the risk of being repetitive, reasonable suspicion requires that a tip be “reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person.” J.L., 529 U.S. at 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375. Officer Schock was required to corroborate the allegation of “erratic driving,” the only information that potentially indicated the possibility of illegal activity. However, because minor movement within one’s own lane of traffic and sitting close to the steering wheel are simply not activities that, on their own, indicate criminal activity, it is simply untenable to suggest that they “corroborated” the erratic driving allegation.
Almost precisely this issue was addressed in our recent opinion in United States v. Colin, in which we held unconstitutional a stop performed under almost identical circumstances. 314 F.3d 439, 446 (9th Cir.2002). In Colin, the officer observed the vehicle for 35-45 seconds, during which time the vehicle:
drove within the speed limit and properly activated his turn signals before making lane changes. [The officer] thought [the driver] was ‘possibly” driving under the influence because the car’s wheels touched the fog line on the right side of the right lane for 10 seconds and then, about 5-10 second later, touched the yellow line of the far left of the left lane for another 10 seconds.7
314 F.3d at 445. In coming to the conclusion that such conduct was not sufficient to constitute “pronounced weaving” or to justify a stop, the Colin court approvingly quoted the 10th Circuit, which noted that “if the failure to follow a perfect vector down the highway or keep one’s eyes on the road were sufficient reasons to suspect a person of driving while impaired, a substantial portion of the public would be subject each day to an invasion of their privacy.” United States v. Lyons, 7 F.3d 973, 976 (10th Cir.1993), as quoted in 314 F.3d at 446.
*1129In the instant case, Officer Schock followed the car for less than three minutes, during which time he observed the vehicle “drifting within the lane, whereas it goes from the fog line to the center line and back.” He did not witness the vehicle violate any traffic laws and, contrary to the officers in Colin, specifically testified at trial that he believed the behavior he personally observed did not warrant issuing a citation. Under Colin, these observations do not provide a basis for reasonable suspicion.
Our precedent prior to Colin is clear that common, non-illegal motorist behavior does not give rise to reasonable suspicion.8
[BJecause most people are not such paragons of driving skill and virtue that they consistently adhere to each one of the complex laws relating to the operation of motor vehicles, there are many opportunities to stop targeted vehicles ... But those opportunities are not limitless. Suspicions must be reasonable, and they cannot be if they are not sufficient to cause an officer to believe that the driver has done something illegal.
United States v. Mariscal, 285 F.3d 1127, 1130(9th Cir.2002) (holding that officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop vehicle that was under surveillance on the basis of its making a right turn without signaling). This circuit has repeatedly held that movement within ones own lane or other relatively benign driving activity is not a sufficient ground on which to base reasonable suspicion, even when coupled with other suspicious circumstances. See United States v. Jimenez-Medina, 173 F.3d 752, 755 (9th Cir.1999) (“The law of this circuit teaches that the presence of such facts as driver preoccupation, slow speed, movement within one’s own lane of traffic, and even coming from the wrong neighborhood’ do not give rise to legally sufficient ‘reasonable suspicion.’ ”); United States v. Rodriguez, 976 F.2d 592, 595-96(9th Cir. 1992) (observation of preoccupied driver in particular type of vehicle, swerving within his lane of traffic, on highway with reputation for alien smuggling, did not support reasonable suspicion); United States v. Hernandez-Alvarado, 891 F.2d 1414, 1418 (9th Cir.1989) (large reduction in speed of vehicle, driver’s “nervous demeanor,” license plate brackets from a dealership associated with drug trafficking, and driver’s residence in neighborhood under investigation for narcotics activity, did not support a finding of reasonable suspicion); see also State v. Lafferty, 291 Mont. 157, 160, 967 P.2d 363 (1998) (dispatcher’s report and officer’s observation of defendant crossing the fog line were insufficient for particularized suspicion that defendant was driving under the influence). Our previous cases recognize that even considered altogether, as the totality of circumstances test requires, certain conduct is simply not sufficient to justify a traffic stop.
Sitting close to the steering wheel and swerving once within one’s lane of traffic are not actions, either together or separately, or even in conjunction with a vague and unsubstantiated tip, that give rise to reasonable suspicion. Both activities, even in conjunction, are at least as likely to be subject to innocent explanations (for example, the driver could be inexperienced, short, new to the particular road upon which she or he is traveling, or all three) as they are to indicate criminal activity. In fact, Officer Schock testified that the highway surface contained both perpendicular dips as well as ruts caused by heavy truck traffic, both of which are factors that may have caused weaving.9 Officer *1130Schock also stated that it would not be unreasonable for a person to make a minor swerve within her lane upon witnessing a police car approaching her from behind at speeds well over the legal limit. While conduct that is not necessarily indicative of criminal activity may, in certain circumstances, still be a consideration in the reasonable suspicion calculus, innocuous conduct alone does not justify an investigatory stop unless the presence of additional information or circumstances tend to indicate criminal activity has occurred or is about to take place. United States v. Montero-Camargo, 208 F.3d 1122, 1130 (9th Cir.2000) (en banc). No such additional information or circumstances were present in the instant case.
The majority asserts that because Officer Schock is an experienced officer, it was reasonable for him to associate sitting close to the steering wheel with intoxicated driving. Maj. Op. at 1120. Exactly this argument was rejected in Colin however. Colin, 314 F.3d at 445 n. 4. While “officers are encouraged to draw upon their ... experience in assessing the ‘totality of the circumstances,’ ” Colin, 314 F.3d at 442, the deference we accord to officer experience is not “unbridled.” Hernandez-Alvarado, 891 F.2d at 1416. “[The facts supporting reasonable suspicion] must ... be more than the mere subjective impressions of a particular officer. Permissible deductions or rational inferences must be grounded in objective facts and be capable of rational explanation.” Id. In the instant case, Officer Schock’s opinion that sitting near to the steering wheel is a sign of intoxication was entirely unsupported by objective fact. Moreover, the fact that Officer Schock did not conduct a sobriety field test or ask Fernandez-Castillo if he had been drinking or using drugs is indicative that Schock did not actually harbor reasonable suspicion that Fernandez-Castillo was impaired. Colin, 314 F.3d at 446.
In short, both the tip and the officer’s observations, viewing them from Officer Schock’s perspective at the time he made the stop, are objectively devoid of any evidence of criminality. “A hunch ... may trigger an investigation that uncovers facts that establish reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or even grounds for a conviction. A hunch, however, is not a substitute for the necessary specific, articulable facts required to justify a Fourth Amendment intrusion.” Thomas, 211 F.3d at 1186; see also Montero-Camargo, 208 F.3d at 1129. The majority is essentially allowing a hunch based on a vague, anonymous, and uncorroborated allegation of erratic driving to support reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop. I therefore dissent.

. Because the information was never communicated to Officer Schock, the majority’s discussion of what Harvey and Omland witnessed is irrelevant. See Maj. Op. at 1115. Even if it was relevant, however, the majority misrepresents what occurred. The majority fails to mention that, as Harvey and Omland’s truck was pulling onto the highway, two other cars passed in the "driving” or right-hand lane. As a result, Fernandez-Castillo's car was not signaling for a mysterious, unknown reason, but apparently because he had been preparing to pass the two cars. The majority makes much of the fact that, despite his signaling, Fernandez did not enter the left-hand or "passing” lane, instead straddling the driving and passing lanes for less than a minute. Maj. Op. at 1115. As Harvey admitted at the suppression hearing, however, this was not necessarily improper, given that the MDOT vehicle was about to enter into the left-hand lane at a slow speed. A responsible driver would have waited to see what the truck would do. Harvey also admitted the Fernandez’s behavior in passing the two cars was proper, as he waited until he passed the MDOT truck before signaling, then merged into the passing lane, passed the cars, then signaled again before returning to the driving lane. The only clearly incorrect thing Fer*1125nandez did was to allow the left side of his car to cross over the fog line, once, on the far-left of the highway after he merged into the passing lane.

. Indeed, unlike in the instant case, the officers in Thomas actually had a clear allegation of criminal activity, as they had been told that there was "a suspicion that there was a possibility that there might be some narcotics” in the house. Thomas, 211 F.3d at 1189.

. See, e.g., Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 568, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306 (1971) (officers called upon to execute a search warrant entitled to assume that probable cause has been established but "an otherwise illegal arrest cannot be insulated from challenge by the decision of the instigating officer to rely on fellow officers to make the arrest.”).

. In an era in which law enforcement and other government agencies are being actively encouraged to work cooperatively with one another in all aspects of civic life, the sweeping ramifications of the majority’s reasoning in this respect should be apparent.

. There is no question that this panel would hold unconstitutional a statute that prohibited simply "erratic driving," irrespective of the public safety interests that it sought to advance. Such a prohibition would be void for vagueness because it would not give fair notice to drivers as to the conduct prohibited. See Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 350-51, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964). I fail to see how the majority's position differs from such a law.

. Harvey's lack of training and expertise is evident from the persistent inconsistencies in his testimony. For example, in his initial signed report he wrote that he saw "a young looking Hispanic male ... [with] some sort of white looking package in his left hand ... staring straight ahead ... like he was in a trance. He had several earrings and his hair was very shiny and combed straight back. Also, he didn’t sit very high in the car.” However, when asked at the suppression hearing what he was able to see of the person *1128driving he stated that he "just made a quick glance out through the window” and that "the only thing [he] noticed was that [he] got the impression the person was not very tall.”

. The officer's testimony in Colin as to why he thought this driving was a sign of impairment is almost identical to that of Officer Schock’s. See 314 F.3d at 445 n. 4.

. Contrary to the majority's suggestion, Maj. Op. at 1121, nothing in these cases limits their application to cases involving smuggling.

. While Officer Schock testified that he himself did not notice any weaving of his car because of the ruts, this does not necessarily mean that another driver with a lighter car or *1130less familiarity with the roadway would not have been affected by these conditions.