Court Opinion

ID: 9482438
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:50:20.00484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:59.628663
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM A. NORRIS, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
While I believe this to be a close case, I cannot agree with the majority that the agents had the requisite “reasonable suspicion” necessary to justify the stop. I therefore dissent.
I believe that the facts of this case are closer to those in Hemandez-Alvarado, where we held that the facts cited by the police described too many innocent persons to give rise to reasonable suspicion, than to those in Bugarin-Casas. Of the seven facts cited by the majority,1 facts one, two, three, four and seven, when taken together, paint a completely innocent picture: that of a Hispanic-looking individual driving a rental car in the middle of the day on a public road, and failing to acknowledge the presence of two Border Patrol agents sitting in their car on the side of the road.2
To this picture are then added facts five and six, appellant’s conduct as the officers followed him, and the response of his auto’s suspension to bumps and seams in the road, which suggested to the agents that the car was either heavily laden or had weak shock absorbers or a different suspension system.
These facts, while perhaps more probative of reasonable suspicion, do not tilt the balance of the entire picture sufficiently to distinguish this case from Hemandez-Al-varado or bring it under the holding of Bugarin-Casas. Indeed, in Hemandez-Alvarado the defendant acted quite similarly to the way appellant acted. See Hernandez-Alvarado, 891 F.2d at 1415 (when officer pulled alongside defendant’s vehicle, defendant looked at officers, then quickly turned attention back to road; all occupants of defendant’s vehicle “were sitting in a rigid and uptight manner”; as officers followed behind vehicle, defendant looked in rear view mirror several times).
As far as the car being heavily loaded is concerned, the government’s attempt to rely on Bugarin-Casas is misplaced. First, in Bugarin-Casas the officers noted that the car was actually riding low, a fact strongly suggesting a heavy load, while in our case one of the agents conceded that the reaction of appellant’s car to road conditions was explainable by means other than a heavy load. Perhaps even more importantly, the officers in Bugarin-Casas knew that the model car they were observing had an unusual floor compartment in which illegal aliens had been found in the past. Thus, the picture facing the officers in that case was one of an individual driving a car with a relatively unusual floor compartment, which was riding low despite the fact that only one person was visible in the car. The Bugarin-Casas picture is far different from that confronting the officers in this case: an individual driving a car *1059with no known unusual storage areas, not riding low.
In sum, I consider these facts insufficient to warrant reliance on Bugarin-Ca-sas’ holding that reasonable suspicion existed, especially given our opposite conclusion in Hemandez-Alvarado, whose facts are more analogous to those before us in this case.

. Courts must examine the totality of the picture facing the officers, and not base their conclusions on the probative value of the factors, considered individually. See, e.g., Hernandez, 891 F.2d at 1416. However, in constructing this picture it is useful to consider what the individual factors add to the whole picture.

. It is true that in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, the Supreme Court held that an individual's Latin appearance may be considered as one factor in justifying a stop. 422 U.S. 873, 887, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2583, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975). However, the factors considered up to this point, including appellant’s apparent ethnicity, do not present a picture of reasonable suspicion.