Court Opinion

ID: 9480544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:50:59.204697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:45.074898
License: Public Domain

BARRETT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I must respectfully dissent.
While I agree with the majority that the government has failed in this case to provide us with facts indicating the incidence of illegal alien and/or drug smuggling activity in the Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, area giving rise to Border Patrol officers’ suspicions of criminal activity based on experience, still it is my view that there is no reasonable basis for reversal of the district court’s order denying appellant’s motion to suppress evidence of the 220 pounds of marijuana confiscated from the rear section of appellant’s pickup vehicle.
Border Patrol Agent Goad testified that: he had twenty-three (23) years of experience; Highway 85 is commonly used to by-pass the Border Patrol checkpoint maintained on Interstate 25 near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; Highway 85 runs parallel to Interstate 25 near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; he observed appellant’s Chevrolet S-10 pickup with a camper shell traveling north at about 7:30 p.m. on Highway 85 and thereafter observed that the vehicle was “riding extremely heavy” in the rear; he had previously discovered undocumented aliens concealed in pickup trucks with camper shells.
I submit that an experienced Border Patrol officer such as Agent Goad would, *993under the facts and circumstances recited above, reasonably suspect criminal activity justifying the minimal intrusion of an investigatory stop. I agree with the district court’s finding that Agent Goad had a reasonable, articulable suspicion that appellant Monsisvais was involved in smuggling illegal aliens, and that this was sufficient to justify the minimal intrusion of a Terry (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)) stop. In United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989), the Supreme Court observed:
The concept of reasonable suspicion, like probable cause, is not ‘readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.’ In evaluating the validity of a stop such as this, we must consider the ‘totality of the circumstances — the whole picture.’ United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417 [101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621] (1981). As we said in Cortez:
The process does not deal with hard certainties. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as fact-finders are permitted to do the same — and so are law enforcement officers. Id. at 418 [101 S.Ct. at 695],
United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976) holds that the Border Patrol’s routine stopping of all vehicles at a permanent checkpoint located on a major highway away from the Mexican border for brief questioning of the vehicle’s occupants is consistent with the Fourth Amendment. The Court observed that:
Maintenance of a traffic-checking program in the interior is necessary because the flow of illegal aliens cannot be controlled effectively at the border.... Routine checkpoint inquiries apprehend many smugglers and illegal aliens who succumb to the lure of such highways .... A requirement that stops on major routes inland always be based on reasonable suspicion would be impractical because the flow of traffic tends to be too heavy to allow the particularized study of a given car that would enable it to be identified as a possible carrier of illegal aliens.
428 U.S. at 556-557, 96 S.Ct. at 3082.
Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 93 S.Ct. 2535, 37 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973) held that roving patrols maintained by the Border Patrol as supplements to the checkpoint system were not empowered to effect random stops and searches simply because a vehicle was in the general vicinity of the border. The Court did not specifically address the “stop” aspect of the case, but did hold that the subsequent search, conducted without consent or probable cause, was violative of the Fourth Amendment.
In the instant case, it is agreed that Agent Goad was operating a fixed Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 25 to check northbound traffic when the sensor alarms on adjacent Highway 85 were alerted, indicating that a vehicle was traveling northbound on Highway 85 at 7:30 p.m. Agent Goad looked over to Highway 85 and observed appellant’s vehicle traveling northbound. It was dark enough to require headlights. Agent Goad then drove in his Border Patrol vehicle, accompanied by another agent, to an area close by to intercept appellant’s vehicle. He then identified appellant’s vehicle as a pickup with a camper shell “riding extremely heavy” in the rear. He also noted that the pickup bore Arizona license plates.
Under these circumstances, it seems to me that the stop of appellant’s vehicle on Highway 85 was the functional equivalent of the fixed checkpoint stop on Interstate 25. If so, no articulable suspicion is required to effect the stop. In United States v. Pollack, 895 F.2d 686, 687 (10th Cir.1990), we referred to testimony of Border Patrol Agent Sanchez that “[Highway 85 is a well-documented alien smuggling route” and that many “alien smuggling loads” have been apprehended on that route. The district court specifically found that Highway 85 is a well-documented alien *994smuggling route. Id. at 688. This court adopted that finding. Id. at 690.
The United States Supreme Court has upheld roadblock stops and brief detentions for the purpose of verifying driver licenses and automobile registrations, Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979) and to detect and deter drunk driving. Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990). In Sitz, the majority pertinently observed:
No one can seriously dispute the magnitude of the drunken driving problem or the states’ interest in eradicating it.... Conversely, the weight bearing on the other scale — the measure of the intrusion on motorists stopped briefly at sobriety checkpoints — is slight. We reached a similar conclusion as to the intrusion on motorists subjected to a brief stop at a highway checkpoint for detecting illegal aliens. See Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 558 [96 S.Ct. at 3083].
— U.S. at -, 110 S.Ct. at 2485-86.
Immigration officers and United States Customs agents are charged with the duty of protecting the United States from the entry of illegal aliens and contraband. The magnitude of the problem of detection of illegal aliens and contraband at or near our borders is beyond dispute.
I would affirm.