United States v. Orozco, No. 15-10385 (9th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of a motion to suppress evidence from a stop of a tractor-trailer driven by defendant. The panel held that it did not matter that a Nevada administrative scheme that allowed law enforcement officers to make stops of commercial vehicles and conduct limited inspections without reasonable suspicion was valid on its face, because the objective evidence established beyond doubt that this stop was a pretext for a stop to investigate information of suspected criminal activity short of that necessary to give rise to reasonable suspicion. The panel explained that the consent to search that was obtained after defendant had been detained for approximately an hour was the fruit of the unlawful stop. The evidence found pursuant to the consent search was also fruit of the unlawful stop.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel reversed the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress, vacated a conviction for two counts of drug possession arising from a stop of a tractor-trailer driven by the defendant, and remanded for further proceedings. Nevada Highway Patrol troopers made the stop in order to investigate criminal activity, even though they lacked the quantum of evidence necessary to justify the stop. The panel held that the stop was not justified under the administrative search doctrine, which permits stops and searches, initiated in furtherance of a valid administrative scheme, to be conducted in the absence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause. The panel held that an administrative scheme allowing Nevada law enforcement officers to make stops of commercial vehicles and conduct limited inspections without reasonable suspicion was valid on its face because its purpose was to ensure the safe operation of commercial vehicles. The objective evidence in this case, however, established beyond doubt that the stop of the defendant’s vehicle was a pretext for a stop to investigate information of suspected criminal activity short of that necessary to give rise to reasonable suspicion. The stop would not have been made in the absence of a tip that the defendant was possibly carrying narcotics. Accordingly, the stop was a pretextual stop that violated the Fourth Amendment. The panel emphasized that the presence UNITED STATES V. OROZCO 3 of a criminal investigatory motive, by itself, does not render an administrative stop pretextual, and nor does a dual motive—one valid and one impermissible. Rather, the defendant must show that the stop would not have occurred in the absence of an impermissible reason.
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