USA v. Jonathan Eymann, No. 19-2090 (7th Cir. 2020)
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In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff Appellee, v. JONATHAN EYMANN and GARY LYONS, Defendants Appellants. ____________________ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 3:15 cr 30021 — Sue E. Myerscough, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED JANUARY 22, 2020 — DECIDED JUNE 12, 2020 ____________________ Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and SYKES and HAMILTON, Cir cuit Judges. WOOD, Chief Judge. Jonathan Eymann and his uncle, Gary Lyons, were flying from California to Pennsylvania when they stopped around midnight at a small public airport in Litch field, Illinois. Suspecting drug tra cking, law enforcement o cers followed the pair to a nearby hotel and confronted them in the hotel’s parking lot. The encounter ended in their 2 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 arrests and the discovery of 65 pounds of marijuana in their airplane. Asserting that the o cers had violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in a number of ways, Eymann and Lyons filed a joint motion to suppress the evidence against them. Af ter the district court denied the motion, Eymann conditionally pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana, reserv ing the right to appeal the district court’s ruling on their sup pression motion. Lyons proceeded to trial, where a jury con victed him of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and aiding and abetting the possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute. Both men now appeal the district court’s denial of their motion to suppress. Finding no reason to set aside either the district court’s factual findings or its ultimate conclusion, we a rm. I On July 20, 2013, Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) Special Agent Glen Harrington received a call and an email from Agent Je Spencer of DHS’s Air and Marine Operations Center (“AMOC”) about an airplane that would be landing that night at the Litchfield Municipal Airport. Spencer identified the plane as a single engine Cessna owned by Elaine Pate and noted that the pilot would be Pate’s hus band, Lyons. AMOC had been monitoring the Cessna for months. Although it knew nothing inculpatory about the spe cific plane, owner, and pilot, AMOC found the airplane’s movement patterns and quick turn trips suspicious. Spencer’s email, which included information collected by AMOC research specialist Robert Keller, identified the air plane by its tail number. The email also indicated that on the Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 3 weekend of May 24, 2013, an unknown pilot flew the airplane from California to Pennsylvania. The plane stayed in Pennsyl vania for only about fifteen hours before returning to Califor nia. Then, on the weekend of June 21, 2013, it again flew from California to Pennsylvania and back; this time it remained in Pennsylvania for only five hours. AMOC identified Lyons as the pilot during the second trip. The email noted additional circumstances that Keller found suspicious. In January 2013, the Cessna flew to Wat sonville and Cloverdale, California, towns close to a known marijuana smuggling hub. During the May and June 2013 trips, the plane had landed at small, rural airports late at night to refuel when the airports were otherwise closed. Keller also found it odd that the plane apparently had flown through a serious storm during one of its cross country trips. Finally, he reported that Lyons had been in some economic trouble and had just emerged from bankruptcy in 2012. After evaluating AMOC’s information, Harrington con cluded that the pilot might be using the plane to smuggle drugs. This was consistent with his experience: every time in the past when Harrington had pursued a lead based on infor mation provided by AMOC, it led to the seizure of illicit drugs. Harrington relayed Spencer’s tip to his supervisor, Resident Agent in Charge Michael Mitchell. Harrington then called Lieutenant Lee Jarman of the Litchfield Police Depart ment to coordinate assistance. Harrington and Jarman ar ranged to have a trained drug detection dog available for use that night. They believed that the Cessna would land, refuel, and take o again, and Harrington wanted to get a sni of the plane while it was on the ground. Jarman contacted the 4 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 department’s dog handler, O cer Shane Grammer, and in structed him to be available. Harrington arrived in Litchfield at around 11:00 p.m. to meet with his team at the police department. After a short briefing, five of them (Mitchell, Harrington, Jarman, former Chief B.J. Wilkinson, and O cer Thomas Melchert) headed to the airport. The o cers watched the area for about an hour; during which no airplane landed, there were no vehicles en tering or leaving the airport, and the lights were o inside the airport’s main building. Lyons landed the Cessna at around 12:05 a.m. on July 21, 2013. It taxied behind the airport’s main building and then parked in an open area. It did not enter a hangar and was not tethered to the ground. Harrington watched as Eymann and Lyons removed cargo from the airplane and entered the building. After a few minutes, the pair left the building and loaded cargo into the airport’s courtesy car. (Harrington tes tified that he thought their cargo included a box, which he found suspicious, but no box was found in the later search. We thus disregard the alleged box.) The courtesy car operates on an honor system. Users simply provide a driver’s license number and a signature on a form next to the car keys in the airport building’s lobby. Lyons signed out the keys, and the duo left the airport in the courtesy car at around 12:27 a.m. As the two men drove o , Harrington was concerned that they could be delivering contraband. He saw that possibility as a “more immediate threat” than the parked airplane at the airport. The o cers therefore decided to follow the courtesy car. After a short drive, they saw it pull into a Quality Inn parking lot. Lyons, who was driving, parked in the last Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 5 available space. The two then got out of the car and began walking to the hotel; as they did so, they noticed the o cers. Mitchell pulled into the lot as Lyons and Eymann were parking. He positioned his truck behind the courtesy car, and Harrington parked nearby. Wilkinson placed his vehicle in front of the courtesy car, thereby e ectively blocking the cour tesy car from moving in any direction. At 12:32 a.m. Mitchell activated his lights and got out of his truck. Mitchell walked over to Lyons, showed his credentials, identified himself as a law enforcement o cer, and asked to speak with him. Lyons cooperated while Mitchell asked him basic questions such as where he was traveling to and from and the nature of his trip. Lyons replied that he was flying from California to Pennsylvania for work. The exchange was conversational, and Mitchell did not raise his voice. While Mitchell was speaking with Lyons, Harrington ap proached and asked for Lyons’s identification. After receiving it, he approached Eymann with the same request. Harrington took both identification cards back to his vehicle to check for outstanding warrants. Meanwhile, as Mitchell continued to speak with Lyons, Lyons suddenly became flush and fainted, collapsing into Mitchell. The o cers placed him in the front passenger seat of Wilkinson’s vehicle with the door open and the air condi tioning on. They did not question him any further at that point about anything other than his medical condition. While others saw to Lyons, Harrington discovered that neither man had an active warrant. Harrington then ap proached Eymann and asked him some questions about Ly ons’s health. He also asked Eymann if he had brought any 6 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 marijuana from California. Eymann admitted that he had a small, personal use, amount of marijuana in the car. Eymann’s admission prompted an escalation in the en counter. Jarman ordered Grammer and his drug dog Arie to the scene at 12:33 a.m.; they arrived around 12:54 a.m. Gram mer and Arie got to work right away, and shortly thereafter Arie positively alerted at the front passenger door seam. Grammer rewarded Arie with a towel to chew on, while the o cers opened the car, removed the items, and spaced them out on the ground. (There was some dispute in the district court about the sequence of events: did Arie’s alert come first and then the search of the car, or vice versa? Eymann and Ly ons have not pursued this on appeal, and so we do not need to resolve the point.) Arie alerted on a piece of luggage, which the o cers then searched. Once again, Arie was rewarded. The o cers found a small amount of marijuana (about 2.5 grams) within the luggage. Around the time Arie was sni ng around the courtesy car, Harrington frisked Lyons. During the frisk, Harrington felt what he thought was a stack of money in Lyons’s front cargo pocket. Harrington asked Lyons what was in his pocket, and Lyons replied that he had $1,600 in an envelope for fuel and expenses; the envelope actually contained $2,600. Arie later sni ed the envelope and alerted. After the o cers found the marijuana, they handcu ed and arrested both Eymann and Lyons. They then transported the pair back to the airport, which they entered through the airport gate with the permission and assistance of airport agents. The Cessna was still the only airplane on the tarmac, and the airport still looked empty. Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 7 Grammer walked Arie around the Cessna for another sni , and Arie provided another positive alert, followed as be fore by a reward. The o cers opened the plane using a key they had seized from Lyons, and they immediately smelled marijuana. This time the quantity was considerable. The o c ers placed several bags from inside the plane on the tarmac and had Arie check each one. He alerted on three of them and (following a now familiar pattern) received a reward. The of ficers searched the bags and found a total of 65 pounds (roughly 29.5 kilograms) of marijuana. In a later search of the airplane, they also found a firearm. In July 2013, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney charged Eymann and Lyons with possession of over 500 grams of marijuana. They filed a motion to suppress evidence, arguing that Arie was not properly certified through the State of Illinois at the time of the sni s. Although Arie had com pleted the necessary training to be certified by the state, his certification had lapsed weeks before as a result of an admin istrative error. After a hearing, the state court determined that, because of Arie’s lapse in certification, Arie’s alerts did not provide probable cause. It granted the defendants’ mo tion, and the state later dismissed the charges. That proved to be just the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end, of Eymann and Lyons’s troubles. On May 6, 2015, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging both of them with conspiracy to distribute mariju ana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(D), and aiding and abetting the possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(D), and 18 U.S.C. § 2. Lyons was also charged with 8 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug tra cking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). In October 2015, Lyons and Eymann filed a joint motion to suppress evidence and a supporting memorandum; they al leged multiple constitutional violations during their encoun ter with law enforcement. The district court held a hearing on the motion and, in October 2016, denied it. Two years later, Eymann entered a conditional plea of guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana, reserving the right to appeal the district court’s suppression decision. Lyons proceeded to trial, and a jury convicted him of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and aiding and abetting the possession of marijuana with the in tent to distribute; it acquitted him of the gun charge. The dis trict court sentenced Eymann to 10 months’ imprisonment and Lyons to concurrent sentences of 27 months on each count. II We review a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress under a dual standard of review: we apply the clear error standard to its factual determinations, with special deference to its credibility determinations, United States v. Villalpando, 588 F.3d 1124, 1127 (7th Cir. 2009); but we take a de novo ap proach to its conclusions of law. Id. A Eymann and Lyons first contend that all the evidence the police collected must be suppressed because it all flowed from the encounter in the Quality Inn parking lot, and that encoun ter was, at a minimum, an impermissible Terry stop that was not supported by reasonable suspicion. They also argue that Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 9 even if the o cers had reasonable suspicion to do something, their actions exceeded the scope of a Terry stop. The Fourth Amendment protects persons from “unreason able searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Generally, seizures are “reasonable” only when they are based on prob able cause. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 213 (1979). The Supreme Court recognized an exception to the probable cause rule in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Under Terry, po lice o cers may briefly detain a person for investigatory pur poses based on the less exacting standard of reasonable sus picion that criminal activity is afoot. 392 U.S. at 21–22. Terry does not, however, lift all restrictions on police ac tion. Reasonable suspicion exists only when an o cer can point to “specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Id. at 21. In making reasonable suspicion de terminations, we “look at the ‘totality of the circumstances’ of each case to see whether the detaining o cer has a ‘particu larized and objective basis’ for suspecting legal wrongdoing.” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002). Reasonable suspicion requires more than an “inchoate and unparticular ized suspicion or ‘hunch’” but “considerably less than pre ponderance of the evidence.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123–24 (2000). Ultimately, the determination of reasonable suspicion “must be based on commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior.” Id. at 125. Eymann and Lyons argue that the o cers had nothing more than a hunch when they stopped the two men in the ho tel parking lot, but the record demonstrates otherwise. First, the o cers on the scene were aware of the suspicious details of the plane’s and pilot’s flight history. Based on AMOC’s tip, 10 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 the o cers knew that at least twice, the plane had flown from California to Pennsylvania and back and remained on the ground for only a matter of hours before returning. O cers also knew that Lyons was the pilot on at least one trip. Such quick turn flights, although not necessarily illegal, may con tribute to reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct. See, e.g., United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 9 (1989) (flying 20 hours from Hawaii to Florida and staying only 48 hours in Florida contributed to reasonable suspicion); United States v. Simpson, 609 F.3d 1140, 1151–52 (10th Cir. 2010) (driving from Ne braska to spend only one night in Reno contributed to a find ing of reasonable suspicion); United States v. Ehlebracht, 693 F.2d 333, 337 (5th Cir. 1982) (four hour and 30 minute stop before returning after a long trip was suspicious). In addition, during these quick turn flights, the plane of ten landed at small, rural airports to refuel at hours when the airports and airport buildings were e ectively closed. Alt hough such travel patterns are not illegal, they may contribute to reasonable suspicion, given that they could assist in shield ing criminal conduct from detection. United States v. Michel, 588 F.2d 986, 998 (5th Cir. 1979) (finding reasonable suspicion in part because “small country airports [a]re often used by marijuana smugglers to fly loads in after the airfields closed”). This factor may cut both ways, however, because a pilot who lands at a closed airport apparently must use a credit or debit card to refuel from a self service gas pump. This leaves a pa per trial that could be avoided by refueling at an open airport where the pilot could pay with cash. The district court also noted that the agents were aware that the plane had flown to Watsonville and Cloverdale, Cal ifornia—places where AMOC had previously found drug Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 11 tra cking. Courts have held that flights to or from high drug tra cking areas may properly contribute to reasonable suspi cion. See United States v. Espinosa Alvarez, 839 F.2d 1201, 1206 (7th Cir. 1987); United States v. Palen, 793 F.2d 853, 857 (7th Cir. 1986). On the other hand, in this era of increasing legalization of marijuana, coupled with widespread cultivation, we con sider this only a small nudge in the direction of reasonable suspicion. We do agree with the district court’s determination that the airplane’s alleged travel through bad weather did not con tribute to reasonable suspicion. In his email, Keller flagged that the plane had flown through a storm. The radar image that AMOC provided, however, did not show the plane flying through bad weather. Instead, it showed the plane’s flight path over Indiana and Illinois. Stormy weather is visible in the plane’s past route at the time the image was captured. That picture is not evidence that the stormy weather existed when the plane was in that spot; the storm clouds could have moved into the route after the plane had flown by. Eymann and Lyons attack the evidence we have just sum marized with the contention that the agents should not have relied on any information provided by Keller. They argue that this basis is no better than the one in Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266 (2000), where the Supreme Court found that police lacked reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop. Id. at 274. There, the of ficers’ suspicion that the defendant was carrying a weapon “arose not from any observations of their own but solely from a call made from an unknown location by an unknown caller.” Id. at 270. Also, the anonymous call concerning the de fendant “provided no predictive information and therefore left the police without means to test the informant’s 12 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 knowledge or credibility.” Id. at 271. Eymann and Lyons em phasize that Harrington had never dealt with Keller and thus could not assess Keller’s reputation. In addition, they say, whereas the J.L. defendant’s carrying of a firearm was a crime, no one reported any crime by them. Keller reported only sus picions about otherwise lawful activity. But Keller and Spencer were far from anonymous inform ants. They both worked for DHS’s Air and Marine Operations Center, which is part of DHS’s Customs and Border Protec tion section and which, according to its website, “uses sophis ticated technology to detect, identify, track, and direct the in terdiction of suspect aviation and maritime targets in the Western Hemisphere.” See cbp.gov, Air and Marine Opera tions Leadership and Organization. One of AMOC’s jobs is to monitor airplane activity to reduce drug tra cking by air. Spencer and Keller were both acting within the scope of their o cial responsibilities when they passed along their infor mation about the Cessna to Harrington. Also, a similar tip from AMOC in the past had led to the seizure of illegal drugs. Spencer gave Harrington specific details, and the Litchfield team witnessed firsthand activity by Eymann and Lyons that corroborated the tip. Finally, the possible lawfulness of a per son’s actions does not defeat reasonable suspicion. See Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 403 (2014). The information that Harrington received from Keller (via Spencer) also falls within the collective knowledge doctrine. Under the collective knowledge doctrine, o cers may carry out a stop even if they do not have firsthand knowledge of the facts amounting to reasonable suspicion. See United States v. Harris, 585 F.3d 394, 400 (7th Cir. 2009). Instead, “where law enforcement authorities are cooperating in an investigation, Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 13 as here, the knowledge of one is presumed shared by all.” Il linois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 771 n.5 (1983). Collective knowledge also applies to information that an o cer receives from those with the “training, responsibility or authority to make a determination of reasonable suspicion.” United States v. Colon, 250 F.3d 130, 137 (2d Cir. 2001). Spencer was a law enforcement o cer at AMOC. Harring ton and the other DHS and LPD o cers involved in the stop were entitled to rely on Spencer’s information, including the report he received from Keller. Keller, as an intelligence re search specialist at AMOC, is responsible for detecting suspi cious activity among airplanes and sharing that information with the appropriate o cer(s). Therefore, the information Harrington received from Spencer, which included infor mation from Keller, properly contributed to a finding that the o cers had reasonable suspicion to stop Eymann and Lyons in the hotel parking lot. B The next question is whether the parking lot encounter ex ceeded the scope of a Terry stop. To be lawful, “a detention must be limited in scope and executed through the least re strictive means.” United States v. Ienco, 182 F.3d 517, 523 (7th Cir. 1999). “A seizure becomes an arrest when a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would have understood the situation to constitute a restraint on freedom of movement of the degree which the law associates with formal arrest.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). “The line between a law ful Terry stop and an unlawful arrest is not bright.” United States v. Askew, 403 F.3d 496, 507 (7th Cir. 2005). “Several fac tors are relevant in deciding whether a Terry stop has become an arrest[,] including the o cer’s intent in stopping the 14 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 individual, whether there was a search, whether, or how much, questioning occurred, whether there was a show of force and whether the person stopped could be said to have been taken into custody.” United States v. Rodriguez, 831 F.2d 162, 166 (7th Cir. 1987). Eymann and Lyons, with the support of our dissenting colleague, argue that the encounter in the parking lot, before they were handcu ed, was more akin to an arrest than the limited detention permitted under Terry. They point to the fol lowing factors: the encounter occurred at night; the agents did not advise them that they were free to leave; the agents parked their vehicles in a way that did not allow the courtesy car to leave; two of the police vehicles activated emergency lights; the agents stood close to the two men and blocked their entrance to the hotel; several o cers were present and their weapons were visible; and the o cers took the men’s identi fication cards. The answer to the question whether they were under ar rest depends significantly on the underlying facts. The district court found that there was no arrest until the o cers hand cu ed the two after they found marijuana in Eymann’s bag. The earlier show of force, it found, was minimal. Although there were quite a few uniformed o cers and police cars, and some of the cars had flashing lights, the o cers did not draw any weapons or raise their voices. This level of force is nor mally not associated with a formal arrest. See Askew, 403 F.3d at 508−09 (surrounding suspect’s car to prevent him from leaving did not convert stop into arrest). In addition, the of ficers investigated their suspicions by questioning Eymann and Lyons immediately. These actions aligned with the pur pose of the investigatory stop, as o cers are “permitted to ask Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 15 questions to determine an individual’s identity and to obtain information confirming an o cer’s suspicions.” United States v. Johnson, 680 F.3d 966, 974 (7th Cir. 2012), overruled on other grounds by Fowler v. Butts, 829 F.3d 788 (7th Cir. 2016); see Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nevada, Humboldt Cnty, 542 U.S. 177, 187–88 (2004). The duration of the questioning was also brief. The o cers asked the pair about their travel plans until Lyons experienced his medical episode. At that point, the o cers turned their focus to Eymann. Agent Harrington asked Eymann whether he had brought any marijuana. The tone, the district court found, was calm and conversational, and the questioning did not indicate that either Eymann or Lyons was under arrest at that point. Eymann and Lyons’s strongest argument is that the o c ers themselves characterized the stop as an arrest at the state suppression hearing. Worse, they say, Wilkinson’s and Jar man’s testimony at the state suppression hearing in March 2014 actually conflicted with their testimony at the federal suppression hearing in 2015 and 2016. Eymann and Lyons emphasize that, at the state court suppression hearing, Wil kinson unequivocally said that the defendants were “in cus tody” when the police o cers arrived at the Quality Inn park ing lot, and his choice of that phrase amounts to an admission that the stop was an arrest. At that point, they contend, the o cers lacked probable cause to make those arrests, and so the arrests were illegal and the evidence gathered afterwards must be suppressed. We have taken a close look at both the state court and the federal court records, however, and we are satisfied that they are not in conflict. At both hearings, Wilkinson and Jarman emphasized that Eymann and Lyons were “not free to leave” 16 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 from the moment the o cers arrived at the Quality Inn park ing lot. In addition, at both hearings, Wilkinson equated “not free to leave” with being in custody. Wilkinson’s use of the word “custody” (which he uses at both hearings) appears to be based on the fact that the defendants were not free to leave. There is no reason to think that he was o ering a legal opinion about whether their situation qualified as “custody” under the law. See Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112–13 (1995) (ultimate question whether a person is “in custody” is a mixed question of law and fact and receives plenary review). We learn little from the fact that the defendants were not free to leave, because that is also true in standard Terry stops. That constraint signals only that the interaction was not merely a consensual encounter. See United States v. Williams, 945 F.2d 192, 196 (7th Cir. 1991). Moreover, the question whether a person is under arrest is an objective one, not one that depends on the o cers’ beliefs. Ienco, 182 F.3d at 523. Because the o cers used little show of force, kept their questioning within reasonable bounds, and acted consistently with an investigatory detention, we conclude, as the district court did, that a reasonable person would not have under stood that his freedom was restrained to the degree associated with a formal arrest during the period before the handcu ng. C Eymann and Lyons next argue that the o cers did not have probable cause to search the car. Probable cause to search a vehicle exists “if, given the totality of the circum stances, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” United States v. Scott, 516 F.3d 587, 589 (7th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 17 marks omitted). “Admissions of crime, like admissions against proprietary interests, carry their own indicia of credi bility—su cient at least to support a finding of probable cause to search.” United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 583 (1971). Once Eymann admitted to having marijuana in the car, the o cers had probable cause to search it, unless there is some problem with the admission. That is the route Eymann tries to take. He says that he was under arrest before he made the admission and that he made the statement only in response to Agent Harrington’s post ar rest questioning. That taints the admission, he argues, be cause he had not yet received his Miranda warnings, and so it cannot be used to establish probable cause. One problem with this argument is that, as the district court found, Eymann had no privacy interest in the car and thus could not challenge its search. We need not opine on that point. Eymann’s argument works only if he was in custody while he was being ques tioned, and we have concluded that he was not. His admission therefore gave the o cers probable cause to search the cour tesy car. D Once the marijuana was found in Eymann’s luggage, the o cers had probable cause to arrest Eymann. We are left with Lyons’s arguments about his frisk and arrest. We start with the frisk. “For a frisk to be lawful, it must be based on reasonable suspicion that ‘criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom [the o cer] is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous.’” United States v. Lopez, 907 F.3d 472, 485 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 30). “[G]iven the … burdensome intrusion of a frisk, such 18 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 action should only be allowed when the o cer can point to articulable facts that would establish the separate and specific condition that the detainee has a weapon or poses some dan ger.” United States v. Williams, 731 F.3d 678, 686 (7th Cir. 2013). Lyons asserts that the o cers had no reason to think he was armed or dangerous. He emphasizes that mere suspicion of drug tra cking is insu cient to justify a frisk. Lyons, how ever, failed to raise this argument before the district court, and so he may not raise it now for the first time on appeal. Pu er v. Allstate Ins. Co., 675 F.3d 709, 718 (7th Cir. 2012). Although the motion to suppress contained many arguments, an im proper frisk was not one of them. E1 We now turn to Lyons’s arrest. Lyons argues that the of ficers did not have probable cause to arrest him after they found Eymann’s marijuana. “Probable cause for an arrest ex ists if an o cer reasonably believes, in light of the facts and circumstances within his knowledge at the time of the arrest, that the suspect has committed, or is committing, an o ense.” Thompson v. Wagner, 319 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir. 2003), as amended on denial of reh’g (Mar. 14, 2003). We must “exam ine the events leading up to the arrest” and then determine “whether these historical facts, viewed from the standpoint of an objectively reasonable police o cer, amount to” probable cause. Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 371 (2003). 1 Section II.E. represents the views of only Chief Judge Wood. As ex plained in her concurrence, Judge Sykes concludes that the officers had probable cause to arrest Lyons. Judge Hamilton dissents on grounds ex plained in his separate opinion. Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 19 The district court found that there was probable cause to arrest Lyons because the o cers knew that (1) he had been in the car with both Eymann and Eymann’s marijuana, (2) he had been carrying $2,600 in cash (and missed by a thousand dollars how much he had, when he responded to the o cer’s question), (3) he unloaded a box from a plane that had been involved in numerous quick turn trips and that often landed at rural, closed airports, and (4) upon being confronted by law enforcement, he experienced a fainting episode. The district court also cited Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, noting that the Supreme Court held that o cers who found drugs in a car had proba ble cause to arrest all three of the car’s passengers where the drugs were accessible to all three men and all three failed to o er information about the drugs’ ownership. Pringle is not very helpful, as it is easily distinguishable. Whereas the suspects in Pringle refused to concede ownership of the drugs, Eymann frankly admitted to his ownership of his personal use marijuana. The o cers had no reason to doubt Eymann’s claim that the drugs were his, and the quan tity did not lend itself to a shared ownership theory. The other reasons the district court listed for finding probable cause are also weak. Although Lyons experienced a fainting spell, “[m]ost people, when confronted by a police o cer, are likely to act nervous, avoid eye contact, and even potentially shift their bodies as if to move away from the area.” Williams, 731 F.3d at 687. And, as noted earlier, the question whether there was a box at all is disputed, much less whether the ex istence of a box on an airplane—one that did not make it into the courtesy car—is anything but innocuous. For these rea sons, Chief Judge Wood concludes that the o cers did not have probable cause to arrest Lyons. 20 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 F Our focus, however, is on the evidence the police seized, not the validity of the arrest for its own sake. Lyons and Ey mann argue that Lyons’s unlawful arrest led to the search of the Cessna, and so the evidence of the marijuana stash must be suppressed. (As nothing turns on it, we assume for present purposes that both had enough interest in the Cessna to com plain about this search.) They note that when the o cers ar rested Lyons, they found and took the airplane’s keys, and they used those keys to open the airplane during the search. The pair compares these events to the events in United States v. Ienco, 182 F.3d 517 (7th Cir. 1999). In Ienco, police arrested two men without probable cause. Id. at 524−25. While the two were unlawfully detained in the back of the police car, one accidentally dropped the key to their van. Id. at 528. Hours later, the police found the key and used it to gain access to the van, where they found weapons. Id. at 522. A rming the dis trict court’s motion to suppress the weapons as evidence, we held that “if the arrest was illegal, evidence obtained by the discovery of the key hidden in the police car and the ensuing discovery, impoundment, and search of the van would be in admissible, all that being the fruit of the unlawful arrest.” Id. at 526, 529. The government argues that even if the arrest was im proper, the inevitable discovery doctrine applies, and on that basis the evidence from the airplane should not be sup pressed. Under the inevitable discovery doctrine, if the pros ecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the challenged evidence ultimately would have been discov ered through lawful means without regard to the constitu tional error, then the evidence is not subject to suppression. Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 21 United States v. Jones, 72 F.3d 1324, 1330 (7th Cir. 1995). To sat isfy this burden the government must demonstrate (1) that “it had, or would have obtained, an independent, legal justifica tion for conducting a search that would have led to the dis covery of the evidence,” and (2) that it “would have con ducted a lawful search absent the challenged conduct.” United States v. Marrocco, 578 F.3d 627, 637–38 (7th Cir. 2009). The doctrine is premised on the idea that law enforcement “should be placed in no better, but no worse, a position than they would have been had no impropriety occurred.” Jones, 72 F.3d at 1330. Although the district court did not reach inevitable dis covery (because it found no constitutional errors), our conclu sion with respect to Lyons’s arrest makes it necessary for us to address this point. We may do so, because the parties de veloped the necessary record in the district court.2 The first question is whether the government had an independent, le gal justification for conducting the search of the plane that led to the discovery of the marijuana. We are satisfied that it did. When the o cers returned to the airport after the encounter in the hotel parking lot, they entered the airport gate with the permission and assistance of the airport agents. The o cers were therefore lawfully present on the runway. Moreover, the o cers were permitted to bring Arie to the plane and instruct him to conduct an outdoor sni test. Police o cers need no articulable reason to call in a drug sni ng dog as long as do ing so does not otherwise invade a person’s legitimate interest in privacy. See United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 123 (1984) 2 The dissent believes that further development of this issue is needed in the district court. Post at 12. With respect, we see no critical gaps in the record that require filling. 22 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 (“[G]overnmental conduct that can reveal whether a sub stance is cocaine, and no other arguably ‘private’ fact, com promises no legitimate privacy interest.”); United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 707 (1983) (establishing that a dog’s sni of luggage does not constitute a Fourth Amendment search). Neither Lyons nor Eymann had a legitimate privacy interest in the marijuana in the plane. Moreover, deploying Arie did not invade Eymann’s or Lyons’s legitimate privacy interest because the airplane was parked on an open runway. See United States v. Grogg, 534 F.3d 807, 810–11 (7th Cir. 2008) (“[T]he Supreme Court has made clear that a dog sni in a public place is not a search[,] because it is unique, in that it does not intrude on or disclose any information other than whether contraband is present, and a possessor of contraband cannot maintain a legitimate expectation that the contra band’s presence will not be revealed.”). If Arie’s alert on the airplane survives scrutiny, then it gave the o cers probable cause to search the plane independ ent of anything that happened at the hotel. Lyons and Ey mann contend that reliance on the dog’s alert was improper, however, because Arie was uncertified at the time he sni ed the airplane. They also claim Arie was unreliable. The record establishes otherwise. We should first say that the question whether Arie did or did not have a particular state certificate is a question of state law. The Fourth Amendment does not incorporate such state requirements; it asks only whether, objectively, the o cers had probable cause to search. The record showed that Arie successfully completed many training sessions. Starting in 2007, Arie completed a 10 week program at the Illinois State Police Canine Academy. He was trained to detect various Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 23 drug odors and to refrain from alerting when odors other than the specified set (proofing odors) were present. At the end of the 10 week program, Arie was tested and evaluated in 32 dif ferent categories, and he received passing marks in each cate gory. After that program, Arie successfully completed a three to five day refresher training at the Academy in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. During each refresher course, Arie was tested in at least 32 categories and passed in all evaluated ar eas. The most recent refresher course Arie completed before July 2013 was in November 2012, less than eight months be fore the sni . He earned a perfect score in 36 evaluated areas. Outside of the Academy, Grammer and Arie completed bi weekly trainings with other handler/dog teams. Arie also participated in additional out of state training programs. In addition, during a July 2012 session, Arie received special recognition for being the only dog successfully to pass a com plex proofing odors test; the training included about 75 dif ferent proofing odors and no drug odors, and Arie was the only dog that went through the entire building without giving a single false alert. Despite this record, Eymann and Lyons argue that Arie was not reliable. They assert that Arie receives a reward every time he alerts, even when no drugs are found, and so he is motivated to alert during every drug sni . In fact, the data from 2012, they argue, shows that Arie performed 29 drug sni s and alerted positively to the presence of drugs in all of them. In addition, they contend that even though Arie has been trained to alert passively, the evidence shows that he was aggressively alerting during the sni s. These active alerts, they insist, undermine the district court’s reliability finding. Eymann and Lyons also emphasize that Arie was not 24 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 properly certified during the sni s. They note that even a well trained dog is not permitted to search for drugs once its certification expires. Taking the last point first, we reiterate that Arie’s lack of a state certificate is not conclusive for federal constitutional purposes. His lack of certification was attributable to an ad ministrative error, not incompetence on the job. Once the er ror was spotted, the state retroactively certified Arie for the period that included the events in question. Even in the ab sence of formal certification, “evidence of a dog’s satisfactory performance in a certification or training program can itself provide su cient reason to trust his alert.” Florida v. Harris, 568 U.S. 237, 246 (2013). In addition, the 2012 data that Ey mann and Lyons claim shows that Arie alerted positively 100% of the time was actually a record of only Arie’s positive alerts, not of all of the drug sni s he performed. Moreover, Arie’s handler, Grammer, testified that Arie provided a pas sive alert during the sni s. Although Wilkinson testified that Arie stopped, sat, and barked at the seam door, which the de fendants argue is not a passive alert, the actions of stopping and sitting are consistent with a passive alert. In addition, Grammer was likely paying more attention to Arie’s actions during the sni s. We therefore agree with the district court that at the time of his sni of the plane, Arie’s alert could and did establish probable cause.3 3 The dissent queries whether the “automobile exception” to the Fourth Amendment applies to a small airplane such as the Cessna. The issue, we believe, is not properly before us, because the defendants did not raise this point until their reply briefs. The dissent disagrees, asserting that “the [automobile exception] question arose only in reply to the gov ernment’s reliance on inevitable discovery as an alternate ground to Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 25 This brings us to the second inquiry for inevitable discov ery: the government must demonstrate that it would have conducted a lawful search absent the challenged conduct. Ex cept for O cer Wilkinson, the o cers and agents are clear in their testimony that they were going to bring Arie to the plane to perform a sni test regardless of what happened at the ho tel. When asked if there was any circumstance where he would not have called Grammer to walk Arie around the plane, Jarman replied that he “would have ran [sic] that dog no matter what [the agents] had decided” because he had pre viously found drugs in a plane at the airport and did not want the Litchfield Municipal Airport to be a stop for drug couriers. Harrington testified that there were no circumstances under which he would not have made use of a drug detection dog. He also testified that even if the Litchfield Police Department did not make Arie available, he “would have contacted Illi nois State Police and arranged for one of their [dogs] to as sist.” Mitchell testified that “regardless of how following that car turned out,” “we would have definitely run the [dog] around the plane.” Wilkinson’s testimony was more equivo cal. He said that if the federal agents decided not to run the affirm.” Post at 13 n.1. In their opening briefs, however, the defendants argued that the search of the Cessna was unlawful because Arie’s alert could not establish probable cause. We would reach the probable cause question only if the automobile exception applied to the Cessna. The de fendants therefore should have taken issue with the district court’s deter mination that the automobile exception applied in their opening briefs. We note as well that a number of circuits have found that the same ap proach applies to airplanes. See, e.g., United States v. Linn, 30 F.3d 132, 1994 WL 399179, at *2 (4th Cir. 1994) (unpublished); United States v. Rollins, 699 F.2d 530, 534 (11th Cir. 1983); United States v. Gooch, 603 F.2d 122, 124 (10th Cir. 1979). Because the issue has not been properly presented here, we do not need to resolve this point. 26 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 dog around the plane, he was not sure whether he would have ordered Arie to be deployed. He “would have had to try to validate why their suspicion was no longer valid or [why] they didn’t want to pursue their suspicion, and then [he would] have to make a decision.” Wilkinson’s lack of certainty is not enough, in our view, to overcome the testimony of all the other o cers to the e ect that the airplane was the central focus of their interest. This record shows that they would have walked Arie around the plane even if they had not improperly arrested Lyons. Both Eymann, whose arrest does pass muster, and Lyons were in the plane, and all the other information suggesting that the plane was being used for illegal drug operations was still there. Wilkinson indicated that he would probably have de ferred to the federal agents, and the federal agents testified that they would have deployed Arie no matter what. Lyons’s arrest was largely beside the point. The inevitable discovery doctrine therefore applies, and the district court correctly re fused to suppress the evidence found in the plane. G Lastly, Lyons argues that the district court erred in finding that the government was not collaterally estopped from liti gating the suppression hearing in federal court. Recall that be fore the federal charges were filed, the Montgomery County Circuit Court found that Arie’s alerts on the courtesy car and the plane could not establish probable cause because Arie was not technically certified as a drug detection dog during those sni s. The state court determined that 50 ILCS 705/10.12 pre cluded finding probable cause from an alert by an uncertified dog. That finding prompted the state court to suppress the evidence from the plane. Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 27 Collateral estoppel (or as we now say, issue preclusion) is “properly applied when an issue raised by a party to a suit has been actually and necessarily litigated in a prior suit and when the party against whom estoppel is asserted has had a ‘full and fair opportunity’ to litigate the issue.” United States v. Sherman, 912 F.2d 907, 909 (7th Cir. 1990). “The four require ments of collateral estoppel are that: (1) the issue sought to be precluded is the same as that involved in the prior action; (2) the issue was actually litigated; (3) the determination of the issue was essential to the final judgment; and (4) the party against whom estoppel is invoked was fully represented in the prior action.” Id. Requirement 4 is not met here. Lyons argues that the state suppression hearing provided the federal government a full and fair opportunity to vindicate its rights, but the United States was not a party to the state action or otherwise repre sented in it. Issue preclusion “cannot apply here because it holds only between the same parties, whereas the United States was not represented in the prior case.” United States v. Brocksmith, 991 F.2d 1363, 1367 (7th Cir. 1993). Although the United States and Illinois worked together in the investiga tion of the o ense, joint law enforcement e ort does not mean the prosecuting entities are in privity for the purposes of issue preclusion. United States v. Davis, 906 F.2d 829, 834 (2d Cir. 1990). The United States is not bound by the state court’s res olution of the suppression issue. We therefore AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Eymann and Lyons’s motion to suppress, and thus the judgments en tered against both defendants. 28 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 SYKES, Circuit Judge, concurring. I join Chief Judge Wood’s opinion except for Part IIE, which concludes that DHS Special Agent Harrington and his law enforcement team lacked probable cause to arrest Lyons. In my view, the o cers had probable cause to arrest Lyons based on the following facts known to them at the time: Lyons piloted at least one of the cross country, quick turn Cessna flights from California that prompted the call and email from DHS’s Air and Marine Operations Center to Agent Harrington. That flight—on the weekend of June 21, 2013—followed the same pattern as the one just a few weeks before on the weekend of May 24. During both trips, the plane landed at small, rural airports late at night, when the airports were otherwise closed, and used self service pumps to re fuel. Lyons’s wife owned the plane. When Harrington frisked Lyons, he felt what he thought was a wad of cash in his pocket. When asked about it, Lyons said it was an envelope containing $1,600. But the envelope actually contained $2,600 in cash. Misstating the amount by $1,000 was suspicious. Lyons said the cash was for fuel and expenses, but Harrington knew that the self service pumps at rural airports do not take cash. This added to the suspicion. Lyons’s fainting spell: Nervousness may be common in a police encounter, but fainting is unusual, as Harrington testified. This goes beyond the garden variety nervousness mentioned in United States v. Williams, 731 F.3d 678, 687 (7th Cir. 2013). Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 29 These facts—and the discovery of Eymann’s marijuana— add up to probable cause. I agree, however, with Chief Judge Wood’s analysis and application of the inevitable discovery doctrine. So my disagreement on the probable cause point means only that we end up in the same place for two reasons. 30 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, dissenting. I agree with several portions of the majority opinion, but I differ from the majority on three decisive issues. First, the initial police tactics in the hotel parking lot amounted to unjustified arrests without probable cause, not merely an investigative stop. Second, even if the parking lot encounter were only an investigative Terry stop, the police lacked reasonable suspicion at the outset even to stop Eymann and Lyons. Reasonable suspicion should require more than the curiosity of law enforcement of ficers. Third, the majority errs in deciding the fact intensive issue of inevitable discovery, which the district court did not reach. I would vacate both defendants’ convictions and re mand for fact finding on the government’s affirmative de fense of inevitable discovery. I respectfully dissent. I. The Arrests in the Hotel Parking Lot A reasonable person surrounded by the police in the hotel parking lot that night would have understood that he was un der arrest. In fact, the police officers testified in the state trial court that Eymann and Lyons were under arrest from the mo ment they were surrounded in the parking lot—at least one officer explicitly, with the others confirming factual details in dicating that the encounter was an arrest. Police Chief Wil kinson testified: Q. Was Mr. Eymann arrested at that point [when the police cars pulled up behind their vehicle]? A. He was in custody, yes, sir. In response to a question about “arrest,” that answer can not plausibly be explained, as the majority opinion does, as having meant “only a Terry stop.” A year later, though, the Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 31 officers changed their testimony in the federal district court. This time, they claimed the initial detention was only a Terry stop. But these experienced police officers knew the difference between an arrest and a Terry stop when they testified in state court. They were right the first time. The line between a Terry stop and an arrest is “not bright,” United States v. Askew, 403 F.3d 496, 507 (7th Cir. 2005), but it is exceedingly important. Terry recognized a “wholly differ ent kind of intrusion upon individual freedom” based, for the first time, on less than probable cause to believe the suspect was engaged in crime. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 26 (1968). If courts allow law enforcement officers to cloak as “investiga tory stops” what are really just arrests without probable cause, all of us will have less liberty than the founders estab lished for us in the Fourth Amendment. The majority concludes that the parking lot encounter was a Terry stop “[b]ecause the officers used little show of force, kept their questioning within reasonable bounds, and acted consistently with an investigatory detention,” such that “a reasonable person would not have understood that his free dom was restrained to the degree associated with a formal ar rest during the period before the handcuffing.” Ante at 16. I disagree. While there is no bright line between an arrest and a Terry stop, “common sense and ordinary human expe rience must govern.” United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 685 (1985). As many as nine officers in multiple marked cars pulled in behind defendants’ car, blocking it in. At least two cars were flashing their colored emergency lights. The armed and uniformed officers, some in tactical gear and body armor, then approached the defendants. A few moments later, an of ficer took the defendants’ identification and did not return it. 32 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 Eymann and Lyons were then separated before Eymann was questioned. Chief Wilkinson confiscated the keys to the air port courtesy car that the men had been driving. Common sense and ordinary human experience should convince us that this scene was not consistent with the notion of a brief encounter “to ask you a few questions.” These facts are sufficiently similar to those of United States v. Ienco, 182 F.3d 517 (7th Cir. 1999), to show an arrest: a sig nificant show of force, overwhelming police presence, and identification and keys taken and kept by the police. See id. at 525, citing Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 501–02 (1983) (where officers at airport identified themselves as narcotics agents, told defendant that he was suspected of transporting narcot ics, and asked him to accompany them to a police room, while retaining his airline ticket and driver’s license without indi cating in any way that he was free to depart, defendant was effectively seized for purposes of Fourth Amendment), United States v. Gonzalez, 763 F.2d 1127, 1131–32 (10th Cir. 1985) (“ar rest” found where police held driver’s license, car registration and title), and United States v. Miller, 589 F.2d 1117, 1127 (1st Cir. 1978) (police officer’s retention of the defendant’s driver’s license which prevented the defendant from lawfully driving his car was more of an arrest than a mere investigatory stop). We have also held that large numbers of armed police tend to indicate that a defendant was in custody. See, e.g., United States v. Slaight, 620 F.3d 816, 820 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Borostowski, 775 F.3d 851, 860–61 (7th Cir. 2014). What happened here was distinct from the common police practice of asking for and briefly inspecting identification during a traffic stop, cf. Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court, 542 U.S. 177, 186 (2004), and United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 33 229 (1985). In such routine stops, most drivers expect to re ceive their identification back within a few minutes. With no driver’s licenses, and no expectation of getting them back any time soon, and amid an overwhelming police presence, Ey mann and Lyons were effectively under arrest from the out set. Finally, I cannot overlook the testimony of Chief Wil kinson in the state court hearing on the motion to suppress (which was eventually granted, leading to this Plan B federal prosecution). In the state court, the Chief testified that the en counter with Eymann and Lyons in the hotel parking lot was an arrest from the start. Chief Wilkinson is an experienced of ficer who surely knew the difference between an arrest and a Terry stop. In a hearing on the broad based motion to sup press, he testified this was an arrest. (The Illinois State’s At torney never even contested this point: he said in his closing argument that “The state is not going to try and sit here and argue that they weren’t in custody.”) I’m troubled by Chief Wilkinson’s changed testimony on this critical point after the prosecution lost the motion to suppress in state court. He was right the first time. The government does not claim, and could not claim, that the officers had probable cause to arrest Eymann or Lyons in the opening moments of the encounter in the parking lot. This was an arrest without probable cause, and all of the evidence obtained through the unlawful arrest should have been sup pressed. II. No Reasonable Suspicion to Detain Even if the parking lot encounter were properly deemed only an investigative Terry stop, it was unconstitutional. The 34 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 officers had received information that they could reasonably deem worth investigating. That information fell short, how ever, of grounds to stop Eymann and Lyons at the hotel that night and thus to deprive them of their liberty. The officers needed “a reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and ar ticulable facts,” that the men had committed a felony or were about to commit a crime. Hensley, 469 U.S. at 229; United States v. Lopez, 907 F.3d 472, 478 (7th Cir. 2018). They did not have it. The Air and Marine Operations Center (AMOC) analyst passed on to officers that a single engine Cessna was worth investigating further because it had made prior quick turn trips and used self service fuel pumps late at night. Although the analyst said that these attributes were “similar to previous violators,” the analyst also told the officers that “the plane, owner, and pilot [were] nonsuspect.” (Like the majority, I give little weight to the California origins of the flights or to the mistaken impression that the plane had flown into bad weather.) In short, the AMOC information did not set Ey mann, Lyons, or their plane apart from the pool of law abid ing pilots who make quick turn trips or use self service fuel pumps at night. It is critical to respect the difference between the quantum of suspicion required to stop a suspect and what is required merely to investigate. No more than interest or curiosity on the part of the police is required to investigate. Neither is enough to justify an investigative stop, intruding on a person’s liberty. To make a lawful stop, police “must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with ra tional inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that in Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 35 trusion.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 21. Though law enforcement offic ers are entitled to a certain amount of deference, courts must still ensure that reasonable suspicion rests on an adequate ob jective basis. See, e.g., id. at 21–22. Without an objective basis giving rise to individualized suspicion, nothing sets apart those reasonably suspected of criminal activity from those in nocent Americans going about their daily lives—an outcome that is inconsistent with the mandate of the Fourth Amend ment. Kansas v. Glover, 140 S. Ct. 1183, 1190 (2020) (reasonable suspicion does not “allow officers to stop drivers whose con duct is no different from any other driver’s”); United States v. Flores, 798 F.3d 645, 649 (7th Cir. 2015) (explaining that a “sus picion so broad that [it] would permit the police to stop a sub stantial portion of the lawfully driving public,” such as that based on a license plate frame that obstructed a license plate in exactly the same way as every other license plate frame, was unreasonable). By definition, the grounds for a Terry stop can be less than those required for probable cause. United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 274 (2002). But when the activity is much more likely to be explained by innocent behavior than by criminal, the in ference is weakened so that it cannot meet even the relatively low standard for reasonable suspicion. Consistent with Glover, we have looked for a stronger con nection between fact and inference than the officers had here. In United States v. Paniagua Garcia, 813 F.3d 1013, 1014 (7th Cir. 2016), we held that a police officer’s observation that a driver had his cell phone in hand with his head bent toward the phone while driving was not enough to support reasonable suspicion that he was breaking Indiana law by texting while driving. The officer’s observations did nothing to separate the 36 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 driver’s behavior from any of the many other lawful uses of a cellphone while driving, all of which, except for texting, were then legal under Indiana law. Id. (The statute, Ind. Code § 9 21 8 59, has since been amended effective July 1, 2020 to allow only hands free use of cellphones while driving. See Pub. L. 100 2020, § 3 (2020).) The government argues here that Eymann and Lyons fit criteria for drug couriers. The problem is that the profile criteria were so general and so likely to point to innocent behavior that—without further investigation—it was not possible to gauge the likelihood that a specific plane or person was involved in criminal activity. AMOC itself told the officers from the outset that “the plane, owner, and pilot [were] nonsuspect.” Even the factors noted by the AMOC as worthy of investigation were not probative of much. The record sheds no light on how often “quick turnaround” flights are evidence of crime. Private planes are expensive items to leave idle, after all, and they make sense not just for drug couriers but for anyone who does not want to be tied to airline schedules and major airports. There are lots of lawful reasons to fly from California to other parts of the country. And using small, closed airports to refuel requires pilots to leave a trail by paying for fuel with a credit card, and seems to be common enough among law abiding pilots to support the “courtesy car” practice allowing pilots to borrow cars on the honor system. What the government here has called “reasonable suspi cion” for Terry purposes was only interest or bare suspicion that simply was not enough to justify a coercive, non volun tary stop. Paniagua Garcia, 813 F.3d at 1015. We were con cerned in Paniagua Garcia by how remote the likelihood of Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 37 criminal activity was. We compared the case of a driver drink ing from a coffee cup. The coffee could be spiked with alcohol, or the driver could be driving on an expired license. Id. With out more specific grounds for individual suspicion, however, those possibilities could not justify a stop. American liberty requires us to enforce the difference be tween grounds to investigate by non coercive means and rea sonable suspicion to carry out a Terry stop. What judges and lawyers blandly call “Terry stops” can be highly intrusive. With the authority to stop comes the authority to require the subject to submit to the stop, and to use reasonable force to make him submit. United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 702 (1983) (Terry implicitly acknowledged authority of police to make forcible stop based on reasonable suspicion); Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146 (1972) (upholding forcible stop based on tip from reliable informant). Such situations can es calate quickly to violence and even death. See, e.g., Tom v. Voida, 963 F.2d 952, 954 (7th Cir. 1992) (attempt to make justi fied Terry stop led to officer fatally shooting subject); Brown v. City of Milwaukee, 288 F. Supp. 2d 962 (E.D. Wis. 2003) (Terry stop based on mistaken identification resulted in permanent injuries and pain). Here, when the officers encountered Eymann and Lyons, as in Paniagua Garcia, they had information indicating at most that criminal conduct was possible. It’s not surprising that some small planes are used to transport drugs, but the record tells us nothing about how suspicious the behavior that AMOC observed was. By comparison, case law shows that many drug couriers drive cars on long trips on interstate high ways. That fact, without more, is not enough to justify a Terry 38 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 stop on any car with out of state plates on an interstate high way. Courts insist instead that stops of vehicles be based on much more specific information, including violations of traf fic laws. The facts here contrast sharply with a case cited by the government, United States v. Latorre, 893 F.3d 744, 748, 751 (10th Cir. 2018), which affirmed the denial of a motion to sup press. The police in Latorre knew of the private plane’s unu sual flight pattern, but they also knew the pilot had a history of arrests for drug possession and distribution. Most signifi cant, the pilot was flying without using the required identifi cation transponder. There may be legitimate reasons for that last point—perhaps the transponder has suddenly stopped working – but it is certainly suspicious. The Tenth Circuit held that the three factors together supported reasonable suspicion, and the lack of transponder was the most compelling. See id.; see also Royer, 460 U.S. at 502 (officers had reasonable suspi cion for initial Terry stop where drug courier paid for ticket in cash under an assumed name). In this case, by contrast, AMOC cited no behavior that indicated a desire to avoid de tection. In fact, the opposite was true. When Eymann and Ly ons stopped to refuel, they paid with a credit card that rec orded the transaction. The patience shown by Officer McFadden in Terry itself is also instructive here. Two men on the street caught his eye. Terry, 392 U.S. at 5. At first, he could not say why they raised his suspicion, so he waited and watched. He saw them pace past and peer into a store many times, an activity that looked to him like casing the store for a robbery. The officer contin ued to watch. He saw the two men have a brief conversation with a third man, who then left. The two men then resumed Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 39 their activity in front of the store. The officer still did not at tempt to detain them. He continued to investigate without seizing anyone. As the two men began walking away, he fol lowed them. When they met up with the third man once again, Officer McFadden finally stopped them and found con cealed weapons. Id. at 7. Terry thus showed the development of the officer’s reasonable suspicion, starting from a vague hunch that two men on the street were up to no good, to fi nally observing enough suspicious actions that stopping them had become reasonable. It was critical that the officer took the time to observe something objectively suspicious before initi ating his stop. As with the initial hunch in Terry, the officers who re ceived AMOC’s information had enough reason to investi gate, by watching. But unlike in Terry, the defendants here demonstrated no behavior that was clearly suspicious. The police here did not take the time to use the information from AMOC to see if the subjects started behaving in unusual and objectively suspicious ways. The officers here were much too hasty. They moved in to detain Eymann and Lyons well be fore they had grounds to set them apart from the general, law abiding population. The officers violated the Fourth Amend ment by detaining them. I do not suggest that the officers could not take any action on the basis of the information from AMOC. The alert from AMOC was to be on the lookout. It gave the officers a basis to investigate—to observe the subjects and even to talk with them if they were willing—but without (yet) restraining their liberty. See United States v. Williams, 731 F.3d 678, 693 (7th Cir. 2013) (Hamilton, J., concurring) (anonymous call that a group 40 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 of men outside a bar were showing each other their guns jus tified a police response to investigate, but not to detain any one without more reason to suspect wrongdoing when state law allowed open possession of firearms). Stopping pilots and passengers based on only the infor mation relied on here would allow the police to detain a sub stantial portion of those flying lawfully. The information pro vided by AMOC gave the officers reason to investigate fur ther, but it fell short of providing the reasonable suspicion necessary to restrain anyone’s movements. The entire case against Eymann and Lyons was built on that flawed founda tion. III. Inevitable Discovery? The government argues that even if the arrest or stop was unlawful, the evidence seized from the plane should be ad mitted under the inevitable discovery doctrine. That doctrine allows the government to rescue the fruits of an unlawful search or seizure by showing, by a preponderance of the evi dence, that the evidence would have been discovered through lawful means independent from any illegal search or seizure. United States v. Jones, 72 F.3d 1324, 1330 (7th Cir. 1995). The wording is important: would have been discovered, as events actually unfolded, not hypothetically might have been discovered under a different and idealized set of circum stances. The government needs to show either that it would have obtained a warrant or that it would have been able to act under a valid exception to the warrant requirement. The dis trict court did not decide or make findings of fact on the inev itable discovery theory. Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 41 The majority forges ahead and makes its own factual find ings on this fact sensitive issue. With respect, that’s a mistake. First, inevitable discovery always asks for some degree of counterfactual speculation. The government’s brief offers sev eral hypotheticals as to how a dog might have been deployed lawfully to sniff the plane, even absent the invalid arrest/Terry stop and the defendants’ ensuing admissions. That argument falls short of showing that a dog inevitably would have been deployed to the plane. In fact, Chief Wilkinson conceded as much when he said in the federal suppression hearing that he would not have automatically deployed a drug sniffing dog to the plane. Other officers testified differently, but this is not a record where an appellate court should be making its own findings of fact in the first instance. Second, in this case there are legitimate questions about the use of this dog, his training, and his reliability. The state courts have already found that the dog was not properly cer tified at the time of these events. How does that affect the in evitability of lawful discovery? Third, it is not clear that a war rantless search of an airplane is subject to the same rules as a warrantless search of an automobile. It is possible that officers could have called a judge in the middle of the night to obtain a warrant after a positive alert from a reliable drug sniffing dog, and it is true that warrants are often granted on this basis. It is not at all clear on this rec ord that the officers would have actually done so. The scene suggests that officers had no real plan. Upon seeing Eymann and Lyons leave the airport, a federal agent made a spur of the moment decision to follow them in their courtesy car. All of the agents and officers then left the airport, leaving the plane unattended. Given the number of agents and officers 42 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 who converged on the hotel parking lot, surely one or two could have been assigned to a dog sniff of the plane if that really had been a foregone conclusion. Instead, when the dog was actually deployed, it was first sent to the hotel parking lot, not the plane. Given how events actually unfolded, the government must hypothesize that the officers would have: (1) deployed a drug dog to the plane, (2) executed a proper sniff, (3) gotten a reliable positive hit, (4) applied for a war rant, and (5) waited for a warrant. There are too many uncer tainties here for us to say confidently, at least without factual findings, that the government can satisfy the strict require ments of the inevitable discovery defense for an unlawful search. The government also argues that a warrant would not have been necessary because the automobile exception to the warrant requirement would have covered a hypothetical search of the plane based on a positive dog alert.1 The automobile exception has a practical purpose: to allow officers to search a car under the “exigent circumstances” in which the vehicle is readily mobile. United States v. Castaldi, 1 Footnote 3 of the majority opinion criticizes the defendants for not raising the automobile exception question until their reply briefs. On ap peal, however, the question arose only in reply to the government’s reli ance on inevitable discovery as an alternate ground to affirm. The district court did not reach the inevitable discovery question, so defendants did not need to address it in their principal briefs on appeal. It is now clear, however, that affirmance of at least Lyons’s conviction depends on the in evitable discovery theory. The majority’s point about limited briefing of the issue thus only underscores the value of having the district court ad dress this fact intensive question in the first instance. The only court to have considered the issue until now, the Illinois trial court, rejected the inevitable discovery theory for the search of the airplane. Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 43 453 F.2d 506, 510 (7th Cir. 1971). Under that logic, the automo bile exception has been extended to other kinds of vehicles that are easy to drive away. See, e.g., California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 393 (1985) (motor homes); United States v. Smith, 456 F. App’x 200, 209 (4th Cir. 2011) (travel trailer); United States v. Navas, 597 F.3d 492, 501 (2d Cir. 2010) (tractor trailer). This plane was not necessarily so mobile as to have made seeking a warrant impractical. The plane was locked, the of ficers had its key, and it was located in a different place than Eymann and Lyons at the time of their arrests. Moreover, an airplane cannot be moved as quickly and easily as an automo bile. General aviation airports are not as public as open road ways. Planes cannot easily be lost in a stream of traffic, and flights can be tracked. Refueling a plane is not as simple as stopping a car at the next highway exit. It could not be easily stolen or broken into, and it did not offer a ready means of escape. In short, this plane was going nowhere without the officers’ express direction. The automobile exception has also been justified by the di minished expectation of privacy in an automobile. See, e.g., United States v. Matthews, 32 F.3d 294, 299 (7th Cir. 1994); United States v. Markling, 7 F.3d 1309, 1319 (7th Cir. 1993) (au tomobile exception applied to a car in a motel parking lot be cause “[t]he considerations underlying the automobile excep tion,” namely, the car’s ready mobility and the driver’s re duced expectation of privacy, were present). Though air planes and airways are also regulated, a private airplane may offer much more privacy. An automobile is visible to the gen eral public and any passerby. It has windows and a wind shield that allow easy viewing of its driver, passengers, and contents. The interior of a private plane in flight is not at all 44 Nos. 19 2090 & 19 2101 visible to the general public or even to people in other planes. Planes are not subject to being pulled over the way that auto mobiles are. There is little reason for pilots and passengers on private planes to think that law enforcement or the general public could easily access or see into their plane. I would not reach a conclusion on the government’s inev itable discovery defense. The better course here would be to remand these cases to the district court for factual findings in the first instance, including thorough explorations of the dog’s availability and reliability and whether the police could have lawfully searched the airplane without a warrant.
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