REVISED OCTOBER 10, 2001
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
For the Fifth Circuit
No. 00-50751
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
VERSUS
JESUS VALADEZ,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
For the Western District of Texas
September 21, 2001
Before GARWOOD, JOLLY, and DeMOSS, Circuit Judges.
DeMOSS, Circuit Judge:
Defendant-Appellant, Jesus Valadez, appeals the denial of his
motion to suppress firearms seized during a traffic stop. Valadez
claims his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when he was
detained pending the completion of a computer check after the
stopping officer became aware that Valadez had not committed a
traffic violation. We reverse the district court's ruling denying
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the motion to suppress.
I. BACKGROUND
On March 6, 1999, at approximately 6:50 p.m., Texas Department
of Public Safety Trooper Richard Slubar observed a 1984 Oldsmobile
traveling east on Highway 90 near Brackettville, Texas, that
appeared to have an expired vehicle registration sticker on the
front windshield and illegal window tinting on other windows.
Slubar, who was driving in the opposite direction, decided to stop
the Oldsmobile for these two suspected traffic violations.
After making contact with Valadez, Slubar explained why he had
made the stop. Slubar acknowledged that the registration sticker
was valid, but told Valadez that the window tinting on other
windows appeared to be illegal. Before retrieving a window-tint
meter from his patrol car, Slubar asked Valadez for his driver’s
license and insurance card, both of which appeared to be valid. He
returned the insurance card but retained the driver's license.
When Slubar returned to his patrol car to get the window-tint
meter, he requested a check on Valadez's driver's license to
determine if Valadez had any outstanding warrants. Slubar also
requested a criminal history check on Valadez. While the computer
checks were in progress, Slubar returned to Valadez's vehicle and
inspected the window tint and determined that it was legal. Slubar
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then asked Valadez if he had any weapons or drugs in the vehicle.
Valadez responded that he had a loaded pistol on the front seat of
the car and a rifle in the trunk. Slubar removed the weapons from
the car to run a check on them to determine if they were stolen.
Shortly thereafter, Slubar returned to his patrol car to retrieve
the results of the computer checks, which revealed that Valadez had
a criminal history.
The results of the computer checks apparently did not indicate
whether Valadez's prior convictions were for misdemeanors or
felonies because Slubar then asked Valadez if he had ever been
convicted of a felony. Valadez responded that he believed he had
been convicted for a felony, but that he was not certain. Slubar
advised Valadez that it was illegal for a felon to possess a
weapon. Valadez was asked to follow Slubar to the Kinney County
jail in Brackettville, which he did without incident. At the jail,
the conviction was confirmed to be a felony and Valadez was
arrested for the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Valadez, represented by a federal public defender, moved to
suppress the firearms and his statements arguing that they were
fruit of an unlawful detention. The district court found that the
computer check was likely run solely to detain Valadez for
unrelated questioning. In support of its conclusion, the court
noted that Slubar testified that he does not routinely perform
criminal history checks except when there is a need to determine
the type of suspect with which he is dealing. However, the court
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noted that Slubar testified that Valadez was fully compliant, he
did not fear for his own personal safety, and that he trusted
Valadez to follow him to the jail unsupervised prior to an arrest
being made. The court also noted that Slubar, alternatively,
testified that he ran the check to determine that Valadez was being
truthful. In response, the court opined “that the 'truth'
regarding defendant's registration and tint were apparent from the
color of the registration sticker and the reading of the tint
meter.”
The district court concluded that Slubar's questioning of
Valadez on matters unrelated to the stop pending the results of the
computer check, took “the treatment of [the] defendant out of the
realm of permissible detention under Terry.” The court,
nevertheless, denied the motion to suppress. The court reasoned
that United States v. Shabazz, 993 F.2d 431 (5th Cir. 1993),
“guaranteed” officers a five to 15 minute window during which they
may detain defendants during routine traffic stops and subject them
to “wholly unrelated, and potentially quite invasive, questioning.”
As a result, Valadez entered a conditional guilty plea and
reserved his right to contest the suppression ruling. Valadez was
adjudged guilty in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and
924(a)(2). Although the sentencing guideline range was 10 to 16
months of imprisonment, the district court departed from the
guidelines under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.16, and sentenced Valadez to three
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years of probation based on his voluntary disclosure of the weapons
and imposed a fine of $3,000. Valadez now appeals the district
court's ruling.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
Valadez argues that the district court improperly denied his
motion to suppress. When reviewing a ruling on a motion to
suppress, the court reviews questions of law de novo and findings
of fact for clear error. United States v. Jones, 234 F.3d 234, 239
(5th Cir. 2000). We view the evidence in the light most favorable
to the party that prevailed in the district court. Id.
III. TRAFFIC STOPS UNDER THE FOURTH AMENDMENT
The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable
search and seizure. Traffic stops are considered seizures within
the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S.
648, 653 (1979); Jones, 234 F.3d at 239. Nevertheless, traffic
stops are considered more similar to investigative detentions than
formal arrests. See Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439 (1984).
Therefore, we analyze the legality of traffic stops for Fourth
Amendment purposes under the standard articulated in Terry v. Ohio,
392 U.S. 1 (1968). This standard is a two-tiered reasonable
suspicion inquiry: 1) whether the officer's action was justified
at its inception, and 2) whether the search or seizure was
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reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the
stop in the first place. Terry, 392 U.S. at 19-20; Jones, 234
F.3d at 240; United States v. Dortch, 199 F.3d 193, 198 (5th Cir.
1999); United States v. Shabazz, 993 F.2d 431, 435 (5th Cir. 1993);
United States v. Kelley, 981 F.2d 1464, 1467 (5th Cir. 1993). In
addition, "the investigative methods employed should be the least
intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the
officer's suspicion in a short period of time." Florida v. Royer,
460 U.S. 491, 500 (1983).
However, once an officer's suspicions have been verified or
dispelled, the detention must end unless there is additional
articulable, reasonable suspicion. “At that point, continuation of
the detention is no longer supported by the facts that justified
its initiation.” Shabazz, 933 F.2d at 436.
IV. APPLICATION OF THE TERRY STOP TWO-TIERED INQUIRY
Valadez does not dispute the legality of the initial stop.
Rather, he argues that the traffic stop was unlawfully extended
beyond the point when the officer was aware that no traffic
violation had occurred; and therefore violates the second prong of
the Terry inquiry.
Trooper Slubar stopped Valadez for the purpose of
investigating whether the registration sticker on Valadez's vehicle
was valid and to determine whether the window tinting was legal.
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The facts of the case clearly indicate that Slubar realized that
the registration sticker was valid when he made initial contact
with Valadez. However, Slubar was still uncertain as to the
legality of the window tinting. Thus, the only remaining purpose
of the investigative stop was to determine whether the window
tinting was illegal.
The government provides no evidence of any articulable,
reasonable suspicion or probable cause that would have authorized
Slubar to continue to detain Valadez once Slubar had determined
that the window tinting was legal. The Fifth Circuit cases cited
by the government in support of its proposition that Slubar was
allowed to continue the stop pending the results of the computer
checks can be distinguished from the case at hand. See Dortch, 199
F.3d at 198; Shabazz, 933 F.2d at 438. In those cases, the
officers that requested the computer checks had articulable,
reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing that justified the continued
detention of the drivers pending the results of the computer
checks. See Dortch, 199 F.3d at 195-96 (observing driver
“traveling too close to a tractor-trailer” in a vehicle “rented to
a third party” and not being “listed as an authorized driver”);
Shabazz, 933 F.2d at 438 (observing driver and passenger “exceeding
the speed limit” and giving “conflicting answers concerning their
recent whereabouts”).
In the instant case, however, there is simply no evidence to
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support a claim of reasonable suspicion beyond that which led to
the initial stop. Further detention was not lawful after the point
at which the purposes of the stop was resolved -- that is, when
Officer Slubar determined that Valadez had a proper inspection
sticker and proper window tinting. There was then no further
reason to detain Valadez, and all that followed thereafter
contravened Valadez’s Fourth Amendment rights. Therefore, because
the relevant period of lawful detention at issue expired, all
evidence that followed, including Valadez’s responses to the
questions, his guns, and his criminal record should be suppressed.
V. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court's
ruling denying Valadez's motion to suppress, vacate the judgment
and sentence below, and remand for such proceedings as may be
necessary but not inconsistent with this opinion.
ENDRECORD
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GARWOOD, Circuit Judge, concurring.
I concur in Judge DeMoss’s good opinion with these additional
observations.
The government, of course, has the burden of justifying a
warrantless detention. Here there is no sufficient evidence that
a computer check was ever requested with respect to the validity of
Valadez’s driver’s license or vehicle registration and the evidence
clearly shows that it was not Officer Slubar’s routine practice to
run any computer checks on vehicles stopped for traffic violations.
As I see it, then, the ruling below can only be sustained if we
were to hold that detention may lawfully be extended, beyond the
time it has become apparent there is neither probable cause nor
reasonable suspicion the detained party has committed any offense,
to await the results of a previously requested, non-routine
criminal history check. For the reasons stated by Judge DeMoss, I
agree that we may not so hold.
I note, however, that arguably different considerations should
apply to brief additional detention (after there is no longer any
probable cause or reasonable suspicion of any violation) to await
results of a driver’s license or vehicle registration check which
was requested while there was probable cause or reasonable
suspicion, particularly if the request was pursuant to a standard
operating procedure. The Supreme Court has indicated that in
calculating Fourth Amendment reasonableness, in the context of
vehicle stops and resulting brief detentions, the interests of the
state tend to be weighed more heavily, and those of the motorist
less heavily, where the subject matter concerns the privilege of
driving on the highway, see Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz,
110 S.Ct. 2481 (1990); Delaware v. Prouse, 99 S.Ct. 1391(1979),
and, conversely, that the interests of the state are weighed less
heavily, and those of the motorist more heavily, where the subject
matter is “the general interest in crime control.” City of
Indianapolis v. Edmond, 121 S.Ct. 447, 453 (2000). A criminal
history check, unlike a driver’s license or vehicle registration
check, clearly relates only to “the general interest in crime
control.” Of course, Prouse precludes individualized stops (not
based on reasonable suspicion) even to check on licenses and
vehicle registration, and Edmond precludes fixed point type stops
aimed at general narcotics crime control. But, here the stop was
concededly lawful, and it is the stop which constitutes the
principal intrusion on the interests of the motorist. The
additional invasion of those interests occasioned by briefly
prolonging the detention is comparatively minimal. And, the
minimal extent of an intrusion into the motorist’s interests is
certainly a factor tending to support (though concededly not always
sufficient to require) a determination of Fourth Amendment
reasonableness. See Sitz, 110 S.Ct. at 2486-87.
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