NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 26 2018
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 16-30207
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.
1:15-cr-00013-SPW-1
v.
MICHAEL SERREL JOHNSON, MEMORANDUM*
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Montana
Susan P. Watters, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 7, 2018
Seattle, Washington
Before: M. SMITH and MURGUIA, Circuit Judges, and ROBRENO,** District
Judge.
Defendant-Appellant Michael Johnson appeals the denial of his motion to
suppress evidence recovered after a traffic stop and a subsequent warranted search
of his vehicle which uncovered, inter alia, methamphetamine. Johnson argues that
the evidence should be suppressed because Trooper Glen Quinnell of the Montana
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Eduardo C. Robreno, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.
Highway Patrol, who pulled Johnson over, extended the traffic stop beyond its
initial mission – to check his sobriety and address his swerving – without
reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.
1. While rulings on motions to suppress and whether reasonable
suspicion existed are subject to de novo review, Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S.
690, 699 (1996), “a reviewing court should take care both to review findings of
historical fact only for clear error and to give due weight to inferences drawn from
those facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers.” Id. As a result,
the de novo review is peculiar and “slightly more circumscribed than usual” in
light of the deference to those inferences. United States v. Valdes-Vega, 738 F.3d
1074, 1077 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc).
2. In general, the duration of a traffic stop “is determined by the
seizure’s ‘mission’ – to address the traffic violation that warranted the stop, and
attend to related safety concerns.” Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1609,
1614 (2015) (internal citation omitted). As a result, “[a]uthority for the seizure [ ]
ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are – or reasonably should have been –
completed.” Id.
Reasonable suspicion to extend the stop beyond its initial mission “exists
when an officer is aware of specific, articulable facts which, when considered with
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objective and reasonable inferences, form a basis for particularized suspicion” of
criminal activity. United States v. Montero-Camargo, 208 F.3d 1122, 1129 (9th
Cir. 2000) (emphasis in original) (en banc). The reasonable suspicion standard “is
not a particularly high threshold to reach.” Valdes-Vega, 738 F.3d at 1078. While it
requires more than a mere hunch, “the likelihood of criminal activity need not rise
to the level required for probable cause.” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266,
274 (2002). It is a “commonsense, nontechnical conception[] that deal[s] with ‘the
factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and
prudent men, not legal technicians, act.’” Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 695 (quoting Illinois
v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 231 (1983)).
Courts “must look at the ‘totality of the circumstances’ of each case to see
whether the detaining officer has a ‘particularized and objective basis’ for
suspecting legal wrongdoing.” Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273 (citing United States v.
Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18 (1981)). Even though a particular observation may
have an innocuous explanation when viewed in isolation, or be less probative than
other observations, the reasonable suspicion evaluation “cannot be done in the
abstract by divorcing factors from their context in the stop at issue.” Valdes-Vega,
738 F.3d at 1078-79.
3. Johnson contends that the traffic stop ended after Quinnell concluded
that he was not impaired. Johnson argues that his detention and questioning
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thereafter violated his Fourth Amendment rights as Quinnell did not have
reasonable suspicion to extend the stop.
4. We have examined, under the totality of the circumstances, the
observations made by Quinnell which the government asserts supported a
reasonable suspicion to extend the traffic stop. We agree that certain observations
by Quinnell, that were undisputedly made before the completion of the traffic stop,
viewed in the aggregate and giving due weight to the factual inferences of the
district court and the troopers on the scene, “sufficed to form a particularized and
objective basis” for Quinnell’s extension of the traffic stop, even though
“[u]ndoubtedly, each of these factors alone is susceptible of innocent explanation,
and some factors are more probative than others.” Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 277-78.
5. The observations supporting Quinnell’s reasonable suspicion of
criminal activity such as drug trafficking, taking into account the totality of the
circumstances, include that: (1) Johnson was driving a long-term expensive rental
vehicle; (2) he was travelling to and from areas associated with drugs along a
common drug route; (3) he was travelling with a significantly younger female
passenger who had no identification, and whom he had only recently met; (4) the
vehicle had several air fresheners (which are sometimes used to disguise the odor
of drugs) despite being pristinely clean; (5) there was a discrepancy between the
fact that Johnson claimed to be a drywaller and the facts that his hands were not
4 16-30207
calloused and the vehicle was clean with no visible tools; and (6) Johnson had
three visible phones in the vehicle, one of which was a flip phone and which
Quinnell inferred was a “pay as you go” TracFone, sometimes used by criminals.
6. In that Quinnell had a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, he did
not violate Johnson’s Fourth Amendment rights by continuing the traffic stop in
order to engage in additional criminal investigation.
AFFIRMED.
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