United States v. Miguel Angel Savellano ( 2018 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
OCT 25 2018
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 17-50406
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
3:17-cr-00372-JLS-1
v.
MIGUEL ANGEL SAVELLANO, MEMORANDUM*
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of California
Janis L. Sammartino, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted August 27, 2018
Pasadena, California
Before: GOULD and BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and HERNANDEZ,** District
Judge.
The United States has interlocutorily appealed the district court’s order
granting defendant-appellee Miguel Angel Savellano’s (Savellano) motion to
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Marco A. Hernandez, United States District Judge for
the District of Oregon, sitting by designation.
suppress. Savellano is charged with transportation of an alien in violation of 8
U.S.C. §§ 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii), (v)(II), and (a)(1)(B)(i). He moved to suppress
evidence that Border Patrol obtained during a motor vehicle stop, arguing that the
agents lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle. On de novo review, United
States v. Camacho, 368 F.3d 1182, 1183 (9th Cir. 2004), we affirm the district
court’s grant of this motion, despite errors in its analysis.
The facts of this case are known to the parties and are not restated here. At
issue is whether Border Patrol officers had a particularized and objective basis for
suspecting the vehicle’s occupants of criminal activity at the time they executed the
stop. United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952, 968 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc). We
consider the totality of the circumstances in making a reasonable suspicion
determination, and individually innocent acts taken together may form the basis of
reasonable suspicion. United States v. Valdes-Vega, 738 F.3d 1074, 1078 (9th Cir.
2013) (en banc).
Here, the district court made legal errors in assessing the weight it would
ascribe to the fact that the vehicle was traveling on County Route S-2, a known
smuggling corridor, at the time of the stop. First, the district court relied on its
determination that Border Patrol agents had decided to stop the vehicle before it
turned onto the S-2. However, we have held that a reasonable suspicion inquiry
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takes into account all events which occur up to the time when the seizure is
effectuated—which, in automotive cases, is when the vehicle is stopped. United
States v. Santamaria-Hernandez, 968 F.2d 980, 983 (9th Cir. 1992). Additionally,
the district court relied on evidence of the Border Patrol agents’ subjective state of
mind. The district court was instead obliged to determine whether the
circumstances of the seizure, viewed objectively, justified the stop. Ashcroft v. al-
Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 736 (2011). Thus, this court must re-balance the totality of the
circumstances inquiry to correct for these errors.
However, this re-balancing does not disturb the district court’s conclusion.
The suspicious factors in this case are as follows: the vehicle was of the size and
type commonly used for smuggling; it left a suspected “stash house” into which
persons that Border Patrol suspected of being undocumented aliens had entered; its
occupants had acted in a suspicious manner outside the suspected stash house; it
proceeded along two known smuggling corridors for 70 miles from Brawley,
California, toward Los Angeles; it traveled at a high rate of speed; the stop took
place near the Mexican border; and the agents involved in the stop had eight to
eleven years of experience. We hold that these factors, without additional
evidence, are insufficient to support a finding of reasonable suspicion. The fact
that the vehicle traveled along two smuggling roads, the I-8 and S-2, is less
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relevant than it may appear because these are two of the only three roads
connecting Brawley to Los Angeles. And aside from speeding, Border Patrol
agents did not testify to any type of suspicious driving. As the district court
correctly posited, “To hold otherwise would support the stop of virtually any
vehicle seen leaving [a suspected stash house], a result that cannot be consistent
with the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Aguilera, 279 F. Supp. 3d 1095,
1098 (S.D. Cal. 2017).
AFFIRMED.
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