United States v. Jacquez

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS July 9, 2008
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
No. 06-2026
v. (D. New Mexico)
DOMINIC JACQUEZ, (D.C. No. 04-1208 JB)
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HENRY, Chief Judge, BALDOCK, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges.
Dominic Jacquez pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute
methamphetamine, use of a firearm in connection with a drug trafficking offense,
and use of a residence to distribute methamphetamine. The plea agreement
provided that Mr. Jacquez could appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to
suppress evidence the government directly and indirectly derived from the traffic
stop that led to his arrest. Mr. Jacquez argued that his detention violated his
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures because the deputy
who pulled him over had mistakenly concluded he was driving a vehicle
registered to an individual for whom there existed an arrest warrant. After a
hearing, the district court denied Mr. Jacquez’s motion. Because we conclude
that the detention was based on the deputy’s reasonable suspicion of criminal
activity, we conclude that the officer’s actions did not violate Mr. Jacquez’s
Fourth Amendment rights. Taking jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm
the decision of the district court.
I. BACKGROUND
On April 8, 2004, a confidential informant reported to Deputy Connie
Johnston, a member of the San Juan County, Sheriff’s Department, that someone
had driven a black Cadillac Escalade away from a local residence known to be
associated with drug activity. The tipster also provided the deputy with the
license plate number of the vehicle. Deputy Johnston’s search of a database
revealed that the vehicle was registered to an individual named Tommy Largo.
Deputy Johnston relayed this information to fellow deputy Brian Dennis. She did
not provide Deputy Dennis with Tommy Largo’s date of birth or a physical
description of him.
Later that day, Deputy Dennis, who had never encountered Tommy Largo
and had no identifying information for him, observed the black Escalade parked at
a gas station in Farmington, New Mexico. An unidentified male stood near the
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vehicle, pumping gas. Deputy Dennis confirmed that the license plate on the
vehicle matched the number Deputy Johnston had given him. Then, using a
computer in his cruiser, he entered the name Tommy Largo into a database and
ascertained that there was an outstanding warrant for the arrest of an individual
named Tommy Largo.
Deputy Dennis pulled the Escalade over shortly after it exited the gas
station. Unbeknownst to Deputy Dennis, the vehicle had two occupants, neither
of whom was Tommy Largo. In fact, Mr. Jacquez was driving the Escalade, and a
woman named Veronica Gallegos occupied the passenger seat. Tommy Largo, the
registered owner of the vehicle, was an elderly man who had no outstanding
warrants for his arrest. The Tommy Largo for whom the warrant was issued was
considerably younger than the owner of the vehicle and had no association with
the vehicle or its occupants.
After approaching the vehicle, Deputy Dennis asked Mr. Jacquez to
produce his driver’s license. Mr. Jacquez handed Deputy Dennis an identification
card, stating that he had a driver’s license but could not find it. Mr. Jacquez also
admitted that he did not own the vehicle; he reported that he had borrowed from
someone named “Mike” and had only been in possession of it for two hours. He
would not, or could not, inform Deputy Dennis of Mike’s last name. Three other
deputies soon joined Deputy Dennis. Once again using his cruiser’s computer,
Deputy Dennis learned that Mr. Jacquez’s driver’s license was suspended and that
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there were two warrants for his arrest. After verifying the existence of the
warrants, Deputy Dennis informed Mr. Jacquez that he was under arrest and
placed him in custody.
After being placed under arrest, Mr. Jacquez was handcuffed and searched.
Pursuant to the San Juan County Sheriff’s written policy, Deputy Dennis ordered
the vehicle to be towed. Policy further required that the officers undertake an
inventory search of the vehicle prior to towing. In this case, the inventory search
revealed a fanny pack that contained two digital scales, some rolled up plastic
bags, 83.5 grams of methamphetamine, and documents bearing Mr. Jacquez’s
name. The officers also found a handgun beneath the driver’s seat. At that time,
the deputies placed Mr. Jacquez’s companion, Ms. Gallegos, under arrest. After
being detained at the Farmington Holding Facility, Mr. Jacquez and Ms. Gallegos
were released.
On June 1, 2004, a United States Magistrate Judge authorized a federal
criminal complaint against Mr. Jacquez, based on Mr. Jacquez’s possession of
methamphetamine in April of that year. The next day, New Mexico State Police
officers arrested Mr. Jacquez at his sister’s home, where he had been residing.
Mr. Jacquez consented to a search of the home, where officers found several
guns, methamphetamine, plastic baggies, and scales.
Following the search, a federal grand jury charged him with the following:
three counts of possession with intent to distribute five (5) grams or more of
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methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B); one count
of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, in violation
of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A); and one count of maintaining a place for
manufacture, distribution, and use of controlled substances, in violation of 21
U.S.C. § 856(a)(1) and (b). Mr. Jacquez and Ms. Gallegos filed a motion to
suppress the evidence found in the Escalade as well as all evidence directly or
indirectly derived from that search. In support of the motion, the defendants
argued that Deputy Dennis lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle. After
conducting an evidentiary hearing, the district court denied the motion. Mr.
Jacquez ultimately entered a conditional plea of guilty, reserving the right to
appeal the district court’s determination that the Deputy Dennis’s traffic stop did
not violate his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures.
II. DISCUSSION
When reviewing a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence
allegedly obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, “we accept the district
court’s factual findings unless [they are] clearly erroneous,” and we view the
evidence in the light most favorable to the government. United States v. Holt,
264 F.3d 1215, 1228 (10th Cir. 2001). We review the district court’s legal
conclusions de novo. Id. In this case, the relevant facts are undisputed. We need
only determine whether the district court reached the correct decision as a matter
of law.
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Traffic stops are seizures under the Fourth Amendment, “even though the
purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief.” United
States v. Tibbetts, 396 F.3d 1132, 1136 (10th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks
omitted). We analyze traffic stops under the principles governing investigative
detentions, which the Supreme Court set forth in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1(1968). Id. Thus, a traffic stop is valid under the Fourth Amendment if the
officer had “a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the person seized [was]
engaged in criminal activity.” United States v. Davis, 94 F.3d 1465, 1468 (10th
Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). We consider “the totality of the
circumstances . . . to see whether the detaining officer ha[d] a particularized and
objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing.” United States v. Arvizu, 534
U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (internal quotation mark omitted).
Mr. Jacquez’s sole claim on appeal is his challenge to the legality of the
traffic stop that led to his arrest. He concedes that neither Deputy Dennis nor any
of the other officers who passed information along to him were aware that he was
in pursuit of the wrong Tommy Largo when he stopped the Escalade. Mr.
Jacquez contends, however, that Deputy Dennis’s suspicion was not reasonable
under the circumstances because “[o]fficers had the capability of obtaining further
information from the computers in their units” that would have clarified that the
owner of the Escalade was not the subject of an arrest warrant, but officers failed
to investigate further prior to stopping his vehicle. Aplt’s Br. at 9. The
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government argues that Deputy Dennis’s suspicion of Mr. Jacquez, although
mistaken in this critical respect, was reasonable when viewed in the totality of the
circumstances.
In undertaking our review of the investigative detention at issue, we are
mindful that reasonable suspicion, which is required to support an investigative
detention, does not amount to probable cause, which is required for an arrest. See
United States v. Shareef, 100 F.3d 1491, 1505 (10th Cir. 1996). Reasonable
suspicion “requires considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a
preponderance of the evidence, but something more than an incohate and
unparticularized suspicion or hunch.” Shareef, 100 F.3d at 1505. We have
observed that “[a] mistaken premise can furnish grounds for a[n investigative
detention], if the officers do not know that it is mistaken and are reasonable in
acting upon it.” Id. (quoting United States v. Ornelas-Ledesma, 16 F.3d 714, 718
(7th Cir. 1994) judgment vacated on other grounds, 517 U.S. 690 (1996)). See
also Tibbetts, 396 F.3d at 1138 (“We have consistently held that an officer’s
mistake of fact, as distinguished from a mistake of law, may support . . .
reasonable suspicion necessary to justify a stop.”).
We hold that Deputy Dennis acted reasonably given the information
available to him. As noted above, Mr. Jacquez has acknowledged that Deputy
Dennis did not know of his mistake when he initiated the stop. At the time he
stopped Mr. Jacquez’s vehicle, Deputy Dennis had little, if any, reason to suspect
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the person driving the car was anyone other than Tommy Largo, the subject of an
arrest warrant. Deputy Dennis was also aware that Tommy Largo’s vehicle may
have just come from a residence known to be associated with drug trafficking.
Even if Mr. Jacquez is correct in asserting that officers could have, with
relative ease, done more to discover their mistake prior to the stop, he cannot
prevail here, as Deputy Dennis acted reasonably based on the information he had.
As the Supreme Court has explained, “what is generally demanded of the many
factual determinations that must regularly be made by agents of the government .
. . is not that they always be correct, but that they always be reasonable.” Illinois
v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 185 (1990). Particularly when an officer is reacting
to a “swiftly developing situation,” we will not engage in “unrealistic second-
guessing,” Shareef, 100 F.3d at 1505 (quoting United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S.
675, 685 (1985)).
In Shareef, for example, we held that an investigative detention was
reasonable, even though it was based on a dispatcher’s erroneous conclusion that
there was a warrant for the individual’s arrest. 100 F.3d at 1505. The defendant
in that case, William D. Smith, was initially stopped for speeding but was
detained for an extended period of time because he was mistaken for Karlton
Wilbur Smith, who, in addition to a surname, shared a birthday with the defendant
and was wanted for weapons charges in another state. Id. at 1496-97. There, we
rejected the defendant’s argument that the officer “behaved unreasonably by
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failing to confirm the physical description of the suspect.” Id. at 1505. Similarly,
in United States v. Lang, we found a detention based on mistaken identity to be
reasonable, even though the officer was in possession of a physical description of
the suspect and the defendant and suspect did not have similar appearances. 81
F.3d 955, 966 (10th Cir. 1996). We held the officer’s actions to be reasonable,
notwithstanding his mistake, because he had only a limited opportunity to view
the defendant prior to the investigative detention. Id.In United States v. Tellez, the Fifth Circuit held that a mistaken detention
was nonetheless reasonable under circumstances similar to those before us. 11
F.3d 530 (5th Cir. 1993). In that case, an officer received information that a
parole violator, with whom the officer was familiar, was driving a “black 4 X 4
pickup truck with large tires and a chrome roll bar with attached lights.” Id. at
531. The description did not include a license plate number. Id. Some thirty
minutes later, the officer spotted a truck matching the description. The driver was
not the known parole violator, but there were also unidentified passengers in the
truck, and the officer could not see them. Id. As it turned out, the parole violator
was not in the truck, but Mr. Tellez, a convicted felon in possession of several
firearms, was. Id. In holding that the stop was nonetheless reasonable, the court
emphasized that “[t]he police need not have every identifying characteristic of a
wanted vehicle in make a valid Terry stop.” Id. at 532.
In sum, suspicion need not be supported by completely accurate
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assumptions or a full investigation in order to amount to “something more than an
incohate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch.” Shareef, 100 F.3d at 1505.
Here, Deputy Dennis had more than a hunch when he stopped Mr. Jacquez. Even
if he could have done more to gather information, we are satisfied that he acted
reasonably under the circumstances.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the decision of the district court.
Entered for the Court,
Robert H. Henry
Chief Circuit Judge
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