United States v. Arvizu: Supreme Court Upholds Validity of Border Patrol Stop

IMMIGRATION LAW & POLICY

Arrest and Detention

UNITED STATES V. ARVIZU: SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS VALIDITY OF BORDER PATROL STOP
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 16, No. 1, February 28, 2002

In a unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court has overturned a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that had found a Border Patrol vehicle stop to be unreasonable and in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Court found that the Ninth Circuit, in separately analyzing each of the factors that were asserted to justify the stop, utilized an improper methodology that failed to fully take into account the "totality of the circumstances" under which the stop was made. The Court concluded that the totality of the circumstances supported the finding that the Border Patrol agent had reasonable suspicion to believe that the defendant was engaged in illegal activity.

The decision comes on appeal from a district court's denial of a suppression motion in a criminal case. The stop in question occurred when the defendant, a Mr. Arvizu, was driving a minivan on a little-used road in the Coronado National Forest near Douglas, Arizona, with his sister and her three children. A Border Patrol agent, Officer Stoddard, stopped the van after making a number of observations, listed below, that led him to suspect that the defendant was engaged in illegal activity. After stopping the van, Stoddard asked Arvizu if he could look around the van, and Arvizu agreed. Stoddard then opened the van's sliding door, at which point he noticed a black duffel bag in the back and smelled marijuana. He opened the bag and found marijuana, and Arvizu was charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

At a suppression hearing in district court, Arvizu contended that Stoddard did not have reasonable suspicion to stop the minivan, and that he (Arvizu) had not voluntarily consented to the search of the van. The court denied both motions. The court relied on a number of factors to find that Stoddard's decision to stop the van was based on reasonable suspicion: (1) the road on which the van was traveling was known to be used by smugglers seeking to avoid the Douglas Border Patrol checkpoint; (2) the van was traveling through the area within an hour of a Border Patrol shift change, at a time that knowledgeable smugglers would be aware that agents were heading back to the office and not patrolling; (3) a minivan was stopped on the same road several weeks previously and was found to contain drugs; (4) Stoddard knew that minivans were a type of vehicle used by smugglers, and he did not recognize the minivan as a local car; (5) when the minivan approached Stoddard's parked vehicle it slowed down; (6) Arvizu appeared to Stoddard to be rigid and stiff, and he did not look at Stoddard as he passed him, whereas in that area most drivers give agents a friendly wave; (7) the children's knees were raised, indicating that their feet were resting on something on the floor of the van; (8) after the van passed Stoddard and he began to follow in his vehicle, the children began waving at him in a mechanical and abnormal manner that suggested to Stoddard that they had been instructed to do so; (9) the van turned onto a dirt road that, although passable for vans, more commonly was used by four-wheel-drive vehicles; and (10) when Stoddard radioed for a registration check, he found that the van was registered to an address in Douglas that Stoddard recognized as a neighborhood commonly used by smugglers. Stoddard appealed the denial of the suppression motions.

On appeal, a panel of the Ninth Circuit found that some of the factors on which the district court relied were not relevant or appropriate and that the other factors were not sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion. The court found the fact that Arvizu slowed the minivan after spotting a law enforcement vehicle to be "an entirely normal response that is in no way indicative of criminal activity." The court found the fact that Arvizu did not acknowledge Stoddard to be of "questionable value" that would be relevant only if some special circumstances made avoidance improbable. And the court found the odd waving of the children to be irrelevant, noting that "if a driver's failure to wave at an officer provides no support for a determination to stop a vehicle, it would be incongruous to say that the vehicle could be stopped because children who were passengers in the car did wave."

The court found that many of the other factors on which the district court relied carried little weight and were subject to innocent explanation, and concluded that the totality of the circumstances did not justify the stop. The court also concluded that the illegal stop tainted the subsequent search such that it could not be considered consensual. The government then sought review in the Supreme Court.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court rejected the methodology used by the Ninth Circuit to evaluate whether the stop was based on reasonable suspicion, finding that the lower court's "evaluation and rejection of seven of the listed factors in isolation from each other does not take into account the 'totality of the circumstances.'" The Court noted that the fact that there could be an innocent explanation for an observation does not mean that it is entitled to no weight. The Court also criticized the lower court for failing to give "due weight to the factual inferences drawn by the law enforcement officer and District Court Judge." Thus, the Court considered that the Ninth Circuit's refusal to give weight to Stoddard's observation that Arvizu slowed down upon spotting Stoddard's vehicle failed to account for the fact that such conduct may be more suspicious in an empty desert than on a freeway in a major city. The Court found that the lower court's dismissal of the observation that Arvizu failed to acknowledge Stoddard ignored Stoddard's "specialized training and familiarity with the customs of the area's inhabitants," who commonly waved to him. And the Court also found that Stoddard's assessment of the children's odd mechanical waiving was entitled to some weight. The Court concluded that, while each factor "is susceptible to innocent explanation, and some factors are more probative than others," when considered together "they sufficed to form a particularized and objective basis for Stoddard's stopping the vehicle."

United States v. Arvizu, No. 00-1519 (Supreme Court, Jan. 15, 2002).