SHELLY D. DICK, District Judge.
Defendant Joshua Smith ("Defendant" or "Smith") has been charged by Indictment
On February 13, 2013, around 10:38 p.m., Smith's vehicle was stopped by Port Vincent police officer Brant Villenurve, who had observed the Smith's black Acura with the license plate visually obstructed. Danielle Harrell was a passenger in the automobile. Officer Villenurve stopped the car, and Officer Villenurve testified that Smith exited the vehicle rapidly and approached the police unit with his driver's license and insurance card in hand. Smith stated that he did not have his registration but it was later located. Officer Villenurve testified that, during this stop, Smith was sweating and was "choppy in his conversation." Despite this observation, Officer Villenurve testified that he did not feel the need to conduct a safety pat down of Smith. After taking Smith's information, Officer Villenurve returned to the police unit and called in Smith's driver's license to check for outstanding warrants and verify car ownership. It was estimated that within one to two minutes of the stop, Officer Villenurve had verified the license plate, driver's license, and that no warrants were outstanding for Smith. However, based on Officer Villenurve's observations about Smith's nervousness and the passenger "moving around a lot" in the vehicle, Officer Villenurve called for back-up. Seven minutes later, at 10:45 pm, Police Chief Michael Durkin arrived on the scene.
Chief Durkin testified at the hearing that, prior to this traffic stop, he was familiar with Joshua Smith by reputation. Durkin stated that Smith was believed to be a member of the Banditos motorcycle gang and a suspected drug dealer. Upon his arrival, Chief Durkin noticed that the inspection sticker on Smith's vehicle was expired. At this point, the testimony of Chief Durkin and Officer Villenurve somewhat diverges. According to Chief Durkin, when he arrived on the scene, Villenurve was in his police unit and Smith was standing behind the rear of the automobile and the front of the police unit. Chief Durkin testified that he could not recall performing a safety pat down of Smith upon his arrival. Chief Durkin also testified that, when he realized that Officer Villenurve did not have the vehicle's registration, he accompanied Smith back to the vehicle at which point Smith reached in through the driver's side door and retrieved the vehicle registration from the glove box. Chief Durkin testified that he did not recall seeing any movements by
Although he had already received information from dispatch that everything checked out, Officer Villenurve claims he then approached Smith's vehicle in order to retrieve the vehicle registration. Villenurve testified that he recognized the passenger, Danielle Harrell, from having seen her work at Popeye's and did not consider her an immediate threat. While Officer Villenurve testified that it is routine to ask a passenger to exit a vehicle, he did not ask Harrell to step out of the car prior to approaching the vehicle despite allegedly observing her quick movements. Officer Villenurve stated that it was his intent to ask Harrell to retrieve the registration from the vehicle's glove box; however, her alleged movements around the area of the center console made him suspicious of the possible presence of a weapon or narcotics. Based on this suspicion, Officer Villenurve reached over the passenger into the vehicle and opened the center console whereupon he discovered several plastic bags of methamphetamine and other drug paraphernalia. After this discovery, Officer Villenurve ordered Harrell out of the car.
At this point, Villenurve told Chief Durkin to place Smith under arrest, and Villenurve placed Harrell under arrest. A search of the vehicle incident to these arrests later revealed a black leather pouch in the driver's side door panel which contained $15,000 in denominations of one hundred dollar bills.
Smith moves to suppress the evidence obtained in this search, arguing that the officers lacked probable cause to search his vehicle based on the facts of the stop. Smith contends that, having failed to offer proof of registration and due to an obstructed license place, a citation should have been issued, and the traffic stop should have ended. Further, Smith contends the jurisprudence clearly rejects the concept of "search incident to citation," and, therefore, the police needed probable cause to search the vehicle. Additionally, Smith contends that his passenger simply moving her arm did not justify the search to ensure officer safety because it was an "unthreatening" movement.
The Government contends the Defendant's reliance on the Fourth Amendment in alleging a constitutional violation is misplaced because only a standard of "reasonable suspicion" applied during this traffic stop. Further, the Government contends that both Smith's behavior along with the passenger's movements near the console justified the officers' search of the vehicle to ensure that the passenger was not concealing a weapon. Thus, the Government argues the motion should be denied.
Generally, "[t]he proponent of a motion to suppress has the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the evidence obtained was in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights."
The legality of traffic stops is analyzed for Fourth Amendment purposes
Considering the first prong of the Terry analysis, the Fifth Circuit has held that, "for a traffic stop to be justified at its inception, an officer must have an objectively reasonable suspicion that some sort of illegal activity, such as a traffic violation, occurred, or is about to occur, before stopping the vehicle."
In evaluating the totality of the circumstances, a court may not consider the relevant factors in isolation from each other.
The Fifth Circuit has also held that a traffic stop must be justified at its inception: "if the alleged traffic violation forming the basis of the stop was not a violation of state law, there is no objective basis for justifying the stop."
Once a traffic stop has been justified, an officer can lawfully continue a
Both the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit have "emphasized that courts must allow law enforcement `officers to draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that might well elude an untrained person.'"
There is no dispute that the traffic stop at issue was justified at its inception. An obscured license plate is a violation of Louisiana law and justifies a traffic stop. Therefore, in light of the foregoing framework, the Court must examine whether Officer Villenurve discovered the drugs and drug paraphernalia while effectuating the initial purpose of the stop or whether there was reasonable suspicion to justify extending the stop beyond its initial purpose, and whether Officer Villenurve and Chief Durkin's actions unreasonably prolonged the stop.
Under United States v. Brigham,
Officer Villenurve testified that he called for back-up based on the nervous behavior of Smith and his observations that Harrell was "moving around a lot." Chief Durkin arrived seven minutes after this call, arguably five minutes after all of Smith's documentation had been adequately confirmed. The Court is not persuaded that Officer Villenurve's discovery of an expired inspection sticker as he approached the vehicle constituted a "new crime" that created additional reasonable suspicion which justified prolonging the stop. Again, the documentation provided by Smith had checked out, and Villenurve could have simply added the expired inspection tag to the citation for an obscured license plate. Any argument that the expired inspection sticker justified prolonging this stop is unsupported by the testimony of the officers.
The officers' testimony also reflects that Officer Villenurve approached Harrell in the passenger side of the vehicle after Chief Durkin arrived and was questioning Smith at the rear of the vehicle. Officer Villenurve testified that he recognized Harrell as he had seen her working at Popeye's and that he did not consider her a threat to his safety. Officer Villenurve also testified that, although it is routine to ask a passenger to exit the vehicle to ensure officer safety, he did not ask Harrell to exit the vehicle prior to approaching. When directly asked what Officer Villenurve observed when he approached Harrell, he responded: "The passenger? When I approached it I was concerned that she either concealed something in the console or concealed a weapon or narcotics, or something along them lines."
Based on the testimony of both officers and the circumstances as set forth above, the Court finds that Officer Villenurve did not have reasonable suspicion based on "specific and articulable facts" rather than mere "inarticulate hunches of wrongdoing."
More troublesome to the Court is the testimony by Chief Durkin that, upon receiving the call for back-up by Officer Villenurve, Chief Durkin was familiar with
Certainly, the Court acknowledges that patrol officers face potential dangers in every traffic stop, and the Court recognizes the need to ensure officer safety during any routine traffic stop, particularly at night or in a high crime environment. However, the hearing testimony of the officers on the scene in this case undermines any claim that they feared for their safety during this particular traffic stop. Both officers testified that they did not consider either Smith or Harrell as threats to their safety, did not conduct pat downs of either Smith or Harrell prior to their eventual arrests, and did not order Harrell out of the car, as was routine procedure, to separate her from any potential weapon. Additionally, while "furtive gestures or suspicious movements"
For the reasons set forth above, the Defendant's First Motion to Suppress Evidence
