U.S. v. Coronado

• Citation: 480 F.Supp.2d 923
• Decision Date: 16 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 1:06-CR-00267-LY.,1:06-CR-00267-LY.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Roberto CORONADO and Robert Ray Sanchez.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Texas

480 F.Supp.2d 923

UNITED STATES of America v. Roberto CORONADO and Robert Ray Sanchez.

No. 1:06-CR-00267-LY.

United States District Court, W.D. Texas, Austin Division.

March 16, 2007.

Ashley Chapman, U.S. Attorney's Office, Austin, TX, for USA, Plaintiff.

Ronald Perry Guyer, Attorney at Law, San Antonio, William H. Ibbotson, Federal Public Defender's Office, Austin, TX, for Roberto Coronado, Defendant.

Russell David Hunt, Jr., Russell D. Hunt, Jr. Attorney at Law, Austin, TX, for Robert Ray Sanchez, Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO SUPPRESS

YEAKEL, District Judge.

Before the Court in the above styled and numbered cause of action is Defendant

Roberto Coronado's Motion To Suppress Evidence (Clerk's Document No. 32) and the United States's response (Clerk's Document No. 38).¹ On January 25, 2007, this Court held an evidentiary hearing on the motion, after which the parties submitted supplemental briefs with authorities for the Court's consideration (Clerk's Document Nos. 47 & 49). After considering the motion, the testimony and exhibits admitted at the January 25 hearing, including a police video recorded during the stop, the parties' supplemental briefing, the arguments of counsel, and the applicable law, the Court finds that the United States has failed to show that the law-enforcement officer on the scene had a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts based on objective data to initiate a traffic stop based on a violation of Texas's minimumspeed regulations,² and concludes that the motion to suppress should be granted.³

On October 5, 2006, at 11:09 a.m., Round Rock Police Officer Martin Flores stopped Defendants Coronado and Robert Ray Sanchez as they were driving a van northbound on United States Interstate Highway 35 ("IH 35") in or near Round Rock, Williamson County, Texas. As a result of the traffic stop and subsequent search of the van, police officers recovered 11.97 kilograms of cocaine. Coronado and Sanchez were each charged by indictment with one count of conspiring to possess, with the intent to distribute, five kilograms or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841, 846. Coronado filed a motion to suppress, adopted by Sanchez, contending: (1) that the traffic stop was pretextual; (2) Flores lacked a reasonable suspicion to stop the van; (3) the search of the van was warrantless; and (4) the arrest of Coronado and the search of the van were made without probable cause and in violation of the Fourth Amendment. U.S. Const. amend. IV; see United States v. Brigham, 382 F.3d 500, 506 (5th Cir.2004). Defendants seeks to suppress their arrests, the search of the van, and all evidence seized by the United States as a result of the unlawful search and seizure of the van.

Persons have a right "to be secure in their person, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Coast. Amend. IV. A traffic stop is a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979). For a traffic stop to be constitutional, 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. See United States v. Lopez-Moreno, 420 F.3d 420, 430 (5th Cir.2005); see also Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 809-10, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). "This rule provides law enforcement officers broad leeway to conduct searches and seizures regardless of whether their subjective intent corresponds to the legal justifications for their actions." United States v. Lopez-Valdez, 178 F.3d 282, 288 (5th Cir. 1999). Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit precedent make clear that an officer's subjective intentions, have no impact on analyzing reasonable suspicion or probable cause because both are based on an objective test. See Lopez-Moreno, 420 F.3d at 432. Thus, "[s]o long as a traffic law infraction that would have objectively justified the stop had taken place, the fact that the police officer may have made the stop for a reason other than the occurrence of the traffic infraction is irrelevant for purposes of the Fourth Amendment." Id. (quoting Goodwin v. Johnson, 132 F.3d 162, 173 (5th Cir.1997)); see also Whren, 517 U.S. at 813, 116 S.Ct. 1769 (concluding that pretextual traffic stop for minor traffic infraction was constitutional because "the fact that the officer does not have the state of mind which is hypothecated by the reasons which provide the legal justification for the officer's action does not invalidate the action taken as long as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify that action").

In determining the reasonableness of a search or seizure, a two-part inquiry is made. First a determination that "the officer's action was justified at its inception," and, if so, whether any continued intrusion is "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19-20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). "Reasonable suspicion requires more than a mere unparticularized hunch, but considerably less than proof by a preponderance of the evidence." United States v. Ceniceros, 204 F.3d 581, 584 (5th Cir.2000).

Flores testified about his experience as a police officer and the circumstances related to the traffic stop of Defendants. Flores has been a police officer for six years and currently serves as an interdiction officer, who works with a canine partner. Together, they are part of a narcotics task force assigned to the Round Rock Police Department's Traffic Operations Task Force. Although Flores's patrol car is unmarked, in that it lacks lettering and a row of lights on the roof, it is conspicuously a police vehicle. It has red and blue lights mounted on the front and back of the car and is equipped with a siren and video equipment. Flores regularly patrols sections of IH 35 in Round Rock. Flores explained that IH 35, between the Texas-Mexico border at Laredo through Texas to Minnesota, is a known drug-trafficking corridor. Flores has received specialized training related to interdiction, particularly with regard to the transportation of illegal drugs or stolen property. Flores has made numerous interdiction traffic stops in which, police officers have seized substantial amounts of controlled substances, and, indeed, that is what occurred this day.

On October 5, 2006, at 11:09 a.m., the weather clear, Flores was patrolling on IH 35 near mile marker 257 or 256 when he noticed a dark blue Chevrolet van driving northbound in the left, inside, or fast lane. Flores, who was traveling in the lane immediately to the right of the left, inside lane, noticed the van because as it passed Flores, the passenger in the van, later identified as Coronado, turned, smiled, and waved at Flores. Flores testified that to him this behavior seemed unusual, so he increased his speed to catch up to the van. Traffic was significant, as is the norm for that section of IH 35. No signs designating construction zones or reduced-speed zones were present, and no emergency conditions existed. The posted speed limit was sixty-five miles per hour and there were no minimum-speed signs.

Flores had to increase his speed in the middle lane to catch up to the van, and when he got close enough to read the van's license plate, he called dispatch to check it. Although there is no evidence of the speed of the van traveling in the left, inside lane, Flores testified that the van was traveling in the regular flow of traffic. At this point, only Coronado's smile and wave had raised Flores's attention. Dispatch reported back to Flores that the van was registered to a woman in Del Rio, Texas, on the border with Mexico. Flores, based on his experience, knows that Del Rio is a source city for illegal narcotics brought into the United States from Mexico. Flores caught up to the van and observed that it continued in the left, inside lane, but that it decelerated to a speed of fifty-three miles per hour, twelve miles under the posted sixty-five mile-per-hour limit. Flores testified that he believed that the van's deceleration caused an impediment in the traffic flow in violation of Texas's minimum-speed regulations, because Flores observed approximately fifteen to twenty vehicles back up behind the van in the left, inside lane. See Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 545.363(a) (West 1999).⁴ Flores determined he had probable cause to make an investigatory traffic stop of the van for violating Texas's minimum-speed regulations. He quickly decided to make a traffic stop of the van and turned on his police lights, which activated the video camera in his patrol car.

As the video begins, Flores's police lights are on, and both his vehicle and the van are in the center lane, with the van moving toward the right lane. Soon after, the van stops on the right-hand shoulder of the highway. The van executed the movement to the shoulder safely. Whatever occurred before Flores activated his police lights is not depicted on the video. Thus, the van's deceleration and the back up of fifteen to twenty vehicles, is not depicted on the video. What is depicted at the beginning of, the video, is five cars passing Flores in the left, inside lane.

By their motion, Defendants contend that Flores's traffic stop was a pretextual traffic stop, because there is no evidence to support an analysis that Flores stopped the van based on a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, rather all that is at issue is, whether Flores properly stopped the van based on a violation of the minimum-speed regulations. The United States responds that in viewing the totality of the circumstances, the facts reflect that Flores had a sufficient reasonable suspicion for making the traffic stop of the van. The United States contends that Flores...