U.S. v. Espinoza, Criminal Action No. 05-10060-RCL.

• Decision Date: 15 June 2006
• Docket Number: Criminal Action No. 05-10060-RCL.
• Citation: 433 F.Supp.2d 186
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, v. Benjamin ESPINOZA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

433 F.Supp.2d 186

UNITED STATES of America, v. Benjamin ESPINOZA, Defendant.

Criminal Action No. 05-10060-RCL.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

June 15, 2006.

Robert E. Richardson, United States Attorney's Office, Boston, MA, for United States of America.

Leslie Feldman-Rumpler, Law Office of Feldman-Rumpler, Boston, MA, for Defendant.

ORDER ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE

LINDSAY, District Judge.

The defendant Benjamin Espinoza ("Espinoza") is charged with conspiracy to transport, and transportation of, illegal aliens. Espinoza has moved to suppress certain statements he made to and other evidence discovered by Special Agent Glen Fitzpatrick ("Fitzpatrick") of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") following a stop of a vehicle in which Espinoza was riding on the morning of February 7, 2004. For the reasons that follow, I GRANT the motion and order that the disputed evidence be suppressed.

Some time during the morning in question, Espinoza, a United States citizen, was in the passenger seat of a van that was parked with the engine running in Everett, Massachusetts. Fitzpatrick, in civilian clothes and carrying a holstered firearm, approached the driver's side window, flashed his badge, and identified himself as an ICE agent. Speaking in Spanish, he immediately requested identification from the driver, Ambrosio Villareal ("Villareal"), and then directed Villareal to shut off the engine.

The first matter to be resolved on the present motion is the point at which a seizure occurred. Thereafter, I must determine whether the seizure was justified under the Fourth Amendment.

A seizure may occur without physical restraint. "If an officer, by means of show of authority, even briefly restrains the liberty of a citizen," a seizure has occurred. United States v. Smith, 423 F.3d 25, 28 (1st Cir.2005). The essential feature of a seizure is coercion, as contrasted with voluntary compliance. Id. Thus no seizure occurs merely because an officer approaches a person to ask a question, unless it is objectively reasonable for the person to believe that he is required to stay and answer the question; that is, no seizure occurs unless the circumstances, viewed as a whole, show that the person's freedom of movement was objectively restrained. Id.

I find that, under the circumstances of this case, Fitzpatrick's display of his badge and his command that the engine be shut off was a seizure. Those events, occurring in rapid sequence, objectively restrained the occupants of the van, including the defendant.¹ At the point of the seizure, Fitzpatrick had only the following information.

At approximately 8:30 a.m. on February 7, 2005, Fitzpatrick merged into northbound traffic on 1-93 in Boston at the wheel of an unmarked Ford Expedition. He immediately noticed a white, extended passenger van — "much like a commuter van" — bearing Texas license plates traveling in the same direction. Fitzpatrick remembered that in August, 2004, fellow ICE agents in Massachusetts had intercepted two and perhaps three similar passenger vans that were transporting illegal aliens. When the van exited the 1-93 tunnel, Fitzpatrick was able to see the silhouettes of several passengers through the van's tinted windows.

Fitzpatrick contacted sector communications and discovered that the van was registered to one Jesus Zendejas ("Zendejas") of Dallas, Texas. Fitzpatrick was aware that during a prior investigation, that name had appeared on telephone toll records: a phone subscribed to by Zendejas had received a call from a person suspected of human smuggling.²

The van drove north on 1-93 until it exited the highway and continued to the Revere Beach Parkway in Everett. Fitzpatrick followed the vehicle for approximately 25 minutes. During his surveillance of the van, Fitzpatrick observed no traffic violation. Indeed, he testified that he observed absolutely nothing unusual during his surveillance of the van. After the van pulled off the road and parked, facing a sandwich shop, Fitzpatrick parked 50 feet away and quickly approached the vehicle on foot. At the time he approached, Fitzpatrick knew that the Boston area was not a place commonly associated with the smuggling of undocumented aliens. When he asked Villareal and the defendant for identification, they did not appear nervous or elusive in any way, and they provided appropriate documentation.³ Indeed none of the occupants in the vehicle were reluctant to provide identification. As discussed above, seconds after reaching the driver's window and showing his badge, Fitzpatrick made the seizure by displaying his badge and ordering that the van's engine be turned off.

The seizure here can only be justified if it is found to have been a Terry stop, a brief investigatory stop supported by reasonable suspicion that criminal activity may be occurring. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 2-7, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); United States v. Monteiro, 447 F.3d 39, 43 (1st Cir.2006). The government bears the burden of showing that the purported Terry stop is constitutionally valid. Monteiro, 447 F.3d at 43. Specifically, the government must show that, under all the circumstances as they then appeared, the stop was grounded on a particularized basis for a reasonable suspicion that "legal wrongdoing" was afoot. Id. The detaining officer may draw on his experience and specialized training in making the Terry seizure, "[b]ut the reasonable suspicion standard imposes meaningful limits on temporary detentions." Id. The officer "must be able to articulate something more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or `hunch'" to justify the stop. United States v. Maguire, 359 F.3d, 71, 76 (1st Cir.2004) (quoting United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989)); see also Monteiro, 447 F.3d at 43.

There was nothing in the objective circumstances here to suggest to a reasonable officer in Fitzpatrick's position that criminal activity was afoot. The van was legally registered; there is no...