U.S. v. Heredia-Castillo

• Decision Date: 14 April 1980
• Docket Number: A,HEREDIA-CASTILL,No. 79-1402,79-1402
• Citation: 616 F.2d 1147
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Pedroppellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1147

616 F.2d 1147

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Pedro HEREDIA-CASTILLO, Appellee.

No. 79-1402.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

April 14, 1980.

Patty Merkamp Stemler, Washington, D. C., argued, for appellant; Marvin K. Shurtliff, U. S. Atty., Boise, Idaho, Mary S. Hobson, Asst. U. S. Atty., Boise, Idaho, on brief.

James F. Kile, Boise, Idaho, for appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Idaho.

Before MERRILL and FARRIS, Circuit Judges and BONSAL ^*, District Judge.

FARRIS, Circuit Judge:

Appellee Heredia-Castillo was indicted for use of a forged immigration document in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1426(b). The United States District Court for the District of Idaho granted Heredia-Castillo's motion to suppress the forged document on the ground that it was seized during the course of an unconstitutional investigatory stop and ordered suppression of certain statements made at the time of the document's surrender. After denying the government's request for a stay pending an appeal of the suppression order, the district court dismissed the indictment because of the government's failure to prosecute. The government has appealed both the suppression order and the dismissal of the indictment. We affirm.

Immigration Agent John Nygaard and a partner, while patrolling an area south of Nampa, Idaho, observed an automobile coming from a section of the Maurice Clements Ranch. Both the driver and his sole passenger, appellee Heredia-Castillo, appeared to be of Mexican descent. The Maurice Clements Ranch was well known among immigration agents as a refuge for illegal aliens. Agent Nygaard had arrested several aliens there earlier the same day. A number of other persons, believed by Nygaard to be illegal aliens, had escaped.

As the agents turned to follow the car in which Heredia-Castillo was riding, it appeared to swerve and speed up. By the time the agents had completed their turn, however, the subject car was traveling at normal speed. The agents followed the car for half an hour during which time nothing suspicious happened. When they pulled alongside the car, Agent Nygaard recognized the driver as a man whom he had once arrested as an illegal alien. He recalled that the driver had a brother and suspected that the passenger might be that brother. Nygaard signalled to the driver to pull over. Nygaard's partner briefly questioned the driver and found that he was legally in the United States. Nygaard then questioned Heredia-Castillo about his national origin and the legality of his presence in this country. He asked to see Heredia-Castillo's immigration papers and, upon inspection, determined them to be counterfeit. Heredia-Castillo was then arrested.

DISCUSSION

The district court granted Heredia-Castillo's motion to suppress the counterfeit documents on the grounds that the initial stop of the car was unconstitutional because it was not based on a "founded suspicion" that the car contained illegal aliens. If the district court was correct in finding the initial stop unconstitutional, then suppression was mandated since surrender of his immigration papers was a direct product of the stop. Even if the district court erred in concluding that the agents had an insufficient basis to stop the car, the decision to suppress must nonetheless be affirmed if the agents, after determining the driver to be legally documented, had no independent basis reasonably to suspect the legality of his passenger, Heredia-Castillo.

I. The Legality of the Initial Stop.

As we noted in United States v. Rocha-Lopez, 527 F.2d 476, 477 (9th Cir. 1976), the "founded suspicion" standard applied by courts in this circuit to test the legality of investigatory stops is substantially the same as the "reasonable suspicion" test enunciated in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975). The Court in Brignoni-Ponce held that "officers on roving patrol may stop vehicles only if they are aware of specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, that reasonably warrant suspicion that the vehicles contain aliens who may be illegally in the country." Id. at 884, 95 S.Ct. at 2582. The district court found that the arresting immigration agents did not articulate sufficient facts to support a reasonable suspicion that the car's driver was an illegal alien. We disagree.

The Court in Brignoni-Ponce held that appearance of Mexican ancestry was, without more, insufficient to justify an investigatory stop. Id. at 887, 95 S.Ct. at 2583. The Court made clear, however, that "(t)he likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor." Id. In the instant case, the agents' suspicion was based on several facts in addition to the passengers' Mexican appearance. It is uncontroverted that the immigration agents first spotted the subject car as it was coming from a section of the Maurice Clements Ranch, a known refuge for illegal aliens. It is further uncontroverted that Agent Nygaard, earlier the same day, had arrested several illegal aliens at that ranch. Several other persons who appeared to be aliens had escaped, some on foot and at least one by automobile. Most importantly, it is uncontroverted that Agent Nygaard recognized the driver as a man he had previously arrested for being illegally in the country.

Heredia-Castillo argues that the district court may have discredited Agent Nygaard's testimony that he suspected the driver had again illegally entered this country. This contention overlooks the district court's express finding that the only reason the agents stopped the car was their belief that the driver was an illegal alien. The immigration agents articulated sufficient suspicious facts to warrant...