U.S. v. Pena-Cantu, PENA-CANT

• Decision Date: 16 March 1981
• Docket Number: PENA-CANT,D,No. 80-1283,80-1283
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jose Mariaefendant-Appellant. . Unit A
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1228

639 F.2d 1228

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jose Maria PENA-CANTU, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 80-1283.

United States Court of Appeals,

Fifth Circuit.

Unit A

March 16, 1981.

H. Lon Harper, Court-appointed, Houston, Tex., for defendant-appellant.

J. A. Canales, U. S. Atty., George A. Kelt, Michol O'Connor, James R. Gough, Asst. U. S. Attys., Houston, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before BROWN, THORNBERRY and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge:

On December 5, 1979, agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Services (I.N.S.) spotted two cars proceeding northeast together on U.S. Highway 59 some twenty miles southwest of Houston, Texas. Because all of the numerous occupants of both vehicles were adult males of Hispanic appearance travelling during working hours without the accouterments of tourists, the agents suspected that they were illegal Appellant moved to suppress his passengers' statements on the ground that the agents acquired the evidence pursuant to an illegal seizure. The district court denied the motion to suppress after a full evidentiary hearing and then, pursuant to stipulated facts, found appellant guilty of transporting illegal aliens in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(2). For the reasons stated below, we reverse the district court's denial of appellant's motion to suppress.

aliens. Four agents in two unmarked vehicles followed appellant and his passengers until they arrived at a Houston residence. The agents parked directly behind appellant's vehicle, identified themselves as I.N.S. agents, and questioned the occupants concerning their citizenship. In response to the agents' inquiries, the passengers admitted that they had entered the country illegally.

A. Seizure

A seizure of a person, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, occurs when an officer of the law takes actions that would induce a reasonable person to believe that he would not be free to leave. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980); United States v. Pulvano, 629 F.2d 1151 (5th Cir. 1980); United States v. Robinson, 625 F.2d 1211 (5th Cir. 1980); United States v. Elmore, 595 F.2d 1036 (5th Cir. 1979). See also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).

Applying this objective standard to the facts of this case, we conclude that a reasonable driver would not feel free to ignore a situation in which several agents pull up directly behind his stationary car, position themselves on both the driver and passenger sides of the vehicle, and proceed to question him while he and his passengers remain within the confines of the car. Since the agents clearly manifested an intention to cabin appellant within his car until he identified himself, an investigatory seizure occurred before the agents discovered the illegal status of his compatriots. See United States v. Bowles, 625 F.2d 526 (5th Cir. 1980); United States v. Robinson, 535 F.2d 881 (5th Cir. 1976.)

B. Reasonable Suspicion

The Fourth Amendment permits roving border patrols to "seize" travellers for the limited purpose of investigating their citizenship if the agent is "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." United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 884, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2581, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975).

Several recent decisions of this Court have established that a key parameter in the suspicion calculus is reason to believe that the vehicle in question has recently crossed the border. See, e. g., United States v. Pacheco, 617 F.2d 84 (5th Cir. 1980); United States v. Lamas, 608 F.2d 547 (5th Cir. 1979); United States v. Ballard, 600 F.2d 1115 (5th Cir. 1979); United States v. Escamilla, 560 F.2d 1229 (5th Cir. 1977). Since the agents in this instance did not testify that they had reason to believe that the vehicles had crossed the border, and since such belief certainly cannot be presumed where the cars were first spotted over 250 miles from the nearest border crossing, we are required to examine charily the remaining facts marshalled by the government to support the agents' suspicions. See United States v. Lopez, 564 F.2d 710 (5th Cir. 1977).

Essentially, the following facts sparked the agents' interest in appellant's vehicle: (1) the travellers were proceeding in a northerly direction away from Mexico toward Houston; (2) the occupants of both cars were adult males of Hispanic appearance; (3) the passengers in the back seat were sitting low as if to avoid detection; (4) the occupants did not look like tourists; (5) the cars were of the type often used by smugglers. ¹ These facts are, however, unquestionably The judgment of the district court is accordingly REVERSED, and the case is REMANDED for entry of an order granting appellant's motion to suppress and for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

insufficient to justify an investigatory seizure. See United States v. Lamas, supra; United States v. Escamilla, supra. This conclusion is fortified by one of the agent's own testimony. Agent James K. Storey testified that he and his colleagues decided to follow these vehicles to their destination rather than stop them on the spot because they did not believe that they had sufficient information to warrant a stop. Trial Transcript at 55, 70. Since there is nothing in the record to indicate that the agents acquired any more articulable basis for their suspicion by the time they finally approached appellant's vehicle, we can only agree with Agent Storey and conclude that the suspicion in this instance fell below that threshold necessary to warrant an investigatory seizure.

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

Because I believe that the Court's opinion today not only is wrong but also establishes unfortunate precedent, I am forced to register a sharp dissent. Although I am not entirely convinced that there was a seizure in this case or that the agents acted without reasonable suspicion, these are not the parts of the Court's opinion which disturb me. Rather, I am concerned by the sweeping effect of the Court's conclusion that Pena-Cantu's motion to suppress should have been granted; a conclusion which essentially cloaks a defendant in a case such as this with immunity from future prosecution.

This case warrants closer examination than that afforded by the Court's opinion. The Court states that at the time the agents initially questioned the driver (defendant) and the passengers in Pena-Cantu's car, the passengers admitted to the agents that they had entered the United States illegally. The Court goes on to state: "Appellant moved to suppress his passengers' statements on the ground that the agents acquired the evidence pursuant to an illegal search."

The Court's statement of the case falls short. Even a cursory examination of the record reveals that these initial statements by the passengers played absolutely no role in the conviction of Pena-Cantu. Rather, the conviction was based entirely on the District Court's consideration of a signed stipulation by Pena-Cantu ¹ which essentially provides that if a named passenger were placed on the stand as a witness that he would testify against Pena-Cantu as to each of the elements of the charge of transporting illegal aliens. ² Since this signed stipulation Actually, the Court's opinion confuses what and whose constitutional rights were violated and who can assert what rights. Even assuming that the constitutional rights of the alien passengers were somehow violated, Pena-Cantu has no standing to, and may not, complain that he was harmed by violation of their rights.

alone was more than sufficient to convict Pena-Cantu, it is obvious that this stipulation, rather than the initial statements by the passengers to the agents, was the true target of the motion to suppress. ³

Even more important, the Government in its case did not use any statements made by the aliens at the time of the seizure by the agents. What and all that the agents obtained was evidence of identity and origin. Actually the agents during the time they were tailing the car saw both the driver and the occupants. Surely no Court would ever hold that an experienced immigration officer is violating anyone's constitutional rights by a continuous close high speed surveillance that revealed the appearance and physical identification of the occupants.

What the constitution protects is the right not to have statements made by the declarant during the unconstitutional restraint used against the declarant. It does not protect that person against the disclosure or use of information obtained by observation by the officers. So far as Pena-Cantu was concerned the only information elicited turned out to be false. He gave the wrong name and subsequent police work established his true name and address. None of this was learned by what anyone either Pena-Cantu or the aliens said during the seizure. But the Court's decision forever seals the lips of those in attendance.

The scope of Pena-Cantu's motion to suppress which this Court today, without qualification, orders must be granted on remand is exceedingly broad, covering "any and all evidence gained or obtained from (the impermissible) actions (of the Government)." The effect of the Court's order is to forever bar the use of the signed stipulation, or indeed the live testimony of one or more of the alien passengers in a subsequent trial of Pena-Cantu. The Court's opinion is disturbing not only because, for all practical purposes, it provides Pena-Cantu with immunity from future prosecution. Even more so, the Court orders this result without first making any independent examination of the signed...