United States v. Burciaga

• Decision Date: 25 July 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11–2109.,11–2109.
• Citation: 687 F.3d 1229
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Francisco BURCIAGA, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

687 F.3d 1229

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Francisco BURCIAGA, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 11–2109.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

July 25, 2012.

Joshua S. Johnson, Appellate Section, Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Lanny A. Breur, Assistant Attorney General, Gregory D. Andres, Acting Deputy AssistantAttorney General, and Richard A. Friedman, Appellate Section, Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., and Kenneth J. Gonzales, United States Attorney, and C. Paige Messec and Jon K. Stanford, Assistant United States Attorneys, Albuquerque, NM, with him on the brief) for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Teresa M. Duncan, Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Ives & Duncan, Albuquerque, NM, for Defendant–Appellee.

Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, and BALDOCK and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges.

BALDOCK, Circuit Judge.

Where “other traffic may be affected,” § 66–7–325 of the New Mexico Statutes requires a motorist changing traffic lanes to signal “continuously during not less than the last one hundred feet traveled by the vehicle” before the change. N.M. Stat. Ann. § 66–7–325(A) & (B). The New Mexico Supreme Court has construed § 66–7–325 to require “a signal even when there is only a reasonable possibility that other traffic may be affected by the signaling driver's movement.” State v. Hubble, 146 N.M. 70, 206 P.3d 579, 584 (2009). The broader question in this case is whether a New Mexico highway patrol officer lawfully stopped Defendant Francisco Burciaga's vehicle based on a suspected violation of § 66–7–325, where Defendant, without timely engaging his directional signal, changed from the left to the right lane on the interstate after passing the officer's patrol car. The district court held the stop violated Defendant's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures because the officer's testimony failed to establish that traffic “could have been affected” by Defendant's lane change absent facts not in evidence. United States v. Burciaga, No. 08–CR–1541–MV, Order at 18 (D.N.M., filed May 2, 2011) (unpublished) (hereinafter Burciaga). Consequently, the court granted Defendant's motion to suppress over 17 kilograms of heroin recovered as a result of the stop. The Government appeals pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731. Our review of a motion to suppress based on a claimed Fourth Amendment violation is two-tiered: Considering the evidence in a light most favorable to the prevailing party, we first review the district court's factual findings only for clear error; we then review the court's determination of reasonableness de novo. See United States v. McGehee, 672 F.3d 860, 866 (10th Cir.2012). Mindful of these standards, we hold § 66–7–325 as applied to the facts provided the officer with an objectively justifiable basis for stopping Defendant's vehicle. Accordingly, we reverse.

I.

The Government bore the burden before the district court of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that reasonable suspicion supported the officer's stop of Defendant's vehicle. See United States v. Kitchell, 653 F.3d 1206, 1216 (10th Cir.2011). Consistent with the district court's factual recitation, the record reflects that on June 24, 2008 around 6:00 a.m., New Mexico highway patrol officer John Valdez was patrolling the two northbound lanes of I–25 near Raton, New Mexico. Relevant to our inquiry, Officer Valdez was traveling north in a 75–mph zone when he engaged his emergency lights and pulled onto the right shoulder to check on a maintenance truck moving so slowly that initially it appeared to be stopped. Once Officer Valdez saw the truck was moving, he disengaged his lights and merged back into the right lane of the interstate. At that point, Defendant, traveling in the left lane at a speed of around 75–mph, passed Officer Valdez, as well as the maintenance truck. A semi truck traveled some distance behind. Once “a little ways in front” of Officer Valdez, Defendant signaled his intention to merge back into the right lane simultaneous with the move. Appellant's App'x at 111. Officer Valdez stopped Defendant and ticketed him for failing to timely signal in violation of N.M. Stat. Ann. § 66–7–325:

A. No person shall ... turn a vehicle from a direct course or move right or left upon a roadway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety. No person shall so turn any vehicle without giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided in the event any other traffic may be affected by such movement.

B. A signal of intention to turn right or left when required shall be given continuously during not less than the last one hundred feet traveled by the vehicle before turning.

N.M. Stat. Ann. § 66–7–325(A) & (B).¹ Defendant subsequently consented to the search of his vehicle that uncovered the heroin. A federal grand jury indicted Defendant on one count of possession with intent to distribute over 1000 grams of heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) & (b)(1)(A).

At the suppression hearing, the Government asked Officer Valdez whether the traffic in the vicinity of Defendant's lane change “could have been affected by his improper signal.” Appellant's App'x at 101. Valdez answered yes as part of the following exchange:

A. [S]ignaling properly alerts other drivers of your intentions to change lanes. Other drivers make ... their decisions based on what your signal is going to be.... [I]f you don't give your 100 feet of signal, the other drivers have no idea that you're actually intending on changing lanes.

Q. What's the speed limit on that section of highway?

A. It's 75.

Q. [I]s ... the safety of that failure to signal affected by the speed?

A. Yes. At that speed, in one second, you'll approximately travel about 110 feet.

Q. [W]as [Defendant's] lane change made with reasonable safety?

A. In my opinion, no, because he did not give the 100 feet of signal before changing lanes.

Q. Was speed also a factor in that?

A. The speed is also a factor, and the fact that there was other traffic in the area that would have been affected.

Id. at 101–02. Defense counsel asked Officer Valdez whether a “perceptible effect on the traffic” resulted from Defendant's failure to signal when he changed lanes. Id. at 106. Valdez did not believe so, but said he could not testify as to the affect on the other drivers. He added that “it was an unsafe behavior, to change lanes without signaling properly, and giving the [traffic] behind ... or the traffic around ... ample time to know of [Defendant's] intentions to change lanes.” Id. at 106–07. Valdez further testified his own “ability to drive safely” was not affected by Defendant's lane change but “could have been if I was eithergoing a little faster or if he was, in fact, a little closer ... without giving enough of an alert.” Id. at 119, 136.

Based on Officer Valdez's testimony, the district court ruled the Government failed to prove the officer “had an objectively reasonable suspicion that any of the traffic in the vicinity ‘may have been affected’ by ... Defendant's lane change[ ].” Burciaga at 12. That is to say Valdez, according to the court, lacked “an objectively reasonable suspicion that Defendant violated the turn signal statute when he moved into the right lane in front of the officer's vehicle.” Id. at 17.

Whereas the officer initially stated ... that his own vehicle could have been affected by Defendant's lane change, he subsequently explained that his vehicle could have been so affected only if he had been in a different position on the road....

The New Mexico Supreme Court's language—requiring “a reasonable possibility that [other traffic] may have been affected,” Hubble, 206 P.3d at 585—cannot be construed to mean that a violation occurs when, if the vehicles on the road at the time of the lane change were indeed in different positions on the roadway, they could have been affected.

Id. at 17–18 (brackets in original).

II.

We have no difficulty in this case with the district court's recitation of the facts as reflected in the record. The only issue before us is whether Officer Valdez's stop of Defendant's vehicle was reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Because an objectively justifiable basis for a traffic stop necessarily renders that stop reasonable, the dispositive inquiry is whether N.M. Stat. Ann. § 66–7–325 provided Officer Valdez with such basis.²See United States v. DeGasso, 369 F.3d 1139, 1144–45 (10th Cir.2004). To answer that question, we need look no further than the New Mexico Supreme Court's construction of the statute in Hubble, 206 P.3d 579. No federal or inferior state court “has any authority to place a construction on a state statute different from the one rendered by the highest court of the State.” Johnson v. Fankell, 520 U.S. 911, 916, 117 S.Ct. 1800, 138 L.Ed.2d 108 (1997). Accordingly, we rely on Hubble to construe § 66–7–325, before applying that construction to the facts presented.

A.

In Hubble, the New Mexico Supreme Court addressed the question of whether a county deputy had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant's vehicle based on a violation of § 66–7–325. The state supreme court set forth the following facts:

Deputy Phillip Francisco was driving southbound on County Road 6100 when he observed [d]efendant's vehicle come to a stop at a “T” intersection between County Road 6100 and an unnamed access road. Aside from the vehicles belonging to Deputy Francisco and [d]efendant, there were no other vehicles on either the county road or the access road. As Deputy Francisco passed through the intersection, he observed that [d]efendant did not have his turn signal engaged. Deputy Francisco continuedto observe the vehicle through his rearview mirror as he proceeded southbound and never saw the turn signal engaged. Deputy Francisco then observed [d]efendant turn onto County Road 6100 without using his turn signal.... Deputy...