United States v. Aguilar-Zaragoza, 10th Cir. (2003)
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Scribd Government DocsUnited States v. Aguilar-Zaragoza, 10th Cir. (2003)
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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
TENTH CIRCUIT
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
MAR 6 2003
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
FERNANDO AGUILAR-ZARAGOZA,
No. 01-2349
(D.C. No. CR-01-341-LH)
(D. New Mexico)
Defendant - Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
Before OBRIEN, Circuit Judge, McWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, and
ANDERSON, Senior Circuit Judge.
Fernando Aguilar-Zaragoza (the defendant) was charged in a two-count indictment
filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico with conspiracy to
possess with an intent to distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana in violation of
21 U.S.C. 846 and in the second count with possessing with an intent to distribute more
than 100 kilograms of marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(B), and
18 U.S.C. 2. Defendant filed a motion to suppress all evidence seized as a result of a
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of
law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the
citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under
the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
*
traffic stop which occurred in southwestern New Mexico on December 22, 2000, which
evidence, according to the defendant, was seized subsequent to an illegal investigatory
stop conducted by agents of the government. An evidentiary hearing was held on the
motion to suppress, at which time Pierre E. St. Aude, an agent of the United States Border
Patrol, testified at length, and the defendant testified briefly. After the hearing, the
district court denied the motion to suppress, the district court concluding, inter alia, that
the agent had an objective and particularized basis to stop the vehicle in which the
defendant was riding as a passenger. In so doing, the district court enumerated the
various facts which it relied on to reach its conclusion. The defendant thereafter pled
guilty to both counts in the indictment, retaining his right to appeal the district courts
order denying his motion to suppress. Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2). The defendant was later
sentenced to imprisonment for 60 months on each count, the sentences to be served
concurrently, and a term of supervised release of four years. Defendant appeals and
contends that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress. We affirm.
As above stated, the district court in denying defendants motion to suppress
concluded that the Border Patrol agent had an objective and particularized basis to stop
the vehicle. The vehicle, incidentally, was a blue Chevy pickup truck, and the search of
that vehicle disclosed 235 pounds of marijuana in burlap bags which were covered by
bales of hay. As also stated, the defendant was a passenger in the vehicle, which was
being driven by Daniel James Eddy.
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In reviewing a district courts denial of a motion to suppress, we accept the district
courts findings of fact, unless they are clearly erroneous, but the ultimate determination
of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is a conclusion of law which we review
de novo. United States v. McKissick, 204 F.3d 1282, 1296 (10th Cir. 2000), United States
v. Long, 176 F.3d 1304, 1307 (10th Cir. 1999).
The issue in this case is whether the agent had an objectively reasonable suspicion
that the persons in the blue Chevy pickup truck were engaged in criminal activity. If the
agent had such a suspicion, the stop of the other vehicle, assuming there was a stop,
was lawful. In this regard, in United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417 (1981), the
Supreme Court spoke as follows:
Courts have used a variety of terms to capture the
elusive concept of what cause is sufficient to authorize police
to stop a person. Terms like articulable reasons and
founded suspicion are not self-defining; they fall short of
providing clear guidance dispositive of the myriad factual
situations that arise. But the essence of all that has been
written is that the totality of the circumstancesthe whole
picturemust be taken into account. Based upon that whole
picture the detaining officers must have a particularized and
objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of
criminal activity.
The district court, in the instant case, in its order listed all of the facts which it
believed constituted an objective and particularized basis to stop the vehicle. We do
not deem it necessary to repeat here the facts which the court relied on. The parties in
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their respective briefs have itemized these facts with considerable particularity.1 Our
study of the record indicates that the district court did not err in its conclusion that the
stop of the vehicle was reasonable and therefore not unreasonable and prohibited
by the Fourth Amendment.
The present case is, in some respects, quite similar to the recent case of United
States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266 (2002). In that case, the Supreme Court held that, though
each act, of a series of acts, was perhaps innocent in itself, that taken together, they
warranted further investigation, and rejected any divide-and-conquer analysis. In
Arvizu, the Supreme Court re-emphasized that in determining whether there is objectively
reasonable suspicion to make an investigatory stop of a vehicle, the totality of the facts
and circumstances should be considered, not individual facts viewed in isolation, one
from others.
It is on this basis that we affirm the district courts denial of defendants motion to
suppress. Such being the case, we do not deem it necessary to consider whether the
agent, who was driving a marked vehicle, actually stopped the Chevy pickup, or whether
the driver thereof voluntarily stopped his own vehicle on the shoulder of the road and that
the agent simply drove up behind the truck and, at that point in time, turned on his
This case had its origin when the Border Patrol received information from a
reliable informant, a local rancher, that a pickup truck with which he, the informant, was
not familiar had been traveling on highway 338, in an isolated area, with bales of hay in
the rear of the truck. Agent St. Aude was dispatched to investigate the matter.
1
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overhead lights.
Judgment affirmed.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT,
Robert H. McWilliams
Senior Circuit Judge
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