United States v. James Evans
Opinion
Opinion
Berzon, J.
The United States appeals the district court’s order granting James Evans’ motion to suppress evidence of illegal drugs and a firearm found in a search of his car following a traffic stop. We vacated submission pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Rodriguez v. United States, — U.S.-, 135 S.Ct. 1609 , 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015), and now hold that the officer’s prolongation of the traffic stop to conduct both an ex-felon registration check and a “dog sniff” violated the Fourth Amendment unless the officer had independent reasonable suspicion to support the prolongations. Because the district court did not address whether the officer had such reasonable suspicion, we vacate and remand.
I.
A.
Over the course of 2012 and 2013, Detective Blaine Beard, a Washoe County Sheriffs Deputy assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) task force in Reno, Nevada, received information from two jailhouse sources that Evans was distributing methamphetamine in the Reno-Sparks area. Beard never “confirm[ed]” or “verif[ied]” this information, however, as, according to him, the task force didn’t “have the time at that point to dedicate towards an investigation into Mr. Evans.”