Ramirez

Opinion by Judge O’SCANNLAIN; Concurrence by Judge KOZINSKI.

In this criminal appeal we must decide whether the “collective knowledge” doctrine justifies a warrantless stop of an automobile by one officer at the request of another officer within the same police department.

I

A

This case began with an event in which defendants-appellants Ramon Ramirez and Javier Beltran were not actually involved. On July 8, 2004, police officers in Glendale, California, stopped a Mercury Mountaineer with a California license plate no. 560A975. Its driver was arrested. Officer Kim Lawrence, a 14-year veteran of the Glendale Police Department, ran her drug-detecting dog along and through the vehicle, and the dog alerted to the scent of narcotics. Inside the vehicle the police found a sophisticated secret compartment in the rear cargo area that could be accessed by an electronic release located at the vehicle’s front center console. Sergeant Jack Meier, head of the department’s vice/narcotics detail, and Officer Joseph Allen, a 14-year veteran of the department, witnessed the search.

B

Ramirez and Beltran came to the attention of the Glendale Police Department on July 20, 2004 when officers…

concurring:

I join Judge O’Scannlain’s opinion, but write separately to emphasize what this case is not about. This is not a case where the investigating officers ordered a fellow officer to conduct a traffic stop because they lacked probable cause for a narcotics stop. Sergeant Meier had probable cause to order a narcotics stop, and that’s exactly what he did. He requested that the arresting officer make it look like a “traffic stop” as a safety measure, to prevent the risk of harm to a lone officer trying to make a narcotics arrest before backups could arrive on the scene. But that did not change the nature of the stop, which remained- — in substance — a narcotics stop.

*1038 Concern for the officer’s safety was entirely justified because the evidence suggested that the suspects were seasoned drug traffickers with access to sophisticated equipment to ply their trade. It was not unreasonable for Sergeant Meier to fear that the suspects might use force against the officer who made the stop, had they realized the real reason for it. Thus, disguising the stop as a “traffic stop” was a valid law enforcement tactic calculated to ensure an officer’s safety. The case would, of course,…

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, v. No. 05-50165 RAMON RAMIREZ, aka Monserrat Meza-Ramirez, aka Natividad  D.C. No.

CR-04-01054-ER-

Ramirez, aka Manuel Clavo- Barraza, aka Natividad Vidana Ramirez, Defendant-Appellant. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  No. 05-50181 Plaintiff-Appellee, v.  D.C. No.

CR-04-01054-ER-

JAVIER BELTRAN,

OPINION

Defendant-Appellant.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Edward Rafeedie, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted August 17, 2006—Pasadena, California

Filed January 16, 2007

Before: Alex Kozinski, Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, and Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge O’Scannlain; Concurrence by Judge Kozinski COUNSEL

Craig A. Harbaugh, Deputy Federal Public Defender, Los Angeles, California, argued the cause for the defendants- appellants. Maria E. Stratton, Federal Public Defender, and Sean K. Kennedy, Deputy Federal Public Defender, were on the briefs for…