United States v. Rigoberto Fernandez-Castillo

We are asked to decide whether an officer had a reasonable suspicion that the driver of a car was impaired, justifying an investigatory traffic stop of that car, where: (1) the vehicle had been reported as driving erratically; (2) the officer who stopped the vehicle knew the source of the report; (3) the report described the vehicle in detail, noting the car’s color, make and model, and state license plate; (4) the report was made contemporaneously with the source’s observations of the erratic driving; (5) the officer discovered the car in the area where the report indicated that the car would likely be found; (6) the officer noticed that the driver was sitting very close to the steering wheel, a behavior the officer knew was typical of impaired drivers; and (7) the officer corroborated the report of erratic driving by observing the car weave within its lane. Given the totality of these circumstances, we hold that the district court correctly found, after an evidentiary hearing, the existence of a reasonable suspicion that the operator of the car was impaired and properly held that the investigatory stop of the vehicle was constitutional.

I

On the afternoon of September 18,…

dissenting.

I respectfully dissent. Without ever announcing that it is doing so, the majority’s opinion effectively overrules a significant portion of our prior Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The majority finds that an essentially anonymous tip of allegedly “erratic driving,” “corroborated” only by an officer’s observation of arguably innocent and certainly non-criminal behavior, is suf *1124 ficient to support a finding of reasonable suspicion. In coming to this conclusion, the majority systematically brushes aside our precedent and misstates the facts of this case. In particular, the majority (1) misconstrues our prior case law which requires that when a dispatch does not provide information about the factual underpinnings of a tip, the tip must be treated as anonymous; (2) allows a dispatcher to instruct an officer to stop anyone, at any time, without any stated basis, even if the dispatcher does not have a legally sufficient reason for asking her or him to do so; (3) implies that any state employee, regardless of training or expertise, may be accorded the same deference as law enforcement personnel provided she or he lives in a sparsely populated area; and (4) fails to abide…

324 F.3d 1114 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rigoberto FERNANDEZ-CASTILLO, Defendant-Appellant. No. 01-30398. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted October 8, 2002. Filed April 8, 2003. Robert Kelleher, Jr., Kelleher Law Office, Billings, MT, for the defendant-appellant. Lori Harper Suek, Assistant United States Attorney, Great Falls, MT, and Shelley Hicks, Assistant United States Attorney, Billings, MT, for the plaintiff-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Montana; Richard F. Cebull, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-00-00084-RFC. Before: FERGUSON, FISHER, and TALLMAN, Circuit Judges. TALLMAN, Circuit Judge. 1 We are asked to decide whether an officer had a reasonable suspicion that the driver of a car was impaired, justifying an investigatory traffic stop of that car, where: (1) the vehicle had been reported as driving erratically; (2) the officer who stopped the vehicle knew the source of the report; (3) the report described the vehicle in detail, noting the car's color, make and model, and state license plate; (4) the report was made contemporaneously with the source's observations of…