United States of America v. Jose Antonio Chavez

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
_________________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JOSE ANTONIO CHAVEZ,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 19-4121
(D.C. No. 2:18-CR-00085-DN-1)
(D. Utah)
_________________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
_________________________________
Before PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge, LUCERO, Senior Circuit Judge, and CARSON,
Circuit Judge.
_________________________________
Leading law enforcement on a high-speed chase in Utah can provide officers
with probable cause to arrest the driver. And subject to the “automobile exception”
to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, law enforcement officers can then
search that vehicle for contraband. Here, Defendant Jose Antonio Chavez fled the
scene of a lawful traffic stop and led officers on a high-speed chase for sixty or so
miles. Law enforcement officers ended the chase, searched Defendant’s vehicle, and
found methamphetamine. After a grand jury indicted him, Defendant at first pleaded
not guilty. But after the suppression hearing and denial of his motion, he
* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines
of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for
its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. Appellant P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
September 28, 2021
Christopher M. Wolpert
Clerk of Court
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conditionally pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance with intent to
distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), reserving his right to appeal the
district court’s denial of his motion. Defendant now appeals the district court’s
denial of his motion to suppress evidence of methamphetamine confiscated from his
rental vehicle. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
I.
Utah State Highway Trooper Adam Gibbs (“Trooper Gibbs”), sat in the
median on I-15 when at around 11:44 pm he began traveling northbound behind
Defendant. After Trooper Gibbs started driving, he noticed Defendant tailgating a
semi-truck. This caught Trooper Gibbs’s attention. Trooper Gibbs observed
Defendant lawfully move to the left lane. Defendant then quickly moved back into
the right lane, but in doing so, he failed to signal for a full two seconds as Utah law
requires. Observing the traffic violation, Trooper Gibbs initiated a stop. Defendant
pulled over after passing the next exit ramp.
Defendant’s decision to pull over after the exit ramp appeared odd to Trooper
Gibbs. So too did Defendant’s readiness with his driver’s license upon Trooper
Gibbs’s passenger-side approach to the vehicle. Trooper Gibbs then requested the
other standard documents—insurance and vehicle registration—and learned the
vehicle was a rental. So Trooper Gibbs requested the rental agreement. At first
Defendant could not locate the agreement, but he ultimately found it and gave it to
Trooper Gibbs. As the stop continued, Trooper Gibbs’s suspicion grew.
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Trooper Gibbs then requested that Defendant come back to the patrol car to
speed the process along. Defendant declined and stayed with his passenger. He
asked Trooper Gibbs to just write a citation so he could be on his way. Again,
Defendant’s actions seemed abnormal to Trooper Gibbs. Returning to his patrol car,
Trooper Gibbs learned Defendant’s rental agreement had come due ten hours before
in Arkansas. And the rental agreement contained no provision allowing the car to
leave Arkansas. Consistent with his usual practice, Trooper Gibbs started writing
Defendant’s citation. Trooper Gibbs then asked dispatch if any K-9 units were
available. Learning no K-9 units were currently on patrol, Trooper Gibbs radioed
dispatch again to run a background check to verify Defendant had a valid license and
did not have any outstanding warrants. Trooper Gibbs also requested a criminal-
history report. At the time, based on the facts available to him, Trooper Gibbs
suspected Defendant was transporting drugs, so he called dispatch again for a drug-
detection K-9 unit.
While waiting for the background check, criminal-history report, and K-9
unit’s arrival, Defendant exited the rental vehicle and approached Trooper Gibbs’s
patrol car. Defendant told Trooper Gibbs that he had an email to confirm he
extended the rental car for two days. 1 Trooper Gibbs told him he wanted the actual,
updated rental agreement, which Defendant could not produce. As Trooper Gibbs
1 Defendant’s extension email does not exist in the record.
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awaited dispatch’s response to his request for Defendant’s criminal history, the K-9
unit, manned by Officer Moore, arrived.
Officer Moore asked Defendant and his passenger to exit the vehicle. After
several minutes of discussion they refused, but Defendant turned off the engine.
Officer Moore then conducted a free-air sniff while Trooper Gibbs watched, called
the car rental company to confirm the validity of Defendant’s rental car, and awaited
dispatch’s response. Just after Officer Moore completed the free-air sniff, during
which the K-9 alerted the officers to the presence of drugs, dispatch notified Trooper
Gibbs that Defendant had drug charges on his record. At that point, Trooper Gibbs
decided to search Defendant’s vehicle because he believed he had probable cause
based on the dog’s alert and the criminal-history report. Trooper Gibbs approached
the vehicle and explained to Defendant that he had probable cause to believe the
vehicle’s trunk contained contraband. After arguing with Trooper Gibbs about
exiting the vehicle, Defendant rolled up the window and sped away.
Trooper Gibbs and Officer Moore pursued Defendant for about sixty miles
traveling roughly 110 mph most of the way. At two points authorities deployed spike
strips during the pursuit to slow down Defendant, but he evaded them. Finally, two
gravel trucks blocked Defendant, slowing him to 45 miles per hour, at which point,
Trooper Gibbs successfully used his vehicle to stop Defendant’s vehicle. The
officers ordered Defendant and the passenger out of the vehicle and placed them in
custody. The officers then searched the vehicle and found a safe in the trunk. Upon
the officers’ request, Defendant gave the combination to them in exchange for
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permission to give his passenger a kiss. The safe contained ten sealed packages of
methamphetamine.
II.
Defendant appeals a single issue—whether the district court erred in denying a
motion to suppress the evidence obtained from his rental vehicle. “On review of a
ruling on a motion to suppress, we ‘view the evidence in the light most favorable to
the prevailing party and accept the district court’s findings of fact unless they are
clearly erroneous.’” United States v. Goebel, 959 F.3d 1259, 1265 (10th Cir. 2020)
(quoting United States v. Hernandez, 847 F.3d 1257, 1263 (10th Cir. 2017)). But
“[t]he ultimate determination of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment . . . is a
question of law which we review de novo.” United States v. Ross, 920 F.2d 1530,
1533 (10th Cir. 1990) (quoting United States v. Arango, 912 F.2d 441, 444 (10th
Cir.1990)).
III.
Defendant’s argument focuses on whether the district court erred in finding the
scope and duration of Trooper Gibbs’s stop constitutional. We agree with the district
court that Trooper Gibbs had reasonable suspicion to stop Defendant based on his
failure to use his turn signal in accordance with Utah law. And, because the initial
stop was reasonable, the totality of the circumstances facing Trooper Gibbs gave him
and the other law-enforcement officers probable cause to arrest Defendant and search
his vehicle.
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A.
The first question we must answer is whether Trooper Gibbs lawfully stopped
Defendant in the first instance. A traffic stop is an investigative detention governed by
the principles of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S.
348, 354 (2015); United States v. Botero-Ospina, 71 F.3d 783, 786 (10th Cir. 1995). “To
determine the reasonableness of an investigative detention, we make a dual inquiry,
asking first ‘whether the officer’s action was justified at its inception,’ and second
‘whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the
interference in the first place.’” Botero-Ospina, 71 F.3d at 786 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S.
at 20).
1.
Whether an officer’s traffic stop was justified at its inception “requires the
officer to possess a particularized and objective basis for thinking unlawful activity is
afoot.” United States v. Esquivel-Rios, 725 F.3d 1231, 1236 (10th Cir. 2013)
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “But it requires considerably less
than a preponderance of the evidence and obviously less than that required for
probable cause to effect an arrest.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). “To satisfy the reasonable suspicion standard, an officer need not rule out
the possibility of innocent conduct, or even have evidence suggesting a fair
probability of criminal activity.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
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“Equally important, reasonable suspicion can be shown by evidence that is inherently
less reliable in kind than the sort of evidence needed to establish probable cause.” Id.
Utah law requires a person to signal continuously for at least the last two
seconds preceding the beginning of the movement into another lane. Utah Code
§ 41-6a-804(1)(b). Trooper Gibbs started following Defendant after he observed him
tailgating a semi-truck and lawfully change lanes. The dashcam recording shows
Defendant changed lanes again without signaling for two full seconds. Trooper
Gibbs then initiated the stop and activated his lights. Defendant asserts he did signal
for the full two seconds based on the time stamps that corresponded with the signal
blinks.
Even if Trooper Gibbs were wrong about the two-second rule violation,
Defendant’s contention that no reasonable suspicion supported the stop would still
fail. 2 The test for reasonable suspicion does not call for Defendant to have actually
violated the law, but rather, the government need only demonstrate Trooper Gibbs
reasonably believed that Defendant signaled improperly. See United States v. Elkins,
70 F.3d 81, 83 (10th Cir. 1995) (“It is well settled that an investigative stop is
justified where police officers have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the
detainee has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.” (citation and
internal quotation marks omitted)). Trooper Gibbs testified that as a rule of thumb,
2 Although we assume for purposes of our analysis that Defendant is correct,
our independent review of the dashcam recording aligns with that of Trooper Gibbs
and the district court.
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generally two signal cycles are less than two seconds. [Appellant App. at A29, A6].
The district court found based on the time stamp in the video evidence, that
Defendant did not signal for two seconds. Appellant App. at A104. So, even if
Defendant complied with the two-second rule by the barest of margins, the district
court’s finding and the video evidence confirm Trooper Gibbs’s reasonable belief
that Defendant violated the law—thus justifying the stop from its inception.
2.
We must next determine whether the traffic stop lasted longer than necessary.
Generally, an investigative detention may last only so long as necessary to carry out the
purpose of the stop. United States v. Patten, 183 F.3d 1190, 1193 (10th Cir. 1999). The
tolerable duration of a traffic stop “is determined by the seizure’s ‘mission,’—to address
the traffic violation that warranted the stop and attend to related safety concerns.”
Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 354 (citations omitted). “Because addressing the infraction is the
purpose of the stop, it may last no longer than is necessary to effectuate th[at] purpose.”
Id. (alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “Authority for
the seizure thus ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are—or reasonably should
have been—completed.” Id. But an officer’s mission in a traffic stop also includes
“ordinary inquiries incident to [the traffic] stop.” Id. at 355 (alteration in original)
(quoting Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 408 (2005)). Ordinary inquiries consist of
“checking the driver’s license, determining whether there are outstanding warrants
against the driver, and inspecting the automobile’s registration and proof of insurance.”
Id. The mission also includes officer safety. Id. at 356. Traffic stops are especially
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dangerous to law-enforcement officers, so an officer may need to take “negligibly
burdensome precautions” to complete the mission safely. Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 356;
United States v. Holt, 264 F.3d 1215, 1221–22 (10th Cir. 2001) (en banc) overruled on
other grounds as recognized in United States v. Stewart, 473 F.3d 1265, 1269 (10th Cir.
2007). Such a precaution includes requesting a driver’s criminal-history report. Holt,
264 F.3d at 1221. But an officer may not take such a precaution for the sole purpose of
lengthening the stop to allow for “investigation of unrelated criminal activity.” United
States v. Mayville, 955 F.3d 825, 831 (10th Cir. 2020) (citing Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at
356). Thus, our inquiry centers on whether Trooper Gibbs acted reasonably during the
stop. Id. at 832.
Defendant contends Trooper Gibbs completed the stop eight minutes into the
encounter when he finished writing the citation. Defendant insists that Trooper Gibbs
intentionally delayed contacting dispatch to obtain the necessary information because he
testified about several factors that made him suspicious before requesting the records.
We do not ignore that Trooper Gibbs completed the citation before requesting the
criminal-history records. But the timing of the two events does not end the inquiry. And
despite Defendant’s contention that Trooper Gibbs did not reasonably conduct the stop,
we conclude that the totality of the circumstances supports the conclusion that he did.
After approaching Defendant and asking for a current rental agreement (which Defendant
could not provide), Trooper Gibbs completed the citation and inquired about a K-9 unit’s
availability to come to the scene. Dispatch told Trooper Gibbs none appeared to be
available. Immediately following dispatch’s response, Trooper Gibbs requested the
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criminal-history report based on the circumstances presented—which included Defendant
driving a rental car with an expired rental agreement, Defendant’s apparent urge to
quickly end the stop, and Defendant’s implausible description of his travel plans. He
then requested that dispatch help find him a K-9 unit. Trooper Gibbs’s suspicions
prompted these actions—actions we have previously held relate to officer safety.
As noted above, traffic stops present significant danger to law enforcement and
established case law permitted Trooper Gibbs to ask dispatch for Defendant’s criminal
history. See Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 356. Trooper Gibbs’s criminal-history check asked
dispatch to obtain Defendant’s license and warrant information and his criminal-history
report to better understand whether Defendant might engage in violent activity during the
stop. See Holt, 264 F.3d at 1221–22. So Trooper Gibbs acted reasonably by requesting
Defendant’s criminal history under the circumstances presented. And dispatch’s failure
to obtain this information in a more expedient manner was beyond Trooper Gibbs’s
control.
Defendant appears to argue that Trooper Gibbs could have conducted his stop in a
less intrusive or more efficient manner. But the Fourth Amendment does not require law
enforcement to engage in the least intrusive search practicable. See Mayville, 955 F.3d at
832–33 (concluding “the Fourth amendment does not require officers to use the least
intrusive or most efficient means to effectuate a traffic stop”). And the circumstances
presented led Trooper Gibbs to reasonably believe something else was involved. So
Defendant is wrong that, under the facts present here, the Fourth Amendment required
Trooper Gibbs to call dispatch and request a criminal-history report before he finished
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writing the citation and before he called for a K-9 unit. See id. This is especially true
given that the majority of Trooper Gibbs’s activities (i.e., writing a citation, asking for a
K-9, interacting with Defendant over the expired rental-car agreement, and requesting a
criminal-history report) occurred simultaneously or within minutes of each other.
And Defendant’s argument that a criminal-history request must precede a request
for a K-9 suggests a mandatory order for such requests that our precedents do not require.
See Mayville, 955 F.3d at 832–33. Indeed, at the heart of Defendant’s argument is the
latent assumption that an officer is in more danger at the beginning of a stop than toward
the conclusion of a stop. That assumption finds no support in our caselaw. The question
we must ask in cases of this nature is whether the officer acted reasonably under the
circumstances. Here, all things considered, Trooper Gibbs’s request for Defendant’s
criminal history falls within the government’s strong interest in officer safety
outweighing Defendant’s interest in a shorter detention. So we conclude Trooper Gibbs
acted reasonably, and the district court did not err in finding that the traffic stop lasted no
longer than necessary.
3.
We next consider whether Trooper Gibbs’s decision to engage a dog sniff
unconstitutionally extended the stop’s duration and scope. It did not. Defendant insists
Trooper Gibbs intentionally delayed the stop with no legal or factual support to do so.
Timing is central to this determination. As discussed before, Trooper Gibbs properly
requested and awaited dispatch’s report on Defendant’s criminal history to ensure officer
safety. See Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 356; Holt, 264 F.3d at 1221–22. Officer Moore and
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the K-9 unit arrived at around 12:09 a.m., and Trooper Gibbs testified he radioed in to
dispatch to see what returned. At that time, dispatch told Trooper Gibbs they still were
awaiting Defendant’s criminal-history report from the F.B.I. while Officer Moore
conducted the free-air sniff. The dog sniff occurred before Trooper Gibbs received
Defendant’s criminal-history report from dispatch. So the dog sniff did not
unconstitutionally extend the stop’s duration and scope because it occurred while Trooper
Gibbs properly awaited Defendant’s criminal-history report from dispatch—a task related
to Trooper Gibbs’s traffic stop. See Stewart, 473 F.3d at 1270 (concluding that “a
warrantless sniff on ‘the exterior of a vehicle during a lawful traffic stop’. . . do[es] not
implicate the Fourth Amendment” (citation omitted)).
B.
Finally, we must address, given our conclusion that Trooper Gibbs did not
unreasonably extend the stop, whether Trooper Gibbs and other officers ultimately
had probable cause to arrest Defendant and search his vehicle under the automobile
exception. “An officer has probable cause to arrest if, under the totality of the
circumstances, he learned of facts and circumstances through reasonably trustworthy
information that would lead a reasonable person to believe that an offense has been
or is being committed by the person arrested.” United States v. Brooks, 438 F.3d
1231, 1241 (10th Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Dozal, 173 F.3d 787, 792 (10th
Cir. 1999)). And if officers possess probable cause that an arrestee’s vehicle contains
contraband, they may search the vehicle under the automobile exception. Id. “This
Court has repeatedly recognized that a reliable narcotics-detection dog’s alert to a
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vehicle suffices to establish this fair probability.” United States v. Kitchell, 653 F.3d
1206, 1223 (10th Cir. 2011) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “Once
probable cause to search is established, the officer may search the entire vehicle,
including the trunk and all containers therein that might contain contraband.” United
States v. Parker, 72 F.3d 1444, 1450 (10th Cir. 1995).
The totality of the circumstances here establishes that Trooper Gibbs had
probable cause to believe Defendant’s vehicle contained contraband. Trooper Gibbs
testified the dog alerted to the presence of drugs in the trunk of the vehicle. And he
received Defendant’s criminal-history report that revealed a history of drug charges.
When Trooper Gibbs informed Defendant he had probable cause to search the
vehicle, Defendant fled the scene causing the officers to engage in an extended high-
speed chase.
When Defendant fled, he violated Utah law. 3 So the high-speed chase added
to the totality of the circumstances, giving Trooper Gibbs probable cause to arrest
Defendant. See Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 354 (2001) (“If an
officer has probable cause to believe that an individual has committed even a very
minor criminal offense in his presence, he may, without violating the Fourth
Amendment, arrest the offender.”). And under the automobile exception, officers
3 Utah law criminalizes operating a “vehicle in willful or wanton disregard of
[a law enforcement officer’s] signal [to stop the vehicle] so as to interfere with or
endanger the operation of any vehicle or person.” Utah Code § 41-6a-210(1)(a)(i).
Utah also criminalizes an “attempt to flee or elude a law enforcement officer by
vehicle or other means.” § 41-6a-210(1)(a)(ii).
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having probable cause to believe a car contains contraband may search it without a
warrant. See United States v. Oliver, 363 F.3d 1061, 1068–69 (10th Cir. 2004).
Defendant’s flight, the dog alert, and prior criminal history provided probable cause
to search the vehicle for contraband under the automobile exception. See Brooks,
438 F.3d at 1241. For these reasons, we conclude Trooper Gibbs had probable cause
to arrest Defendant and search his vehicle.
AFFIRMED.
Entered for the Court
Joel M. Carson III
Circuit Judge
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LUCERO, Senior Judge, dissenting.
I join the majority panel in all respects save my disagreement on the resolution of
the facts. I would hold that the delay in the process of procurement and arrival of the
canine unit was impermissible as a matter of fact under the standards articulated in
Rodriguez v. United States. 575 U.S. 348 (2015). I would reverse solely on that basis
and thus dissent.
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