United States v. Jimenez-Delatorre

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. JOSE JUVENAL JIMENEZ-DELATORRE, Defendant.

Case No. 16-20020-01-JAR

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS

October 14, 2016

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This matter is before the Court on Defendant Jose Juvenal Jimenez-Delatorre's Motion to Suppress Fruits of Illegal Detention and Interrogation (Doc. 12). The Court held a hearing on Defendant's motion on August 9, 2016, at which time the parties presented evidence and oral argument. The Court granted the parties leave to submit supplemental briefs following the hearing. Defendant submitted a supplemental brief on August 23 (Doc. 18), and the Government followed with a responsive brief on September 5 (Doc. 19). The matter is now fully briefed and the Court is prepared to rule. For the reasons stated below, the Court denies Defendant's motion to suppress.

I. Facts

Based on the testimony and other evidence submitted at the suppression hearing, the Court finds the following facts by a preponderance of the evidence. On February 20, 2016, Defendant was a passenger in a car driven by his niece in Lenexa, Kansas. Officer Lane Laffey, with the Lenexa Police Department, saw the car make a wide right turn in violation of Lenexa City Code. Officer Laffey initiated a traffic stop and relayed the license plate tag information to the dispatcher. The dispatcher responded that the license tag belonged to a person from Houston, Texas. Officer Laffey observed that the license plate was indeed a Texas plate.

At approximately 11:37 a.m., Officer Laffey approached the driver's side of the car, and another officer approached the passenger side. Officer Laffey explained the reason for the stop and asked the driver for her driver's license and proof of insurance. The driver produced a Kansas identification card, but did not have a driver's license. The driver explained that she had not been driving long. The driver and Defendant also looked for proof of insurance, but found none. The driver's failure to produce a driver's license and proof of insurance constituted additional violations of Kansas law. The officer who approached the passenger side of the car asked Defendant if he could see his identification. Defendant responded that he had none. The officer then asked Defendant for his name and date of birth, which Defendant voluntarily provided.¹ During this exchange, the officers could see certain tattoos on Defendant's neck and arms.²

Officer Laffey and his partner returned to the patrol vehicle and ran the information that they obtained from both the driver and Defendant through dispatch. This information included the name and date of birth that Defendant provided. The dispatcher ran this information through REGIS, a regional database, and NCIC, a national database. These databases maintain information regarding warrants, criminal history, gang activity, and other information pertinent to criminal investigations. Officer Laffey testified that the process of running information through dispatch usually takes approximately five minutes per person unless dispatch is busy. At approximately 11:46 a.m., dispatch responded that it had a possible match in the NCIC database with the name and date of birth that Defendant provided. Dispatch stated that the passenger, "Jose," was "J-30 out of Texas" based on his name and date of birth, meaning that he had been involved in gang activity in Texas. After confirming that the officers were physically removedfrom the car occupants, dispatch stated that the passenger was an aggravated felon and previously deported. The officers also viewed this information on an in-vehicle computer.

Officer Laffey's partner asked the dispatcher for information on a neck tattoo for the identified person. The dispatcher initially responded "negative," but then explained that the person did have a neck tattoo. However, there was no additional information about this tattoo. The dispatcher then described the following tattoos that were on the identified person:

Right forearm: "Lady Guadalupe"

Left forearm: "Jose"

Right leg: "P"

Left leg: "L"

After receiving this information, between 11:47 a.m. and 11:53 a.m., the officers remained in their patrol vehicle because they were waiting on the dispatcher to provide them with a photograph of the person identified in the NCIC database. At 11:53, the dispatcher asked the officers if they had identified the tattoos on Defendant. The officers responded that they were waiting on the photo from dispatch to positively identify Defendant. After this exchange, Officer Laffey and his partner decided to get Defendant out of the vehicle to look at his tattoos. The officers approached the passenger side of the car and asked Defendant to step out. Defendant obliged and stepped out of the car. The officers asked if they could pat Defendant down, and Defendant responded that they could. The officers also asked Plaintiff to put his hands on his head during the pat down, but did not handcuff him. Officer Laffey proceeded to pat down Defendant. During the pat down, Officer Laffey lifted up Defendant's pant leg and identified the two tattoos on Defendant's legs. Officer Laffey did not ask Defendant before lifting up his pant leg. The officers identified tattoos on both of Defendant's arms, including atattoo of a female, but did not identify whether these were the particular tattoos that the dispatcher described on the person's arms. Officer Laffey asked Defendant where he got all the tattoos, and Defendant responded "in jail." After the pat down, at approximately 11:57 a.m., the officers placed Defendant under arrest.

After contacting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") to inquire about Defendant's status, the dispatcher contacted the officers to ask for a phone number at which ICE could reach them. An ICE agent then contacted Officer Laffey and asked him to further identify Defendant by getting his parents' names. After Officer Laffey relayed that information as well as the descriptions of Defendant's tattoos, the ICE agent explained that they wanted to pick up Defendant. The officers then handcuffed Defendant and took him to the Lenexa Police Department Detention Center. At the Detention Center, officers took photos of Defendant's tattoos and obtained his fingerprints. Officer Laffey explained that these steps are performed as part of the normal booking process with every person who is arrested, regardless of the alleged offense. The ICE agent then came to the Detention Center and took Defendant into ICE custody. ICE later obtained additional fingerprints from Defendant, and used the fingerprints to link Defendant to his A-file.³

II. Discussion

Defendant moves to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of his arrest, namely his fingerprints and A-file.⁴ Defendant argues that (1) the length of the detention was unreasonable; (2) the officers lacked probable cause to arrest him; (3) the arrest was illegal because it wasperformed by local law enforcement officers, rather than ICE agents; and (4) the seizure of evidence was not attenuated from the illegal arrest, and therefore the evidence must be suppressed.

A. Length of Detention

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from "unreasonable searches and seizures."⁵ "A traffic stop is a 'seizure' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, 'even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite brief.'"⁶ "During a traffic stop, '[a] seizure that is justified solely by the interest in issuing a warning ticket to the driver can become unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete that mission.'"⁷ But an officer may detain a driver beyond the initial scope of the traffic stop if, during the stop, the officer develops an objectively reasonable and articulable suspicion that the driver is engaged in some illegal activity.⁸

Defendant argues that the gap in activity between 11:47 a.m. and 11:53 a.m.⁹ constituted an unreasonable and unjustifiable delay, thereby invalidating the detention. As Officer Laffey testified, and as the video presented at the hearing indicates, the officers were waiting for the dispatcher to provide a photo of Defendant during this gap. Before asking for a photo, the officers knew that (1) Defendant's name and date of birth matched that of a person who had been previously deported and was an aggravated felon; (2) the person identified in the NCIC databasehad been involved with gang activity in Houston, Texas; (3) the license plate on the stopped car was registered to someone from Houston, Texas; (4) the person identified in the database had neck, forearm, and leg tattoos, and the officers had observed neck and forearm tattoos on Defendant during their initial encounter with the car occupants. This information was sufficient to provide the officers with a reasonable and articulable suspicion that Defendant was engaged in some illegal activity. Thus, the officers were justified in extending the traffic stop for six minutes in an attempt to obtain a photograph of the individual identified in the NCIC database.

B. Probable Cause

Defendant contends that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest him. "A warrantless arrest violates the Fourth Amendment unless it was supported by probable cause."¹⁰ "Probable cause to arrest exists only when the facts and circumstances within the officers' knowledge, and of which they have reasonably trustworthy information, are sufficient in themselves to warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed."¹¹ "The probable cause inquiry is a 'commonsense, practical question to be informed by the totality of the circumstances present in any particular case.'"¹² Further, probable cause is measured against an objective standard, and depends on whether "the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify the [the challenged] action."¹³

Defendant is charged with violations of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) an...