Tenth Finds Reasonable Suspicion to Stop Truck, Reversing District Court's Grant of Motion

U.S. v. Lopez, --- F.3d ----, 2008 WL 570802 (10th Cir. March 04, 2008)

The 10th reverses the district court suppression of drugs found after police stopped Defendant’s truck. Even though the stop of the truck for a violation of a traffic law was not justified, there was reasonable suspicion to stop it based upon the officer’s observations of activity involving the Defendant and others before Defendant drove onto the freeway (the cop had radioed others to find a traffic infraction for which to stop Defendant’s truck).

While the government failed to certify under 18 U.S.C. § 3731 that its interlocutory appeal of the district court’s suppression order was not taken for purpose of delay and that the suppressed evidence was material to the proceeding, such failure does not deprive the 10th of jurisdiction. It was discretionary whether to take the appeal and in this case, the government showed it had made the required analysis but due to the inexperience of the attorney involved, the certificate was not filed.