United States v. Hayes

United States v. Hayes, 62 F.4th 1271 (10th Cir. 2023) Fourth Amendment Traffic Stop & Drug Dog Alert Mr. Hayes was driving along I-25; he had a suspended license. The DEA had also been investigating Mr. Hayes for quite a bit. They used GPS data from his phone and got his phone calls (he made a lot of calls to drug users and dealers), noticed he hung out with a known drug trafficker, and made multiple short trips between Denver and Billings. Mr. Hays and his known drug dealing friend, Dembo, were once more on the road for a trip between Denver and some point North (probably Billings but they were stopped in Wyoming, so we don’t actually know their destination). Cheyenne Police and the DEA together decided to stop him for his suspended license. The stopping officer (Norris) had coordinated with two other cops, one of whom happened to have a drug dog, so that they all converged on the car at once. For whatever reason, instead of telling Mr. Hayes he was stopped for driving on suspended license, Officer Norris told him that the temporary tag was flapping around and hard to read and asked him to step out of the car. Immediately after Mr. Hayes gets out of the car, Officer Norris tells him to turn around and handcuffs him. Norris told Mr. Hayes he was not under arrest but Norris needed to check him for weapons. (Mr. Hays proceeded pro se and it does not appear that the immediate handcuffing was challenged; although, even if it was and was successful, I’m not sure you could get around inevitable discovery.) While this was happening, Officer Koepel got her drug dog out. Officer Norris completed the handcuffing five-seconds before the dog alerted. Turns out Mr. Hayes had some of a variety of illicit drugs and a gun. Mr. Hayes concedes that the initial stop because of his suspended license was good. The majority opinion says the stop was fine but doesn’t give any analysis. Briscoe would uphold the stop because there was plenty of evidence to support reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking: the calls, the trips, the fact he had a two-hour detour to a hotel where he took nothing in but came out with a duffel bag, his criminal history of dealing, and witness statements and identifications that he was dealing. Thus, in Briscoe’s mind from the get-go there was reasonable suspicion to run the dog and then once the dog alerted, it was all gravy. Baldock, on the other hand, decides to focus on Rodriguez moment[1] of five seconds between when Officer Norris finished handcuffing Mr. Hayes and when the drug dog alerted. To do this, he ignores all the stuff about Mr. Hayes drug trafficking and instead focuses only on the suspended license. He then says that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t like bright line rules and focusing on de minimis extension would do just that so therefore the five seconds was reasonable. He then points to Rodriguez for the idea that the mission of the stop includes related safety concerns. And concludes that the officers had not addressed all the safety concerns by the time that Mr. Hays was handcuffed – Dembo was still in the passenger seat of the car and Mr. Hays was known to have guns.