U.S. Court of Appeals for Tenth Circuit, 1116 COBJ, Vol. 45 No. 11
Summaries of Selected Opinions
Summaries of selected Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Opinions appear on a space-available basis. The summaries are prepared for the Colorado Bar Association (CBA) by Katherine Campbell and Frank Gibbard, licensed Colorado attorneys. They are provided as a service by the CBA and are not the official language of this Court. The CBA cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the summaries. Full copies of the Tenth Circuit decisions are accessible from the CBA website: www.cobar.org (click on “Opinions/Rules/Statutes”).
No. 14-3278. Vasquez v. Lewis. 8/23/2016. D.Kan Judge Lucero. Fourth Amendment-Car Search-Reasonable Suspicion-Residence of Driver-Legal Marijuana-Clearly Established Law.
Plaintiff is a Colorado resident. Two Kansas Highway Patrol officers stopped him and searched his car as he was traveling on I-70 in Kansas. The officers stopped the car because they could not read the temporary registration tag in the window. The search, which included a drug dog sniff revealed nothing illegal. Plaintiff sued the officers, alleging that they violated his Fourth Amendment rights by detaining him and searching his car without reasonable suspicion The district court granted qualified immunity to the officers and entered summary judgment in their favor. Plaintiff appealed.
On appeal, plaintiff challenged the drug dog sniff and search of his car. The officers’ argued that they had reasonable suspicion to justify the search because (1) plaintiff was driving alone at night; (2) he was traveling on I-70, a “known drug corridor”; (3) he was driving from “a drug source area” in Colorado; (4) the back seat did not contain items the officers expected to see for someone moving across the country; (5) the items were covered by blankets; (6) plaintiff had a blanket and pillow in his car; (7) he was driving an older car despite producing evidence that he owned a newer car; (8) there were fresh fingerprints on his trunk; and (9) he seemed nervous. Noting that such conduct, taken together, is neither suspicious nor unusual, the Tenth Circuit analyzed the totality of the circumstances and rejected as too broad the justification that plaintiff was a resident of Colorado, a state known to permit medical and recreational marijuana use. The Tenth Circuit held it was improper to assume that an individual is more likely to be engaged in...
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