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United States v. Pena-Montes

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Before LUCERO, MURPHY, and O’BRIEN, Circuit Judges.

This Fourth Amendment appeal arises from a traffic stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the course of that stop, a police officer questioned Appellant Jose Luis Pena-Montes, the vehicle’s passenger. This led to his arrest and the discovery that Pena-Montes had been previously removed from the United States after a felony conviction. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), (b). Although the officer initiated the stop based on the reasonable belief that the vehicle lacked a license plate, after he pulled it over, he observed that it did, in fact, display a “dealer tag” but continued the detention to question the vehicle’s occupants to determine whether the plate’s use was lawful. Because we conclude that the officer could not have reasonably suspected criminal activity after he saw a dealer plate but before he began questioning the vehicle’s occupants, we hold that the continued detention of Pena-Montes violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.

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