United States v. Fagan ( 2023 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 21-1758
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
DAMON FAGAN,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. D. Brock Hornby, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Kayatta, Howard, and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Noreen McCarthy for appellant.
Benjamin M. Block, Assistant United States Attorney, with
whom Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, was on brief, for
appellee.
Zachary L. Heiden, Carol J. Garvan, Gilles R. Bissonnette,
Matthew Warner, and Preti Flaherty LLP, on brief for amici curiae
American Civil Liberties Union of Maine Foundation, American Civil
Liberties Union of New Hampshire Foundation, and American Civil
Liberties Union of Massachusetts, Inc.
June 15, 2023
KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. A traffic stop on the Maine
Turnpike for unsafe operation of a vehicle led to the discovery of
evidence showing that Damon Fagan was carrying heroin with the
intent to distribute it. Seeking to suppress that evidence, Fagan
argued in the district court that the officer who pulled him over
lacked a sufficient basis for suspecting that Fagan had committed
a motor vehicle violation, and that his detention and interrogation
following the traffic stop otherwise violated his constitutional
rights. After the district court denied his motion to suppress,
Fagan pled guilty while reserving his right to appeal the refusal
to suppress the evidence found in the traffic stop. For the
following reasons, we affirm the denial of Fagan's motion to
suppress.
I.
On January 6, 2019, shortly before 11:00 p.m., Fagan and
a passenger were driving north on the Maine Turnpike, followed by
Maine State Trooper John Darcy. The record supports an inference,
and the district court assumed, that the reason Darcy chose to
follow Fagan was because Fagan, a Black man, fit Darcy's profile
of what he calls "thugs" whom he suspects of drug dealing. After
running Fagan's tag numbers and learning that the vehicle was a
registered rental car from a location in Presque Isle (much further
north in Maine than where Darcy and Fagan were driving at that
time), Darcy continued to follow Fagan. A few minutes later, while
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Fagan was traveling in the right lane, Darcy saw Fagan enter the
middle lane to pass a tractor-trailer and then move back into the
right lane in front of the tractor-trailer. Darcy then pulled
Fagan over. This stop resulted in over an hour and a half of
questioning, and concluded with Fagan relinquishing 37 grams of
heroin that he was carrying on his person. When later charged
with possession with intent to distribute, Fagan moved to suppress
the evidence garnered from the traffic stop, arguing that the stop
was illegal and that his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights were
violated by the subsequent police questioning.
The contest at the suppression hearing initially focused
on whether Darcy had a sufficient basis to pull Fagan over. Fagan
did not testify, so all the evidence came from Darcy, a video taken
by a dashcam in the police cruiser, and Darcy's body camera that
activated after the cars stopped.
The district court found Darcy's testimony to be
credible. That testimony was as follows:
Fagan's car was between a tractor-trailer and Darcy's
car in the right lane as Fagan's vehicle closed on the tractor-
trailer. Fagan's car then moved left into the adjoining lane to
accelerate past the tractor-trailer. "[J]ust as" Fagan's car
passed the tractor-trailer, Fagan's car "cut off" the tractor-
trailer by moving back into the right lane without signaling before
crossing the lane line "very close to the front of the tractor-
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trailer, not leaving much space for any reaction time," and not
leaving "a safe distance in between as it cut in front of the
vehicle." Darcy further described the lane change by noting that
Fagan had "turned into that lane close enough in front of that
tractor trailer that if [he] had to stop short[] [he] would have
caused a collision, most likely." Darcy "acknowledge[d]" that
"the truck never put its brake lights on" and "never swerved." He
also stated he did not know "[w]hether the [trucker] had to
downshift to avoid [Fagan]."
The video, taken from a less advantageous angle on the
passenger side of Darcy's vehicle, prompted the district court to
agree that the move back to the right lane was "abrupt." Having
viewed the video,1 we do not find this characterization clearly
erroneous. The video also confirms Darcy's testimony that Fagan
commenced the lane change without first signaling. On the other
hand, it does not make clear the distance between Fagan's vehicle
and the tractor-trailer at the time of the lane change. The video
does not show the front of the tractor-trailer, which Darcy
acknowledged in his testimony. And it also confirms that the
tractor-trailer did not brake. Ultimately, the district court
determined that the video was not conclusive either way on the
1 The video is accessible at https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/citationsmedia.
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safety of the lane change, and we do not find this to be clearly
erroneous either.
Darcy himself was not able to put a specific number on
the distance between Fagan's car and the tractor-trailer at the
time of the lane change other than to say that the vehicles were
separated by "very little distance" and the change occurred "just
as" Fagan's car passed the tractor-trailer. Nor was he able to
estimate Fagan's precise speed when Fagan passed the tractor-
trailer. Darcy did agree that the video shows that approximately
one second after the pass was completed, Fagan was "three or four
car lengths" in front of the tractor-trailer. Fagan agrees that
the lane change took roughly four to five seconds from when Fagan
began to move right until he completed the change (approximately
the same amount of time as Fagan's initial lane change into the
middle lane).
After the two cars pulled over, Darcy approached Fagan's
vehicle. At the time, Darcy believed -- incorrectly -- that
changing lanes without first signaling was in and of itself a
violation of Maine's traffic laws. He accused Fagan of both not
signaling and cutting off the tractor-trailer. ("You just cut
that truck off. You didn't put on your turn signal until you were
already in the lane.") When Fagan was unable to produce a license,
Darcy had Fagan exit the vehicle and then patted him down, finding
a knife. In response to questioning by Darcy, Fagan stated that
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he was on bail and his driver's license was suspended. He said
that he and his passenger were coming from shopping in Kittery,
Maine. Separately questioned, the passenger said they were coming
from Connecticut where they dropped off a niece and Fagan visited
a friend.
Darcy next learned via a computer check that Fagan's
license was indeed suspended, that he had prior drug trafficking
involvement, and that he was on bail. Darcy also learned that
Fagan's bail conditions imposed a 7:00 p.m. curfew, prohibited
Fagan from leaving Maine, and subjected him to searches of his
person "at any time without articulable suspicion or probable
cause." Subsequent questioning led to the production of 37 grams
of heroin, which Fagan retrieved from between his buttocks after
dog sniffs of both the vehicle and its passengers, multiple rounds
of questioning, and a body search by Darcy.
Surveying the foregoing, the district court concluded
that "a reasonable officer" in Darcy's position "could believe
that there was probable cause for this traffic stop." The court
therefore held that the stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
The district court also rejected Fagan's argument that the
discovery of the heroin was the product of improper detention and
questioning.
Over a year after the district court denied Fagan's
suppression motion, Fagan's lawyers discovered new evidence that
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had not been available at the time of the initial hearing. The
new evidence included a taped conversation between Darcy and
another officer recorded after Fagan's arrest, at the time of an
arrest of another person made by Darcy, as follows:
Darcy: Like if I see a white thug, I'm going
to be interested, just like a Black thug, or
a fuckin' Chinese thug. Like, I'm interested
in thugs. We don't, that's not racial
profiling. Like, some Black guy goes by, and
he's just some normal dude from Portland, I
don't give a fuck, you know what I mean? Like
whatever. This guy kind of looks like a thug,
to be honest with you.
Other Trooper: You see the guy driving?
Darcy: Yeah. He's wearing a wife-beater,
he's got dreads, he looks like a thug, he may
not be. And I'm not profiling him racially,
because I don't care that he's white, Black.
White kid, neck tats all over him, fucking
sideways hat, thug, you know what I mean? So
like I get . . . I hate when people try to
make it seem like that's what it is. I care
about where people are from, and the way they
seem, do you know what I mean? Like, do they
seem like they could be involved in the drug
game, or gangs, or something, you know what I
mean? I don't give a fuck if somebody's Black,
white, like . . . And I like saying this,
Nicole has a fucking niece who is half Black,
I'll tell someone like, my niece is half-
Black, don't play that racial shit with me.
The district court noted, and the government agrees on
appeal, that using racial profiling to selectively enforce the law
violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution. Both parties also agreed below -- and agree on
appeal -- that the existence of a racially discriminatory
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motivation for a stop and search provides no basis for suppressing
evidence gathered in the search if there was otherwise sufficient
cause for the stop and search. See Whren v. United States, 517
U.S. 806, 813 (1996).
The district court nevertheless recognized the
possibility that evidence of an officer's racial bias could
undercut the officer's credibility in reporting on the actions
taken by the target of his selective hunt. So it agreed to a
limited reopening of the suppression hearing to receive the new
evidence and to consider anew whether Darcy's description of
Fagan's driving was credible. The court concluded that Darcy's
description remained credible. In short, even though it assumed
Darcy had been motivated to follow Fagan and to find a reason to
stop him because Darcy believed that persons fitting Fagan's
profile were "thugs," the court reaffirmed its finding that Darcy's
description of Fagan's driving was credible. And the court further
reaffirmed that that even though it "[could not] determine actual
separation distance between the two vehicles," it did "not find
that Darcy lied in giving the unsafe lane change explanation" and
once again denied the motion to suppress.
Fagan subsequently entered a conditional plea of guilty
on August 18, 2021, and was sentenced to twenty-one months'
imprisonment and an additional three years of supervised release.
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The terms of his plea agreement reserved his right to appeal the
decision not to suppress the heroin found on him.
II.
A.
We consider first the stop of the car driven by Fagan,
starting with the applicable law. When Darcy pulled Fagan over,
he effected a "seizure" of Fagan within the meaning of the Fourth
Amendment. Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 255–59 (2007).
Both parties agree that to justify such a seizure for a traffic
violation the officer must have a "reasonable suspicion" that the
person stopped is breaking the law. Heien v. North Carolina, 574
U.S. 54, 60 (2014). A mere hunch is not enough; on the other hand,
the level of proof required is "'obviously less' than is necessary
for probable cause." Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 397
(2014) (quoting United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989));
see also United States v. Romain, 393 F.3d 63, 71 (1st Cir. 2004)
("[T]he showing required to meet this standard is considerably
less demanding than that required to make out probable cause.").
In gauging whether the circumstances generate a
reasonable suspicion, we apply "an objective standard, rather than
assessing the subjective intent of an individual officer." United
States v. Tiru-Plaza, 766 F.3d 111, 116 (1st Cir. 2014). We are
restricted to asking whether a hypothetical reasonable officer
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considering what Darcy observed2 would reasonably suspect that
Fagan had operated his vehicle unsafely in violation of Maine's
traffic laws. See id.In this case, the relevant traffic laws are those
prohibiting unsafe lane changes. See Me. Rev. Stat. Ann.
tit. 29-A, § 2070.1 ("Passing on left. An operator of a vehicle
passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction must pass
to the left at a safe distance and may not return to the right
until safely clear of the passed vehicle."); § 2071.1
("Prohibition. An operator may not turn a vehicle or move right
or left on a public way unless the movement can be made with
reasonable safety."). In Maine, failing to signal before changing
lanes is not per se an infraction. See Pooler v. Clifford, 639
A.2d 1061, 1062 (Me. 1994). Whether and when a signal is made can
bear, however, on whether the lane change is safe. See id.B.
Given the foregoing controlling law, Fagan's Fourth
Amendment challenge to his conviction turns on whether the district
court committed reversible error in finding that the circumstances
gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that Fagan changed lanes in an
unsafe manner. In addressing that question, we employ a bifurcated
2 The government makes no claim that any other officer knew
or observed anything that should be included in our analysis of
the initial stop.
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standard of review. First, as to any issues of fact (here, what
happened), we must accept the district court's factual findings
absent clear error. Tiru-Plaza, 766 F.3d at 114-15. In so doing,
we need not accept illogical findings, Mitchell v. United States,
141 F.3d 8, 17 (1st Cir. 1998), or mere guesswork, McGuire v.
Reilly, 260 F.3d 36, 45–46 (1st Cir. 2001). But we must consider
the facts in the light most favorable to the district court's
ruling, United States v. Fermin, 771 F.3d 71, 76 (1st Cir. 2014).
Importantly for purposes of this appeal, our review must be
"'especially deferential' to the district court's evaluation of
witnesses' credibility." United States v. Sierra-Ayala, 39 F.4th
1, 13 (1st Cir. 2022) (quoting United States v. Jones, 187 F.3d
210, 214 (1st Cir. 1999)). Thus, "absent objective evidence that
contradicts a witness's story or a situation where the story itself
is so internally inconsistent or implausible that no reasonable
factfinder would credit it, 'the ball game is virtually over' once
a district court determines that a key witness is credible." Id.(quoting United States v. Guzmán-Batista, 783 F.3d 930, 937 (1st
Cir. 2015)).
Second, as to issues of law (most notably, whether the
facts viewed in the light most favorable to the district court's
decision gave rise to a reasonable suspicion of a traffic
violation), we proceed afresh, albeit in drawing these legal
conclusions we must "give appropriate weight to the inferences
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drawn by the district court and on-scene officers, recognizing
that they possess the advantage of immediacy and familiarity with
the witnesses and events." Tiru-Plaza, 766 F.3d at 115; see
Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996) (we must "give
due weight from inferences drawn from [the] facts by resident
judges and local law enforcement officers.") Our charge is to ask
what a hypothetical reasonable officer would have thought of the
situation, not to accept automatically Darcy's ultimate conclusion
that Fagan drove unsafely. But once the district court accepts an
officer's testimony as credible -- which the district court did
here -- absent evidence to the contrary, we must treat the
officer's report of what he saw as evidence of what the
hypothetical reasonable officer would have seen. See, e.g., United
States v. Dion, 859 F.3d 114, 127 & n.10 (1st Cir. 2017) (affirming
district court's finding that officer was credible, and
considering defendant's nervousness, which officer had testified
to, in evaluating legality of a stop); United States v. Gilliard,
847 F.2d 21, 24–25 (1st Cir. 1988) (affirming district court's
credibility finding and taking officer observations into account
to determine that stop was justified).
C.
We return now to Darcy's description of what he saw.
Darcy testified that without first signaling, Fagan "cut
in" to the right lane in front of the tractor-trailer, "leaving
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very little distance between the two," such that it would likely
have caused a crash had Fagan needed to stop quickly. Darcy also
explained that there was "not . . . a lot of traffic, [and] there
was no need for the vehicle to cut over immediately." Fagan points
out that Darcy could not state the actual distance in feet or yards
between the rear of Fagan's car and the front of the tractor-
trailer. But it did appear to Darcy -- then a state trooper whose
job entailed surveilling turnpike traffic -- to be "very close."
See Tiru-Plaza, 766 F.3d at 116 (granting "respect to the ability
of trained and experienced police officers to draw from the
attendant circumstances inferences that would 'elude an untrained
person.'" (quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418
(1981))). Darcy also agreed that Fagan's car was approximately
"three or four car lengths" in front of the tractor-trailer
"roughly one second" after Fagan completed the lane change. Fagan,
in turn, was moving faster than the tractor-trailer shortly after
he completed his pass (as evidenced by the video, which shows Fagan
moving away and quickly leaving enough space for Darcy's cruiser
to pass in front of the tractor-trailer). And as Fagan's brief on
appeal states, the lane change from start to finish took roughly
four to five seconds. Taking all these facts together, and viewing
them (as we must) in the light most favorable to the conclusion
reached by the district court, see Fermin, 771 F.3d at 76, we agree
with the district court that a reasonable officer could have
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suspected that Fagan executed an unsafe lane change. In
particular, a reasonable officer could have suspected that Fagan
was quite a bit closer than three to four car lengths when he began
moving abruptly into the tractor-trailer's lane without first
signaling.
Simple math shows why such a qualitative suspicion
generated by these facts is reasonable. Start with the fact that
Fagan's car was three to four car lengths in front of the truck
about one second after Fagan had completed the pass. As the
dissent fairly estimates, that is 45–60 feet, which we will assume
is a safe distance.3 Key then is how much closer the two vehicles
were roughly five to six seconds earlier when the lane change
commenced (since, as Fagan's brief states, the change itself took
four to five seconds). The answer depends on how much faster Fagan
was traveling than was the tractor-trailer. As Fagan and the
dissent note, the record does not contain direct evidence of either
driver's speed. But the video visibly shows Fagan driving faster
as he passed the tractor-trailer (how else to pass it). The video
also shows that when Darcy got to the front of the tractor-trailer,
3 This assumption is generous to Fagan given that the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warns that it takes
1.5 seconds to react and hit the brakes and a typical vehicle going
55 miles per hour travels 121 feet in 1.5 seconds. See U.S. Dep't
of Transp. Nat'l Highway Traffic Safety Admin., Safety 1n Num3ers
(August 2015), https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/Safety1nNum3ers/august2015/S1N_A
ug15_Speeding_1.html (last visited June 9, 2023).
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Fagan was by then well more than three to four car lengths away
(i.e., he was going quite a bit faster than the truck), and Darcy
agreed at the suppression hearing that Fagan's car was "moving
further away from the tractor trailer" after the pass. That is to
say, having been moving visibly faster than the tractor-trailer in
order to pass it, Fagan's car gave no indication that it did not
maintain that greater speed throughout the lane change.
Conservatively assuming just a five mile per hour speed
differential, and conservatively assuming that the elapsed time
was five seconds, not six, the math is as follows:
5 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 5280 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟
× × × 5 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠 = 36.67 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑟
ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒 3600 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠
In short, given the facts drawn from Darcy's testimony,
along with the video footage, one could estimate that at the time
Fagan began to abruptly move back into the slow lane without first
signaling, the distance between the vehicles may have been very
tight; i.e., it could have been as little as between 9 and 24 feet
(45 to 60 feet minus 36 feet). The dissent does not dispute that
the methodology represented by this equation properly converts
Fagan's position when Darcy got to the front of the tractor-trailer
to Fagan's position when he commenced the lane change. Instead,
the dissent challenges only the values assigned to two variables
-- the speed differential between Fagan's vehicle and the tractor-
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trailer, and the amount of time that it took to complete the lane
change.
As to the latter, the dissent contends that we should
use one second rather than five. But one second was the time
between the completion of the lane change and the time at which
Fagan was viewed three to four car lengths in front. The relevant
time is the four to five seconds that Fagan admits passed from the
beginning to end of his move into the slow lane in front of the
truck, plus the additional second that elapsed before Fagan was
three to four car lengths away from the truck.
That leaves only the speed differential. If the dissent
were correct that there was no difference in speeds during and
following the pass, then the pass must have begun with a three to
four vehicle gap. So, too, though, if the speed differential were
anything like five miles per hour, then the belatedly signaled
lane change began with only a 9 to 24 foot gap. And even the
dissent does not argue that Darcy could not reasonably suspect
such a lane change to be unsafe.
The video bears twice on the issue of the speed
differential. First, although it does not reveal the vehicles'
precise speeds, it shows that Fagan's car was clearly going visibly
faster than the tractor-trailer just before it began the lane
change. Second, it provides no support for the counter-intuitive
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possibility that Fagan did not maintain or even increase that
greater speed throughout the lane change.
Our dissenting colleague posits that maybe the tractor-
trailer sped up when its driver saw Fagan in its lane. But if
that had happened, Fagan would still have been three to four car
lengths ahead when Darcy got beside the tractor-trailer. And the
video plainly shows that Fagan by that point was even further in
front of the tractor-trailer; i.e., he was still going faster than
the tractor-trailer.
None of this is to suggest that Darcy did the math.
Rather, it is to show that the facts in the record -- such as they
are -- reasonably accommodate his qualitative assessment as an
experienced state trooper of the abrupt lane change as being "too
close." And given all of this, we cannot say that the district
court erred in concluding that a reasonable officer in Darcy's
position could have reasonably suspected he had witnessed unsafe
driving.
Nor is this conclusion belied by Darcy's agreement that
the stop lights on the tractor-trailer did not flash, nor did that
vehicle otherwise appear to alter course. That strongly suggests
that the driver of the tractor-trailer felt no danger. But the
absence of a discernable reaction by the tractor-trailer driver
does not necessarily mean that a person in Darcy's position could
not reasonably assess the safety of Fagan's move differently. The
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"reasonable suspicion" required to justify a traffic stop does not
require certainty or even correctness, and reasonable people can
disagree on what is objectively safe. See United States v. Arvizu,
534 U.S. 266, 277 (2002). That Darcy and the driver of the tractor-
trailer may have disagreed as to whether Fagan cut off the tractor-
trailer does not necessarily mean that either Darcy or the driver
of the tractor-trailer was unreasonable.
D.
Recognizing the importance of Darcy's credibility in the
foregoing analysis, Fagan and his supporting amici train their
focus on Darcy's state of mind. In so doing, Fagan stresses that
he is "not arguing for suppression because of Darcy's reprehensible
racial profiling." Rather, Fagan makes the more subtle argument
that Darcy's bias and his eagerness for a drug bust should have
precluded the district court from giving credence to Darcy's
version of what transpired. And were Darcy's testimony discounted,
there would remain no sufficient basis from which one could
generate reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation.
We agree with Fagan's contention that evidence of an
officer's racial bias in deciding which drivers to surveil and
stop can undercut the credibility of the officer's description of
the facts that supposedly justified the stop. The district court
did not reject this contention. To the contrary, it reopened the
suppression hearing precisely to accept the new evidence tendered
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by Fagan and to consider again Darcy's credibility. In the
district court's words, "[t]he question before [the court] on the
reopened motion [was] whether Darcy lied in saying that Fagan
executed an unsafe return to the right-hand lane." In turn, the
district court made clear that in answering that question, the
court considered all of the new evidence, and assumed that Darcy
"singled out Fagan's vehicle for improper reasons as it went
through the York toll plaza." The district court also made clear
its plainly correct view that "racial profiling is reprehensible."
Unfortunately for Fagan, after hearing all the new
evidence and extended questioning of Darcy, the district court
found that "irrespective of Darcy's personal motivation, I do not
find that Darcy lied in giving the unsafe lane change explanation."
In explaining this conclusion, the district court focused on two
facts upon which the parties agreed: (1) at the time of the arrest,
Darcy wrongly thought that failing to signal before initiating a
lane change was per se a violation of the motor vehicle laws; and
(2) the video confirmed that Fagan initiated his lane change in
front of the tractor-trailer without first signaling. Therefore,
reasoned the district court, Darcy had no reason to fabricate his
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contemporaneous description recorded on his dashcam of the
closeness of the lane change in order to justify the stop.4
So Fagan is left to argue that we should reject as clear
error the district court's express finding that Darcy was credible.
Fagan points out that after his motion was denied, another judge
found Darcy not to be "a very credible witness." But of course
the judge in this earlier case could not have known that. And the
fact that a witness's credibility is found lacking in one case
does not mean that his testimony must be retroactively deemed not
credible as a matter of law in other cases. Nor does it constitute
the kind of "objective evidence that contradicts [Darcy's] story"
to which he testified in this particular case that we would need
to overturn a credibility finding on appeal. Guzmán-Batista, 783
F.3d at 937–38 (determining that where defendant presented
"compelling evidence" of his version of events, but that evidence
"create[d] two possible alternative version of the events," the
district court's choice between those alternatives could not be
deemed clearly erroneous).
Finally, the dissent implicitly assails Darcy's
credibility by questioning Darcy's characterization of the lane
change as cutting off the tractor-trailer at so close a distance
4Darcy stated when he first spoke to Fagan after pulling
him over: "You just cut that truck off. You didn't put on your
turn signal until you were already in the lane."
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as to create an "almost-crash situation." The dissent then
suggests that Darcy's characterization exaggerates how close the
vehicles came, and thus undercuts Darcy's testimony. But the
district court -- which viewed the video and observed Darcy testify
-- found Darcy credible on the issue of whether he had seen Fagan
make an unsafe lane change. Ultimately, not even the dissent can
argue that we are not effectively bound by the district court's
opinion that Darcy was credible.
* * *
To summarize, three rules of law that we must apply drive
our holding: (1) a stop for a mere traffic violation, even when
supported only by a reasonable suspicion that such a violation
occurred, does not violate the Fourth Amendment, Heien, 574 U.S.
at 60; (2) racial profiling, while a violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment, does not trigger the exclusionary rule as it might were
it a Fourth Amendment violation, Whren, 517 U.S. at 813, 819; and
(3) district courts must be given broad leeway in determining the
credibility of witnesses who testify before them, Sierra-Ayala, 39
F.4th at 13. Given these rules, we must affirm the district
court's holding that Darcy did not violate the Fourth Amendment in
pulling over Fagan's vehicle for a traffic violation.
III.
We turn next to Fagan's alternative Fourth and Fifth
Amendment arguments for barring the government from using as
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evidence the heroin recovered during the stop. Fagan challenges
the length of his detention at the roadside and the continued
questioning and searches that led eventually to his retrieval of
the drugs from between his buttocks. He claims that his prolonged
detention and the aggressive and repeated questioning (both before
and after Miranda warnings were given) violated his Fourth
Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizures and Fifth
Amendment right not to be coerced into making statements,
respectively.
We need not decide whether officers detained Fagan too
long or coerced the production of the drugs. Rather, the
controlling law is clear that evidence found unlawfully is not
excluded if it would have inevitably been discovered anyhow through
lawful means. United States v. Almeida, 434 F.3d 25, 28 (1st Cir.
2006). We ask three questions when evaluating an inevitable
discovery argument: "[F]irst, whether the legal means by which
the evidence would have been discovered was truly independent;
second, whether the use of the legal means would have inevitably
led to the discovery of the evidence; and third, whether applying
the inevitable discovery rule would either provide an incentive
for police misconduct or significantly weaken constitutional
protections." Id. An arrest is "truly independent" of an
interrogation if "(1) the police, in fact, would have arrested the
defendant, even without first having discovered the challenged
- 22 -
evidence, and (2) in the absence of the challenged evidence, the
officers nevertheless had probable cause to make the arrest without
the challenged evidence." Id. The government has the burden to
show the exception applies.
The district court made findings that directly support
its conclusion that discovery of the drugs was inevitable. First,
the officers had ample grounds -- lawfully obtained during
"ordinary inquiries incident to [the traffic] stop" -- to arrest
Fagan. Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 355 (2015)
(quoting Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 408 (2005)). In
brief, after stopping Fagan and asking for his driver's license,
and procuring a quick criminal history search,5 Darcy learned that
Fagan had prior involvement with illegal drugs, that he was out on
bail, that he was violating the conditions of his release on bail
by being out after 7 p.m. and by likely having left Maine, and
that as a condition of his release he had agreed to be subject to
search without cause. Second, the officers would have indeed
arrested Fagan -- as Darcy told him -- had he not produced any
drugs, and the standard search at the jail would have discovered
the drugs. Third, since the officers knew that they could lawfully
arrest Fagan, and that he had consented to searches as a condition
of bail, the potential for incentivizing unlawful detentions in
5 See Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 355 (checking for outstanding
warrants is an ordinary inquiry pursuant to a traffic stop).
- 23 -
other cases was mitigated. Based on the foregoing, the district
court concluded that, once Darcy learned that Fagan had been
involved with illegal drugs, was driving with a suspended license,
and was violating his bail conditions, the discovery of the drugs
would have been inevitable even had the officers conducted no
further search or questioning at the scene. In so concluding, the
court committed no clear error.
IV.
Finally, we turn to Fagan's argument that the district
court erred in denying his motion for discovery regarding other
stops Darcy had made. Fagan argues that he could have impeached
Darcy's credibility by showing that he stopped minority drivers at
a statistically higher rate if the district court had allowed this
discovery.
On its face, the proposed discovery seems aimed at
proving something that the district court already presumed to be
true: that Darcy's singling out of Fagan was racially motivated.
In any event, we agree with the government that this challenge is
waived, because Fagan pled guilty and did not identify this
discovery order as one he reserved the right to appeal. The
conditional plea agreement only identifies the rulings on the
motion to suppress as appealable, with no reference to the ruling
on Fagan's discovery motion. A separate hearing was held and a
separate order issued on Fagan's discovery motion, and this order
- 24 -
was not identified in the conditional plea. Any challenge to an
order not specified in the conditional guilty plea is waived by
the plea. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2) allows a
defendant to enter a conditional guilty plea, "reserving in writing
the right, on appeal from the judgment, to review of the adverse
determination of any specified pretrial motion" (emphasis added).
See United States v. Ramos, 961 F.2d 1003, 1005–06 (1st Cir. 1992),
overruled on other grounds by United States v. Caron, 77 F.3d 1(1st Cir. 1996). Because Fagan's motion was not specified, his
challenge is waived.
V.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district
court is affirmed.
- Dissenting Opinion Follows -
- 25 -
THOMPSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting. The majority
concludes that objective facts and rational inferences point to a
reasonable suspicion that Fagan made an unsafe lane change —
something the government had the burden of proving. See, e.g.,
United States v. Monteiro, 447 F.3d 39, 43 (1st Cir. 2006). But
I could not disagree more. What follows is my best effort to
explain why.
I
Drug cases often follow a familiar pattern. Police
officers stop a car for a traffic offense, even a minor one —
driving is so heavily regulated that officers have nearly endless
chances to stop anyone they want: experience shows "that no local
police force can strictly enforce the traffic laws, or it would
[pull over] half the driving population on any given morning."
See Robert Jackson, The Federal Prosecutor, Address Delivered at
the Second Annual Conference of United States Attorneys (Apr. 1,
1940), quoted in Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 727-28 (1988)
(Scalia, J., dissenting); see also United States v. Magallon-
Lopez, 817 F.3d 671, 676 (9th Cir. 2016) (Berzon, J., concurring)
(mentioning Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810 (1996)).
Citing some exception to the rule against warrantless searches,
officers then find drugs in the car or on the driver. Which in
turn leads to federal drug charges. And if a judge does not
suppress the drugs — because, say, the judge finds the specific
- 26 -
facts known to the officers gave rise to an objectively reasonable
suspicion of illegal activity — the driver-turned-defendant enters
a conditional guilty plea that reserves the stop issue for
appellate review.
Our case — involving Darcy's tailing Fagan's car for
miles (after it drove through the toll area without incident)
solely because of Fagan's race (as no one really disputes) —
presents a troubling twist on this general storyline. See
generally Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 372 (2001)
(O'Connor, J., dissenting) (stating that, "as the recent debate
over racial profiling demonstrates all too clearly, a relatively
minor traffic infraction may often serve as an excuse for stopping
and harassing an individual").6 But put aside Darcy's racist
6The majority mentions (in a block quote above) how Darcy
shared with a trooper colleague his thoughts and feelings about
people who (in his view) look like "thugs." The reader may be
interested in knowing that Terrel Walker was Darcy's looks-like-
a-thug driver. Walker, Darcy said, "was a [B]lack male,
approximately late 20s at the time," who was wearing a "wife
beater" — i.e., "a thin undershirt tank top." Darcy spotted Walker
as he (Walker) rolled through the toll booth on I-95, ran his
license plate, followed him, stopped him for "[f]ailing to keep
right except for overtaking or passing," and smelled marijuana. A
drug-sniffing dog alerted officers to the presence of narcotics.
And officers found cocaine and fake Xanax pills. Facing federal
drug charges, Walker asked the district court to dismiss the
indictment given Darcy's targeting him because of his race (a
violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause)
or to suppress the evidence given his lack of reasonable suspicion
for the stop (a violation of the Fourth Amendment's search-and-
seizure clause). See Whren, 517 U.S. at 513, 519 (indicating that
a racial-bias issue like this is an equal-protection problem, not
a search-and-seizure problem). But the government then moved to
- 27 -
motives. I say that because (as the majority correctly says) Fagan
chose to attack the reasonableness of Darcy's suspicion (a search-
and-seizure issue), not Darcy's racially-selective conduct (an
equal-protection issue). Which (as intimated earlier) means the
key question is whether the record facts and their fairly-drawn
inferences paint a picture sufficient to raise an officer's
reasonable suspicion that Fagan changed lanes unsafely. Again,
unlike the majority, I answer that question with a hard no (even
assuming for argument's sake that Darcy testified credibly).
II
Time for some background legal principles, most of which
the majority touched on.
A
1
To justify a car stop, an officer must have at least a
reasonable suspicion — i.e., "specific and articulable facts . . .
taken together with rational inferences from those facts" — that
a traffic offense occurred. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21
(1968); see also United States v. Miles, 18 F.4th 76, 79 (1st Cir.
2021). Judges look at all the circumstances in a commonsense way
to see if a particularized and objective basis — viewed from the
perspective of an objectively reasonable officer — existed for
dismiss the indictment, saying that outcome "would be in the best
interests of justice" — a motion the district court granted.
- 28 -
suspecting illegality. See, e.g., United States v. Arvizu, 534
U.S. 266, 277 (2002); Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 125
(2000). That standard requires something less than probable cause
— but something more than gut feelings or unvoiced hunches. See,
e.g., Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 123-24. And the government bears the
burden of proving it. See, e.g., Monteiro, 447 F.3d at 43.
2
Inference-drawing plays a starring role in the
majority's analysis. So a word or two about it is in order.
An inference is reasonable if it flows from the basic
facts in evidence. See, e.g., Terry, 392 U.S. at 21. To put the
point another way, it "is a reasoned, logical decision to conclude
that a disputed fact exists on the basis of another fact [that is
known to exist]." See Bickerstaff v. Vassar Coll., 196 F.3d 435,
448 (2d Cir. 1999) (brackets in original and emphases added)
(quoting a leading treatise on federal jury instructions). So
guesswork is not a reasonable inference, to give an obvious
example. See, e.g., id.B
1
We give fresh-eyed de novo review to the judge's
reasonable-suspicion ruling but clear-error review to his
underlying fact-findings, see Miles, 18 F.4th at 78 — all while
"assess[ing] the record evidence in the light most favorable" to
- 29 -
the decision, see United States v. Perez, 977 F.3d 163, 168 (1st
Cir. 2020).
2
Of all the concepts raised in the preceding sentence,
clear error needs some attention given the importance the majority
and the government place on it.
The first thing to know is that clear error is not a
particularly illuminating term. And don't just take my word for
it — take Judge Learned Hand's too.7 "It is," he wrote, "idle to
try to define the meaning of th[at] phrase . . .; all that can be
profitably said" is that a reviewing court — "though it will
hesitate less to reverse" a judge-finding than a jury-finding —
"will nevertheless reverse it most reluctantly and only when well
persuaded." See United States v. Aluminum Co. of Am., 148 F.2d
416, 433 (2d Cir. 1945).
But while clear error's meaning "is not immediately
apparent," we can pick out "certain general principles" from the
caselaw. See Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573
(1985). Chief among them is that a finding is clearly erroneous
if we "definite[ly] and firm[ly]" decide that the judge made a
7 For anyone into rankings, Judge Hand "is considered by many
the third-greatest judge in the history of the United States, after
[Oliver Wendell] Holmes and John Marshall; some might even rate
him higher." Richard A. Posner, The Learned Hand Biography and
the Question of Judicial Greatness, 104 Yale L.J. 511, 511 (1994)
(book review).
- 30 -
"mistake" — even where "there is evidence to support" the finding.
See United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395 (1948);
see also McGuire v. Reilly, 250 F.3d 36, 45-46 (1st Cir. 2001);
Irving v. United States, 49 F.3d 830, 836 (1st Cir. 1995). So,
for example, a finding is clearly erroneous if the judge accepts
a witness's version of events that is illogical or contradicted by
other physical evidence. See Mitchell v. United States, 141 F.3d
8, 17 (1st Cir. 1998); Irving, 49 F.3d at 835. Or, to use another
example, a finding is also clearly erroneous if the judge
"settl[es] for guesswork" instead of "reason[ing] from facts."
See McGuire, 250 F.3d at 46 (emphases added).
On the degree-of-deference scale, clear error is
"conventionally regarded" as a less deferential model than abuse
of discretion. See Haugh v. Jones & Loughlin Steel Corp., 949
F.2d 914, 916-17 (7th Cir. 1991) (Posner, J., for the court). And
while the standard is "formidable, it is not" (to use a different
metaphor) "a juggernaut that crushes everything in its path." See
Uno v. City of Holyoke, 72 F.3d 973, 978 (1st Cir. 1995); see also
Jose Santiago, Inc. v. Smithfield Packaged Meats Corp., 66 F.4th
329, 340-41 (1st Cir. 2023).
A key takeaway then is that clear-error review — though
certainly respectful — is not (to use yet another metaphor) a one-
way ticket to an affirmance. See, e.g., United States v.
Henderson, 463 F.3d 27, 44-45 (1st Cir. 2006) (vacating on clear-
- 31 -
error review a judge-finding made after a suppression hearing);
United States v. Forbes, 181 F.3d 1, 7-8 (1st Cir. 1999) (same).
III
Now time for a recap of Darcy's testimony (given at both
hearings) and the judge's reasoning (reflected in both decisions)
for denying Fagan's suppression motion.
A
Tracking Fagan's travels just because (to quote the
majority) "Fagan, a Black man, fit Darcy's profile" of a drug-
dealing "thug[]," Darcy eventually drove up behind him. Fagan at
that point was behind a tractor trailer. And all three (Darcy,
Fagan, and the trucker) were in the slow lane.
According to Darcy, Fagan then moved to the middle lane,
passed the truck, and switched back to the slow lane.8 No one
disputes that Darcy was still behind the tractor trailer when Fagan
made the switch-back and so could not see that maneuver.
Unsurprisingly then, Darcy could not specify the distance between
Fagan and the trucker when the switch-back occurred. Perhaps eager
to fill in that gap, Darcy still said that "very little distance"
separated "the two" at that critical moment. Darcy added that
Fagan had gotten back in "that lane close enough in front of that
tractor trailer that if [he (Fagan)] had to stop short[] [he] would
Like the parties and the majority, I use "tractor-trailer,"
8
"tractor trailer," and "truck" interchangeably.
- 32 -
have caused a collision, most likely." And Darcy later said that
about "a second" after the switch-back, he could see Fagan's car
"maybe three or four car lengths" ahead of the truck.
Looking to score points, the defense got Darcy to admit
that he only saw Fagan's "whole vehicle for the first time" once
he (Darcy) moved to the center lane. The defense later asked Darcy
whether he based his unsafe-lane-change assessment "on [the]
distance between the truck and the vehicle" — to which he answered,
"[y]es, . . . it was the manner in which [Fagan] essentially, for
lack of a better term, cut off the tractor trailer, changing into
[the slow] lane too close to the tractor trailer." But then when
asked by the defense whether he "could[] measure how many feet
[Fagan] was in front of the truck," Darcy replied he "could not
. . ., that is correct." Nor could Darcy estimate Fagan's speed
when he (Fagan) got in front of the tractor trailer. And when
asked by the defense to "acknowledge in the [dashcam] video that
. . . you can never see the actual front of the truck," Darcy came
back with "[c]orrect."9 Darcy also agreed with the defense that
he believed that Fagan "almost crashed into" the tractor trailer,
but "acknowledge[d]" that "the truck never put its brakes on" and
9 Again, the video is accessible at https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/citationsmedia.
- 33 -
"never swerved." "Whether the [trucker] had to downshift to avoid
[Fagan]" Darcy did not know either.
B
Denying the suppression motion, the judge at one point
framed the relevant issue as "whether Darcy lied in saying that
Fagan executed an unsafe return to the right-hand lane." That
mattered, the judge wrote, because "[i]f Fagan's maneuver was not
unsafe, then the hypothetical reasonable police officer had no
basis to pull him over." Paraphrasing the testimony, the judge
noted that Darcy said that Fagan
cut off the tractor trailer, that it was very
close to the front of the tractor trailer, not
leaving much space for any reaction time, did
not leave a safe distance in between as it cut
in front of the vehicle, and if it had to stop
shortly it would have caused a collision most
likely.
And the judge ultimately found Darcy's account "credible," even
after "[a]ssuming" he (Darcy) "singled out Fagan's vehicle for
improper reasons as it went through the . . . toll plaza."
Convinced that the dashcam video did not "contradict[]"
Darcy's testimony, the judge noted that the footage "appear[ed]"
to show "that [Fagan's] return to the right lane was abrupt." The
judge also noted that the video never showed the trucker
"activating his brakes or taking evasive maneuvers." But the judge
discounted that fact because he had "no idea how alert the
[trucker] was or how aggressively he drove." So the judge did not
- 34 -
consider the video conclusive either way on the safety question.
And even though the judge "[could not] determine the actual
separation distance between the two vehicles," he held "the traffic
stop was lawful."
IV
Time then for my take on the issue.
A
From the just-given recap one can see that Darcy tied
his unsafe-lane-change theory to Fagan's supposedly cutting off
the tractor trailer at so close a distance as to create an almost-
crash situation — an account the judge credited in finding
reasonable suspicion. The majority and the government offer lots
of reasons why they think the judge's reasonable-suspicion
conclusion holds together. But none is convincing, at least by my
lights.
B
1
Picking up on one of the government's arguments — an
argument centered on downplaying how the truck blocked Darcy's
view of Fagan's switch-back — the majority points to Darcy's
testimony that about a second after Fagan's return to the slow
lane, he could see Fagan's car maybe "three or four car lengths"
ahead of the truck. Ignore for present purposes that the record
- 35 -
never says what Darcy meant by car length.10 And assume for
argument's sake that Darcy had in mind 15 feet, which is roughly
the length of the average car. See Susan Meyer, Study: Average
Car Size is Increasing — Will Roads Still be Safe for Small Cars
and Pedestrians?, https:www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/avera
ge-car-size (last visited June 8, 2023). So Darcy essentially
said that Fagan was about 45 to 60 feet ahead of the truck a second
after the pass.11 Neither the majority nor the government argues
— and the judge never found — that that amount of space is too
small for a safe lane change. Instead the majority (emphasis mine)
contends that we should infer that Fagan must have been "quite a
bit closer" than that to the truck. The theory goes something
like this (the quotes come from the majority): "[T]he lane change
from start to finish took roughly four to five seconds."
"[A]ssuming just a five mile per hour speed differential," and
supposing "that the elapsed time was five seconds, not six," the
It does not take an automotive engineer to know that cars
10
come in many sizes. According to one website, a "mini-car" is
about 10 feet long, a "mid-sized car" is about 15 feet long, a
"full-sized car" is about 16 feet long, a "small SUV" is about 14
feet long, and a "large SUV" is about 17 feet long. See Gerard
Stevens, Average Car Length: All You Need to Know About It, Way,
https://www.way.com/blog/average-car-length (last visited June 8,
2023).
To give a sense of perspective, a gap of 45 to 60 feet is
11
(roughly) equivalent to a typical 4 to 6 story building laid on
its side. See How Tall is a Storey in Feet?, Skydeck,
https://theskydeck.com/how-tall-is-a-storey-in-feet (last visited
June 8, 2023). That is no small thing, to state the obvious.
- 36 -
majority "estimate[s] that at the time Fagan began" the "abrupt[]"
switch-back, "the distance between the vehicles may have been very
tight; i.e., it could have been as little as between 9 and 24
feet." The majority then coats its theory with the veneer of (what
it calls) "simple math":
5 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 5280 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟
× × × 5 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠 = 36.67 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑟
ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒 3600 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠
"45 to 60 feet minus 36 feet" gets you to "between 9 and 24 feet,"
the majority writes. But the majority can get no mileage from
that argument.
(i)
Stepping back, some things are clear.
First, given the distance between Fagan's car and
Darcy's cruiser, with an intervening truck and all three vehicles
basically going straight, one cannot — simply by watching the
dashcam video — reasonably calculate the space between Fagan's
auto and the truck's front when Fagan switched to the slow lane.
Indeed the judge (recall) admitted that he could not make that
determination. But one can see that the trucker did not react as
a trucker reasonably could be expected to react after an almost-
crash-causing cut off. The video shows no brake lights, no swerve,
no sign of any engine slowdown, for example.
The majority concedes that that list of nos "strongly
suggests that the [trucker] felt no danger." But the majority
- 37 -
(emphasis mine) theorizes that perhaps the trucker "may have
disagreed" with Darcy about "whether Fagan cut off the [truck]" in
an unsafe way, then adding too that "reasonable people can disagree
on what is objectively safe." Call me unconvinced. Keeping in
mind that our review of the evidence must be commonsensical, see
Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125, I think it strains common sense to
suggest that a reasonable trucker faced with an almost-crash set-
up (which is how Darcy described it) would not react in some way.
What the majority is doing is relying on a hunch or a guess instead
of facts or rational inferences drawn from facts — the "may have
disagreed" language is a tip off. And (to repeat) reasonable
suspicion — while not the toughest of standards — certainly demands
more. See id. at 124; see also McGuire, 260 F.3d at 46; United
States v. Espinoza, 490 F.3d 41, 48 (1st Cir. 2007).
Echoing the judge's reasoning, the government (but not
the majority) supposes — without any supporting evidence — that
the trucker may have, might have, or could have driven carelessly
or aggressively. But as just explained, sheer speculation — which
is all this really is (Darcy, for instance, never testified that
the trucker drove improperly) — affords no basis for assuming that
something that could have possibly occurred actually did occur.
See Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 123-24; McGuire, 260 F.3d at 46; Espinoza,
490 F.3d at 48. See generally Gomez v. Stop & Shop Supermarket
Co., 670 F.3d 395, 398 (1st Cir. 2012) (stressing that
- 38 -
"[a]ssumptions are not a substitute for evidence"); Jane Doe No.
1 v. Backpage.com LLC, 817 F.3d 12, 25 (1st Cir. 2016) (warning
about the folly of "pyramid[ing] speculative inference upon
speculative inference").
Second, while the government (but not so much the
majority) alludes to some hints in Darcy's testimony that he had
a better vantage than his dashcam, the fact remains that he offered
no (as in zero) facts showing the distance between Fagan's auto
and the truck at the time of the lane switch — only conclusory
characterizations of the vehicles being "too close," "close enough
. . . that if the [truck] had to stop short it would have caused
a collision, most likely," and there being "very little distance
between the two." Critically as well, Darcy (recall) conceded
that he could not estimate the distance between Fagan's car and
the truck when Fagan passed in front of it. And he (recall also)
conceded that he only saw Fagan's "whole vehicle for the first
time" once he (Darcy) moved to the center lane following Fagan's
return to the slow lane. As the party burdened with showing
reasonable suspicion, the government had every incentive — and
opportunity — to pin the separation distance down. That it could
not speaks volumes.
Third, while the government (but not really the
majority) makes much of the judge's remark that the dashcam video
did "not contradict[]" Darcy's story, Darcy's concessions — his
- 39 -
not being able to estimate the distance between Fagan and the truck
or Fagan's speed (after Fagan moved back to the slow lane), and
his not seeing (at that critical juncture) the trucker flash his
brake lights or take evasive action — undermine any suggestion of
an unsafe lane change based on a near-crash cut off. See generally
Anderson, 470 U.S. at 574 (telling appellate courts to confirm
that the judge's findings are "permissible" or "plausible in light
of the record viewed in its entirety" (emphases added)).
Fourth, while the government (but not the majority)
implies that the dashcam video "corroborated" all of Darcy's
unsafe-lane-change testimony because the footage supported his
late-turn-signal claim, any such argument fails. First off,
everyone knows — as a matter of legal logic and common sense —
that a witness may be credible on some issues but not on others.
See generally First Circuit Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions
§ 1.06 (making clear that when it comes to witness credibility,
factfinders "may believe everything a witness says or only part of
it or none of it" (emphasis added)); see also generally Peak v.
United States, 353 U.S. 43, 46 (1957) (noting that "common sense
often makes good law"). But the larger point is that while the
video does confirm Darcy's claim of a late signal, it does not (as
I keep saying) confirm his claim of a too-close lane change that
resulted in an almost-crash episode. And neither does Darcy's
- 40 -
testimony read in its entirety, including most importantly his
(much-discussed) concessions.
(ii)
This brings me back to the majority's central thesis
(resembling the government's, and built on a hoped-for inference)
that Fagan must've been "quite a bit closer than three to four car
lengths when he began moving abruptly into the tractor-trailer's
lane." Making what it thinks is a "[c]onservative[]" assumption
that Fagan was going just 5 miles per hour faster than the trucker,
the majority (as noted) uses this formula to show that there "could
have been as little as between 9 and 24 feet" separating the
vehicles when Fagan began the switch-back and so drove unsafely:
5 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 5280 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟
× × × 5 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠 = 36.67 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑟
ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒 3600 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠
The majority gets between 9 and 24 feet by subtracting 36 feet
from 45 to 60 feet.
"Garbage in, garbage out" is a concept familiar to
mathematicians. It means (in less vivid terms) that a faulty input
produces a faulty output. See Garbage in, garbage out, Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_in,_garbage_out (last
visited June 8, 2023). And the majority runs into that very
problem — i.e., the appearance of precision suggested by the
majority's calculations is illusory, because bad info (which we
- 41 -
have here) assures a bad result, proving that a formula is only as
good as the data behind it.
One of the majority's key assumptions is that Fagan could
not have been 3 to 4 car lengths ahead of the trucker when he
(Fagan) crossed the dashed-lane lines during the switch-back.
Another is that the trucker's speed did not change as Fagan
completed the merge. But why should anyone accept either
assumption? Darcy offered no testimony and the judge made no
finding on how far ahead of the trucker Fagan was as he crossed
back into the trucker's lane. Ditto on how fast Fagan and the
trucker were going during that critical time. So in the majority's
fact-free world of conjecture (at least on the crucial questions),
nothing would stop us from instead supposing that as Fagan crossed
the dashed-lane lines separating the middle and slow lanes — after
already being 45 to 60 feet ahead of the truck — the trucker then
matched the 5-miles-per-hour increase.12 Such an increase would
12 Interestingly, going by the standard broken-line-
interstate-highway-measurement method, it seems like the distance
at the point of Fagan's lane change was around 60 feet. See U.S.
Dep't of Trans., Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for
Streets and Highways, Pt. 3, Ch. 3A, § 3A.06, Guidance 04 (2009)
(explaining that each dashed-lane should be "10" feet long and
"30" feet apart); see also Me. Dep't of Trans., Traffic Engineering
Striping & Stenciling Handbook 4 (2019) (noting that a "[b]roken
line pavement marking[] . . . is 10 foot long" and "separated by
30 foot long gaps," though "[o]n the freeway" it "would be . . .
15 feet long with 25 foot gaps").
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cancel out Fagan's, changing the first numerator in the majority's
equation from 5 miles to 0 miles:
0 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 5280 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟
× × × 5 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠 = 0 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑟
ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒 3600 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠
That would turn the majority's 9 to 24 feet differential claim
into a 45 to 60 feet differential claim. Which (in other words)
would leave a 3 to 4 car length separation distance right after
the switch-back — a distance not even the government says is
unsafe.13
Next consider the majority's choice to use 5 seconds in
its formula — i.e., the time it took for the switch-back, from
13 Trying to refute these details, the majority (emphasis
mine) calls the "possibility that Fagan did not maintain or even
increase that greater speed throughout the lane change" "counter-
intuitive." As if to drive that idea home, the majority (again
emphasis mine) notes that the video "shows that Fagan's car was
clearly going visibly faster than the tractor-trailer just before
it began the lane change." I get that Fagan went faster than the
trucker before the switch-back started (you'll get no argument
from me on that). But I see nothing in the record showing that
the trucker couldn't have sped up as Fagan crossed the dashed-lane
lines. The majority also says that if the tractor-trailer had
accelerated "when its driver saw Fagan in its lane," then "Fagan
would still have been three to four car lengths ahead when Darcy
got beside the tractor-trailer" — but, insists the majority, "the
video plainly shows" that that did not happen. Yet Darcy himself
agreed that when he got into the center lane with the truck in the
immediate right lane, his dashcam "video" "show[ed]" Fagan "three
or four car lengths in front of the tractor trailer." That the
video (as the majority notes as well) then "shows Fagan moving
away and quickly leaving enough space for Darcy's cruiser to pass
in front of tractor-trailer" does not change my thinking either.
Maybe Fagan sped up after Darcy spotted him 3 to 4 car lengths
ahead of the trucker — or maybe (to continue operating in the
majority's zone of speculation) the trucker (with a statie now
coming up on his side) eased off the gas.
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beginning to end. The majority calls that "the relevant" period.
But what mattered to the judge (understandably, in my view) was
the "actual separation distance" once Fagan "returned" to the slow
lane "after passing the tractor-trailer." On that score, the
uncontestedly safe distance of 3 to 4 car lengths came from Darcy's
testimony on how far ahead of the truck Fagan was "roughly a
second" after the switch-back. And using 1 second rather than 5
seconds (i.e., keying in on the 1 second period between when Fagan
completed the merge and when Darcy saw Fagan 3 to 4 car lengths in
front of the trucker), but still keeping the 5-miles-per-hour
assumption, gives us this:
5 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 5280 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟
× × × 1 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑 = 7.33 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑟
ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒 3600 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠
That would put Fagan 7 feet closer to the trucker by the time he
(Fagan) completed the switch-back, leaving 38 to 53 feet (45 to 60
feet minus 7) between the two14 — a distance not even the government
says is unsafe.
The bottom line is that accepting the majority's
evidence-free 36-feet-closer theory (inspired in part by the
government) moves us far beyond reasonable inference and into the
14That is a pretty big gap too. It is a more than one but
less than two average-sized telephone poles laid on the ground.
(A typical telephone pole is about 30 feet high. See Rich
Vishneski, Telephone Poles — The More You Know!, DL Howell (Jan.
24, 2020), https://www.dlhowell.com/blog/telephone-poles (last
visited June 8, 2023).)
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forbidden realm of speculative imaginings. See generally Ornelas
v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996) (holding that we must
"give due weight to inferences" from the "facts" of record
(emphasis added)).15 Maybe that is why the judge did not rely on
any must-have-been-even-closer theory in reaching his decision
(even though the government pushed that idea (or a variation of
it) below).16
2
Hyping the judge's comment that the video "appears" to
show an "abrupt" lane change, the government also reminds us that
a factfinder's choice among supportable views of the evidence
cannot be clearly erroneous — the government seems to be suggesting
that "abrupt" equals "unsafe" (the majority apparently agrees).
It should go without saying (though I will say it nonetheless)
15 All that speculation shows just how wrong the majority is
to claim that "[t]he video bears twice on the issue of the speed
deferential." The majority's claim is also out of place given how
the judge (emphases mine) twice found the video "not definitive
one way or the other" on the separation-distance issue — a finding
the majority says is "not . . . clearly erroneous."
16The majority is right that courts must "respect . . . the
ability of trained and experienced police officers to draw from
the attendant circumstances inferences that would 'elude an
untrained person.'" United States v. Tiru-Plaza, 766 F.3d 111,
116 (1st Cir. 2014) (footnote omitted and quoting United States v.
Cortez, 499 U.S. 411, 418 (1981)). But courts value inferences
drawn from the hard "facts," see id. at 117 (emphasis added and
quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 27) — not (as we have here) speculative
suppositions on important issues (like the vehicles' relative
speeds).
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that abrupt cannot always equal unsafe (think of an abrupt change
with no cars in the return lane). Anyway the key word here is
supportable — i.e., "anchored in probative evidence" on complete-
record review. See McGuire, 260 F.3d at 45 (emphasis added).
Darcy's reasonable-suspicion claim stands — or more accurately
falls (as I've been saying) — on the notion that Fagan cut off the
truck in a near-crash event. But no one — not Darcy, not the
judge, not the government, not this panel — knows the actual
separation distance between Fagan's car and the truck or saw the
truck's brake lights go on (I know I sound like a broken record,
though necessarily so). See id. at 45-46 (stamping a finding
implausible after whole-record review, thus making the finding
clearly erroneous).
3
Still hoping to rebut Fagan's points that Darcy could
not see in front of the truck and did not know the distance between
the vehicles, the government says none of that matters. To the
government's way of thinking (though not the majority's as far as
I can tell), "[t]he existence . . . of some possibility" that Fagan
violated no traffic law "does not nullify an officer's reasonable
suspicion." That is so — and here's the important part for its
theory — because an officer "need not rule out the possibility of
innocent conduct" to have reasonable suspicion (the quote comes
from Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 277). While deeply-rooted, the "need not
- 46 -
rule out" rule does not help the government in the least. An
officer, after all, need not draw nonsuspicious inferences if
sufficient facts establish reasonable suspicion. See, e.g.,
Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 277-78. So (once more) to get anywhere the
government had to show that Darcy had an objective basis for
reasonably suspecting that Fagan made an unsafe lane change. And
(once more again) Darcy's concessions — his inability to fix the
distance between Fagan and the truck or Fagan's speed (after Fagan
switched back to the slow lane), and his not glimpsing (at that
key period) the trucker brake or drive defensively — put that
objective out of reach.
4
In something of a final push, the government — citing to
a Maine high court opinion mentioned by the majority, Pooler v.
Clifford, 639 A.2d 1061 (Me. 1994) — writes that Fagan's tardy
turn signal should factor into a court's reasonable-suspicion
analysis: Pooler interpreted Maine law as saying that sometimes
a signal may be needed for safety reasons, sometimes not (the
majority seems to embrace the government's argument, by the way).
See id. at 1062. But
it is not enough . . . for the district court
to base its factual findings on some evidence
in the record. The clear error standard
authorizes us to reverse a finding, not
unless, but "'although there is evidence to
support it.'"
- 47 -
Latif v. Obama, 666 F.3d 746, 766 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (Henderson, J.,
concurring) (quoting Anderson, 470 U.S. at 573, in turn quoting
U.S. Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. at 395) (emphases added by Judge
Henderson). See generally Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 257
(2001) (finding clear error even though "the record contains a
modicum of evidence offering support for the District Court's
conclusion" that a state legislature used race as the predominate
factor in drawing a congressional district, because "[t]he
evidence, taken together, . . . does not show that racial
considerations predominated" (emphases added)). That crucial
detail aside, Darcy (as the majority notes) offered two grounds
for the pull over — the late signal and the cutting off of the
truck in an almost-crash way. And a fair reading of the judge's
order is that he pinned his reasonable-suspicion analysis on the
second ground — a ground that is not "permissible" or "plausible"
on complete-record review. See Anderson, 470 U.S. at 574. True,
we may affirm a suppression order on any basis supported by the
record. See United States v. McGregor, 650 F.3d 813, 824 (1st
Cir. 2011). But the government offers no convincing reason to use
Fagan's delayed signal in that way (indeed the government's brief
does not even mention the affirm-on-any-ground rule).
5
The majority ends its reasonable-suspicion section by
criticizing my focus on "Darcy's characterization of the lane
- 48 -
change as cutting off the tractor-trailer at so close a distance
as to create an 'almost-crash situation.'" Darcy's account —
credited below, as the majority notes — shaped the judge's unsafe-
lane-change finding from start to finish. That account — which
unquestionably alleged a near-crash scenario — made separation
distance a major concern (as the judge said). But (for the
umpteenth time) neither he nor the judge could calculate that
number. And the majority's unfounded speculation — unfounded
because no knows the actual separation distance, or for that matter
the drivers' relative speeds — certainly cannot fill the hole (as
I've also been at pains to say). Which seems like a topic worthy
of focus, given how reasonable suspicion requires us to consider
"the whole picture," see Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417, so we do not
miss the larger situation.
V
All in all, the majority's position (based largely on
the government's) is too long on guesses and too short on facts to
sustain the judge's conclusion that a reasonable trooper in Darcy's
shoes would have suspected that he had seen an unsafe lane change.
So I would reverse the denial of Fagan's suppression motion, vacate
his conviction and sentence, and remand for further proceedings.17
17Given my take on the stop issue, I need not (and so do not)
discuss any of Fagan's other grounds for reversal — including
claims that officers unlawfully prolonged the traffic stop and
violated his Miranda rights, and that the judge wrongly denied
- 49 -
And I must respectfully — but emphatically — dissent
from the majority's contrary holding.
some of his racial profiling-related discovery requests. See PDK
Lab'ys Inc. v. U.S. D.E.A., 362 F.3d 786, 799 (D.C. Cir. 2004)
(Roberts, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment)
(declaring that "if it is not necessary to decide more, it is
necessary not to decide more").
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