One afternoon in January 1998, a United States Border Patrol Agent was alerted to vehicles traffic on a infrequently used road in the area of Douglas, Arizona. As the Border Patrol Agent arrived in the area, he located the vehicle. At this time, the Border Patrol Agent observed a minivan begin to drive at a very slow rate of speed. As he moved closer to the vehicle, he observed a male driver sitting with a rigid posture, all while ignoring the Border Patrol Agent. The mans erratic behavior, as well as several children sitting in the back in a manner which indicated they were sitting on a substance covering the floor of the vehicle, indicated enough suspicious activity to warranted a stop of the vehicle. A subsequent search of the vehicle located almost 129 pounds of marijuana.

The suspect was charged with various narcotics statutes and convicted despite attempting to suppress the evidence based on the idea that the Border Patrol Agent did not posses sufficient reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle. The district court denied this argument.

The suspect, Ralph Arvizu, appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit analyzed each of the 10 individual reasons the Border Patrol Agent made the stop, determining 7 of the team were easily explained as innocent behavior. The remaining 3 did not carry enough weight to attain reasonable suspicion. With these findings, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Arvizu’s conviction. The federal government appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

If I were the judge in this matter, I would reverse the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and return the case to the District Court. The reasoning for this decision is the court is looking at each of the reasons for the stop as a single entity, not a totality of the reasons combined. As a law enforcement officer, they base a decision off of everything they know at that time, not a single reasoning. With this mentality, each individual reasoning could be explained away but this concept is much more difficult to accomplish when you put all of the ten reasons together at one time.