[00:00:00] Speaker 02: The next matter before us is 24-6213, United States versus Ramdiel. [00:00:10] Speaker 02: Ramdiel. [00:00:23] Speaker 03: Good morning, Perrin Taranjo on behalf of the appellant, Dwayne Ramdiel. [00:00:27] Speaker 03: This case is about whether police unlawfully extended a traffic stop by conducting a suspicionless criminal investigation while waiting on records from dispatch rather than working on traffic tasks. [00:00:37] Speaker 03: The outcome of this case is directly controlled by this court's decision in the United States v. Frazier. [00:00:42] Speaker 03: There, this court explained that while a records check is outstanding, officers need to work diligently on remaining traffic tasks. [00:00:51] Speaker 03: They don't get a free period to conduct suspicionless criminal investigations. [00:00:56] Speaker 01: Counsel, can I just stop you there? [00:00:58] Speaker 01: But the district court found that there was no prolonged, inappropriately prolonged time, correct? [00:01:07] Speaker 01: So what do you do about that? [00:01:10] Speaker 01: Yes, Your Honor. [00:01:10] Speaker 01: Just the district court was wrong as a factual matter? [00:01:15] Speaker 03: The district court was wrong both as a legal and factual matter. [00:01:18] Speaker 03: So the district court found that the Sergeant James' detour did not prolong the stop based on its misunderstanding of this court's rule in Frazier, that an officer needs to work diligently on traffic tasks even when dispatch is running. [00:01:32] Speaker 03: And so when the district court found that there was no evidence that the [00:01:37] Speaker 03: the stop had been prolonged, it was basing that on its misunderstanding that while dispatch was running, time couldn't be added to the stop. [00:01:45] Speaker 03: That's a legal error that the court needs. [00:01:48] Speaker 01: I'm sorry, please help me understand that. [00:01:50] Speaker 03: This court has explained that when a factual finding is based on a legal misunderstanding, that it's clearly erroneous. [00:01:58] Speaker 01: So what is the legal misunderstanding here? [00:02:01] Speaker 03: The district court held that because Sergeant James was waiting on records from dispatch, the detour couldn't have added time to the stop. [00:02:09] Speaker 03: Frazier makes clear that it doesn't matter whether a records check is outstanding. [00:02:15] Speaker 03: If an officer has traffic tasks, or if the government hasn't proven there aren't any traffic tasks as in this case, the officer needs to be working diligently on those traffic tasks, and a detour adds time to the stop, even if dispatch is running. [00:02:30] Speaker 01: Frasier may- Dispatch running the check does not provide the outer limit of the time, is what you're saying, I guess. [00:02:38] Speaker 03: That is what Frasier says, yes. [00:02:40] Speaker 03: Frazier says that if there's a detour, it's the government's burden to show that the detour didn't add time and it doesn't matter that dispatch is running because it's not enough. [00:02:52] Speaker 01: But isn't that part of the, so you're saying the dispatch running the check, what that was illegible? [00:03:01] Speaker 03: No, Your Honor, I'm not saying this to be clear, this is this court in Frasier saying. [00:03:07] Speaker 01: Okay, as your interpretation of Frasier. [00:03:10] Speaker 03: Yes, so dispatch running a check is not treated, this court doesn't treat it as a second officer on the scene that's diligently working on traffic tasks and therefore fulfilling Frasier's requirement that an officer on the scene be working on traffic tasks, otherwise the stop is prolonged. [00:03:31] Speaker 03: Because Sergeant James wasn't attending to traffic tasks while he was waiting on dispatch, those traffic tasks get displaced and therefore he's prolonged the stop even if the dispatch's check is still running. [00:03:43] Speaker 04: What tasks did he have left to do? [00:03:48] Speaker 03: First, it was the government's burden to show he had no tasks remaining, not our burden to show that he did have tasks remaining. [00:03:55] Speaker 03: But there are a number of plausible tasks that he could have had. [00:04:00] Speaker 03: He could have been deciding what enforcement action to take, writing up a ticket, writing a warning, checking the vehicle, checking the insurance. [00:04:12] Speaker 03: He could have returned Mr. Romdahl's license, and those are all tasks that he put off while he went on a suspicionless investigative detour. [00:04:22] Speaker 03: And the government never proved that he didn't have those tasks to address. [00:04:26] Speaker 04: Did he testify at the suppression hearing and say that he had decided he wasn't gonna do anything in writing in terms of either a citation or a warning, a written warning? [00:04:36] Speaker 04: And I guess I would think it would be pretty common [00:04:40] Speaker 04: that a lot of these checks are just done by dispatch and they're just looking to make sure there are no warrants, a valid license. [00:04:46] Speaker 04: And beyond that, if they're not going to issue a warning, they just wait on dispatch and they don't return the license until they have that information from dispatch. [00:04:53] Speaker 04: So I'm kind of at a loss to understand what it is you think Sergeant James should have been doing during that time when he decided he wasn't going to issue anything in writing. [00:05:03] Speaker 03: Your Honor, there is no testimony that he had made that decision. [00:05:06] Speaker 03: He, in fact, testified to the opposite, that he hadn't decided what he was going to do, and he should have been working on making that decision. [00:05:14] Speaker 03: He also could have been checking, verifying the insurance, and he testified he typically does that, but couldn't say that he had done that in this stop. [00:05:21] Speaker 03: And then, outside of that, if he had decided he wasn't going to do a written warning or a written citation, there are likely still documentary tasks to be done. [00:05:32] Speaker 03: It seems implausible that officers can just issue a verbal warning and don't document it, because then the next time you pull that person over, you don't [00:05:42] Speaker 03: know if you've stopped them and also many offices have policies that would require that documentation because... Well, there's nothing in the record about that. [00:05:50] Speaker 03: No, because the government did not raise this argument or prove it up. [00:05:55] Speaker 03: This, again... Well, they did it. [00:05:57] Speaker 02: The suppression hearing, as my colleague has indicated, testified that he was considering just giving a verbal warning. [00:06:05] Speaker 02: Then there would be nothing to do. [00:06:10] Speaker 02: You say there would be no record of the stop. [00:06:12] Speaker 02: There's a record of the stop because he called it in when he pulled him over and then asked for a license and warrants check. [00:06:18] Speaker 02: So there is a record of the stop. [00:06:21] Speaker 03: Well, Your Honor, I think what I mean by a record of the stop is I've pulled this particular person over for this reason. [00:06:27] Speaker 02: I've decided on X. Having gotten a verbal warning in my past, I don't recall. [00:06:39] Speaker 03: Well, I would think it would be something that's internal. [00:06:41] Speaker 02: Slow down and go. [00:06:42] Speaker 03: Yes, Your Honor. [00:06:44] Speaker 03: I would say it's likely something that's internal so that the next time that they pull you over and are deciding whether to give you a verbal warning, they can look it up and say, oh, I've stopped this person before. [00:06:53] Speaker 03: Or they're trying to make sure they're not discriminatorily making stops and they're keeping track of who they're stopping. [00:07:01] Speaker 03: This is all [00:07:02] Speaker 03: This is all some facts that the government could have explored at the suppression hearing. [00:07:07] Speaker 02: If he had definitively testified I had decided to give him a verbal warning and there was nothing more for me to do, then you would agree there was no violation here, right? [00:07:22] Speaker 03: Your Honor, I don't think I would agree. [00:07:23] Speaker 03: I would think he would need to have testified there were no tasks that he would have needed to do if he were going to give a verbal warning. [00:07:30] Speaker 03: I think I just said that in the [00:07:32] Speaker 03: Oh, excuse me, then yes, I think if he truly had nothing to do, he didn't rush, and he was being diligent in executing his traffic tasks, I think in this case there likely would not be a violation. [00:07:49] Speaker 03: However, this court has sort of left open the possibility that calling dispatch at the end of a stop where there's [00:07:55] Speaker 03: nothing left to do, actually could be leveraging traffic task in order to facilitate an investigation. [00:08:02] Speaker 03: If all the officer is going to do is begin a suspicionless criminal investigation, this court in Mayville at least left that open, but we didn't brief that here. [00:08:11] Speaker 02: Well, and we've also pretty clearly said that it's part of the normal tasks to do the records check, make sure he's got a valid license, make sure there aren't any outstanding warrants, right? [00:08:25] Speaker 02: So assuming that was proper, if he had decided to just give a verbal warning, it may not have extended the stop at all. [00:08:38] Speaker 03: Yes, Your Honor, I think it may not have, but it was the government's burden to prove that, and they didn't attempt to do so. [00:08:44] Speaker 03: They never attempted to say, they never elicited testimony that he was absolutely going to issue a verbal warning. [00:08:52] Speaker 03: He, in fact, testified to the opposite, and they never elicited testimony as to what traffic tasks he would have had to do with respect to each enforcement action, and whether a verbal warning [00:09:05] Speaker 03: would have eliminated any traffic tasks. [00:09:07] Speaker 03: And it was their burden under Frazier to do so because he used the entire amount of time that he had on a suspicionless criminal investigation. [00:09:19] Speaker 04: And so- Yeah, but you agree though, the video from the dashboard seems to show that from the moment he gets into his patrol car, he calls dispatch to have them start running the license and check for warrants. [00:09:34] Speaker 04: And then right when dispatch calls back, he opens his door and goes up and talks to Mr. Romdahl. [00:09:38] Speaker 04: So I mean, first of all, do you agree with that point? [00:09:41] Speaker 04: There's no wasted time or any prolonging of the stop from the moment he enters his patrol car and exits, because he calls dispatch immediately and leaves the car once they report back. [00:09:55] Speaker 03: Your Honor, I think I'm not quite understanding your question. [00:09:57] Speaker 04: So we're talking about how long the duration of what you're calling the tasks had to take for him to do. [00:10:03] Speaker 04: I'm saying I've watched the video and it seems to me Sergeant James gets into his patrol car and he immediately calls dispatch. [00:10:09] Speaker 04: So there's no delay. [00:10:10] Speaker 04: And then right when dispatch calls back and reports back to him, he then immediately gets out and goes and engages Mr. Romdahl. [00:10:17] Speaker 04: Do you agree with my sort of recitation that there's no investigatory actions being undertaken from the moment he calls, before he calls dispatch or after he hears back from them? [00:10:29] Speaker 03: Would I agree that there were no investigative actions between- There was no prolonging. [00:10:34] Speaker 03: No, you're right. [00:10:34] Speaker 03: I think those three minutes were minutes that he could have been working on traffic tasks and the government didn't establish. [00:10:40] Speaker 04: OK, so but you're speaking of traffic tasks as if there's this checklist of things that every officer must do. [00:10:46] Speaker 04: Is there any case that says that? [00:10:48] Speaker 04: Because I read the cases to say once an officer pulls someone over in a traffic stop, there are things they're permitted to do, such as check for warrants, make sure they have a valid license. [00:10:58] Speaker 04: But there's no list of tasks that certain James had to complete, is there? [00:11:04] Speaker 03: No, Your Honor, I don't think there's a list of tasks that he had to complete, but Frazier makes it clear that he can't just detour without actually focusing on the task. [00:11:15] Speaker 03: He needs to focus on the task at hand, and if the government hasn't established that he was truly done with the traffic stop when he called dispatch, I think that was their burden to prove. [00:11:26] Speaker 04: It isn't your problem with Frazier that, and this goes to the question I was asking about him calling dispatch and the timing of that. [00:11:34] Speaker 04: In Frasier, the officer waits to call dispatch for three minutes, instead undergoes actions that are investigatory in nature, and then three minutes later calls dispatch. [00:11:44] Speaker 04: But that didn't happen here, did it? [00:11:46] Speaker 03: No, Your Honor, but in Frasier, the court then goes on to say that the government hadn't proved that the LPR search or his diesel search didn't add time to the stop even though it was conducted while dispatch was running. [00:12:02] Speaker 03: So it wasn't just that he had initially done that, spent those three minutes texting the K-9 for the K-9, it was that [00:12:10] Speaker 03: After he called dispatch, he went on a detour by looking through a diesel search, excuse me, doing a diesel search, and in doing that diesel search, the court found that added time to the stop because he wasn't working on traffic tests during that time. [00:12:25] Speaker 03: That's indistinguishable from this case. [00:12:27] Speaker 03: Officer Sergeant James called dispatch and then he goes on a detour. [00:12:31] Speaker 03: Those three minutes, just as in Frazier, add time to the stop. [00:12:34] Speaker 02: Well, they add time to the stop if he had to do [00:12:40] Speaker 02: tasks after he got the report that could have been done while he was waiting for the report? [00:12:48] Speaker 02: Yes, Your Honor. [00:12:48] Speaker 02: Are you saying that it was the burden of the government to show that there were no such tasks that had to be performed and that therefore there was no extension? [00:12:59] Speaker 03: Yes, Your Honor, exactly. [00:13:01] Speaker 03: And we [00:13:06] Speaker 03: We argue the government had the opportunity to make this record and make this argument and they did not blow and that there's no factual record. [00:13:14] Speaker 03: As a result, there's no factual record for this court even if it were to want to entertain this argument to make the findings that the argument requires in order for the government to win. [00:13:27] Speaker 03: So for those reasons, we would request that this court reverse the denial of the motion expressed and direct the evidence [00:13:35] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:13:57] Speaker 00: May it please the court? [00:13:57] Speaker 00: Tanner Herman on behalf of the United States. [00:14:01] Speaker 00: I think it'd be pertinent to begin with a look at the record in this case. [00:14:06] Speaker 00: asserted here that there was no testimony that this officer was ever going to intend to give Mr. Ramdial a verbal warning and let him go after he received the all clear from dispatch. [00:14:17] Speaker 00: In reference to this, on page 30, volume 3 of the record, the AUSA below is questioning Sergeant James about this moment where he receives the all clear from dispatch. [00:14:26] Speaker 00: I'm going to read from the record here, beginning with a question from the middle of the page. [00:14:29] Speaker 00: Question, to you, okay, so at that point, for the purposes of the traffic stop itself, if you were going to write a warning, that would be when you write the warning and let Mr. Randall go. [00:14:38] Speaker 00: Is that fair? [00:14:40] Speaker 00: Answer, warning or citation, yes. [00:14:42] Speaker 00: Question, had you made the decision of what you were going to do at that point? [00:14:46] Speaker 00: Answer, yes. [00:14:48] Speaker 00: Question, and what was that decision? [00:14:49] Speaker 00: Answer, that decision was that the traffic stop was over at that point for me. [00:14:54] Speaker 00: Question, okay, answer. [00:14:56] Speaker 00: and that I was going to, that obviously I would give a verbal warning. [00:15:01] Speaker 00: So he's clearly asked, what did you intend to do? [00:15:03] Speaker 00: I intended to give him a verbal warning. [00:15:05] Speaker 00: And would you have, after dispatch got back to you on this, gone to that vehicle, given him a verbal warning, and let him go? [00:15:12] Speaker 00: Now, I believe this testimony is pertinent because the district court finds in its order, discussing when the Rodriguez moment occurred, i.e. [00:15:20] Speaker 00: when he needed to have reasonable suspicion in order to continue to stop. [00:15:23] Speaker 00: that that occurred when dispatch came back with this all clear because at that point all traffic related tasks were complete and it goes on to say the sergeant acknowledged as much in his testimony. [00:15:34] Speaker 00: So what we're dealing with here is a factual question as to whether this prolonged the stop. [00:15:38] Speaker 00: And that's clear from this court's holding in Malone which predates Frazier and is to the extent Frazier is inconsistent as to whether this should be a factual or legal question. [00:15:46] Speaker 00: Malone as the earlier panel opinion controls here. [00:15:50] Speaker 00: As the district court relied on this testimony, included there were no tasks left for the officer to conduct and therefore that his actions prior to this, which all occurred while he was awaiting for the all clear from dispatch, did not add time to the stop. [00:16:04] Speaker 00: This holding was not clearly erroneous and this court should affirm on those grounds. [00:16:08] Speaker 00: Now there's another crucial distinction here in so far as how this case relates to Frazier. [00:16:14] Speaker 00: So true enough, in Frazier we had three minutes of the officer [00:16:17] Speaker 00: attempting to arrange for a dog sniff and not attending to any traffic tasks. [00:16:22] Speaker 00: Now on that first portion of Frazier, there's a clear distinction because there's no forward action being conducted at that point. [00:16:29] Speaker 00: There's no records dispatch in which he's awaiting. [00:16:31] Speaker 00: He's not awaiting for the driver to produce anything. [00:16:33] Speaker 00: He has completely halted the stop in order to attempt to arrange for a dog sniff. [00:16:38] Speaker 00: Now, we go to the end of Frazier, and what has happened to this opinion, which is primarily a reasonable suspicion opinion, is that the government comes in and argues, well, the later license plate reader search could have supplied reasonable suspicion for the earlier attempts to arrange for a dog sniff. [00:16:54] Speaker 00: And what this court concluded correctly is that, no, the later action does not supply reasonable suspicion for earlier conduct. [00:17:01] Speaker 00: But it then goes on to make an ancillary finding. [00:17:04] Speaker 00: that the government's argument that you can consider the LPR search because it didn't add time to the stop was wrong, because in its opinion, the government needed to show that the stop would not have ended sooner if the officer had not engaged in that LPR search. [00:17:18] Speaker 00: So looking at the facts of when that LPR search occurred, they are thus, the officer calls in a dispatch, calls in records check to dispatch, he then engages in the LPR search, and then afterwards, he attends to another traffic-related task, which is that he verifies [00:17:33] Speaker 00: the driver's rental agreement. [00:17:34] Speaker 00: And in that case, the driver had said, I don't have my rental agreement. [00:17:38] Speaker 00: Here's the information. [00:17:38] Speaker 00: You can verify it yourself. [00:17:40] Speaker 00: So there's a marked distinction between that case and this case in that there is at least one traffic task that was remaining after he engaged in the LPR search. [00:17:50] Speaker 00: Here, there is nothing. [00:17:53] Speaker 02: And it turns on whether, in fact, it's clear he was going to give a verbal warning, right? [00:17:59] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:17:59] Speaker 02: If he had to write a ticket or even a written warning, then he couldn't divert from the task to do an investigation if it prolonged the stop. [00:18:12] Speaker 02: Yes, and so... If he could do both while he was waiting for dispatch, he'd be okay, but if he [00:18:20] Speaker 02: waited during dispatch, he did his investigation, and then he had to write a ticket, you would agree that it extended beyond the Rodriguez moment? [00:18:28] Speaker 00: Yes. [00:18:29] Speaker 00: I think if he had delayed that secondary task, and that secondary task was, he was even for two seconds, he needed to finish writing that ticket after dispatch came back, then he would have prolonged the stop. [00:18:39] Speaker 00: And Malone makes clear that there's no de minimis exception to this. [00:18:43] Speaker 00: The question is whether or not you could complete all that conduct at the time that that sort of parallel action was ongoing. [00:18:49] Speaker 00: And here we think the evidence clearly shows, and this is an evidentiary question, that all of that was done within that time frame, and so there is no evidence that this added time or prolonged the stop. [00:19:07] Speaker 00: Unless there's any more questions from this court, we ask that you affirm. [00:19:28] Speaker 03: Just a couple of points, Your Honors. [00:19:30] Speaker 03: I first want to make clear that the government is incorrect that the district court found that absent the detour, Sergeant James would have issued a verbal warning and thus had nothing left to do. [00:19:40] Speaker 03: That's not what the district court found and there was no evidence from which the district court could make that finding because the government didn't make that argument below and it didn't offer any evidence on that particular point. [00:19:52] Speaker 03: The district court in finding that a Rodriguez moment had occurred after the all clear is merely recognizing that everything after that moment that Sergeant James did was investigative and could not be described as traffic related and therefore he did need reasonable suspicion at that point. [00:20:11] Speaker 03: But that's not an independent finding that he had no tasks absent the detour and if he had [00:20:17] Speaker 03: foregone the detour and he had focused on the task at hand, he would have had nothing left to do. [00:20:22] Speaker 03: I want to make Crystal clear about that. [00:20:24] Speaker 03: It was the government's burden to show that and they didn't attempt to make that showing. [00:20:28] Speaker 03: They didn't even raise this argument. [00:20:30] Speaker 03: Again, we would ask this court to reverse and instruct discretion. [00:20:33] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:20:34] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:20:38] Speaker 02: We will take this matter under advisement and we are going to take a short break.