People v. Mendoza

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 5, 2020
DocketE071835
StatusPublished

This text of People v. Mendoza (People v. Mendoza) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Mendoza, (Cal. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

Filed 2/5/20

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent, E071835

v. (Super.Ct.No. SWF1707770)

BLANCA LUNA MENDOZA, OPINION

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. John M. Davis, Judge.

Reversed.

Randall Conner, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and

Appellant.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General,

Eric A. Swenson and Michael D. Butera, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and

Respondent.

1 A jury convicted Blanca Luna Mendoza of transporting for sale more than four

kilograms of cocaine based on evidence a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent

acquired after a stop on Interstate 15. Mendoza sought to exclude the evidence, arguing

the agent did not have reasonable suspicion she was engaged in criminal activity when he

stopped her.

The agent said he decided to stop Mendoza because she was driving in a known

smuggling corridor in a vehicle which had crossed the United States-Mexico border in

the prior week; she slowed and changed lanes after he pulled alongside her in an

unmarked car, rolled down his window, and stared at her; she drove at approximately 50

miles per hour to stay behind him; and she then refused to look at him when she

ultimately passed him a few minutes later. The trial court held—albeit with

reservations—that the stop was justified, and a jury later convicted her of transporting

narcotics for sale. Mendoza appeals her conviction based only on the impropriety of the

stop.

We conclude the agent based his decision to stop Mendoza on insufficient

evidence she was engaged in criminal activity. At bottom, the agent acted on a hunch,

which is improper, even though—in this case—it proved correct. We therefore reverse

the conviction and remand for further proceedings.1

Our reversal makes it unnecessary to reach Mendoza’s challenges to her 1 sentence.

2 I

FACTS

A. The Decision to Stop Mendoza

United States Border Patrol Agent Arturo Acosta testified for the prosecution at a

hearing on Mendoza’s motion to suppress.

He began by describing his experience and training. When he testified, Agent

Acosta had been a border patrol agent for almost 10 years and a member of the High

Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force for less than a year. With the task force, his

responsibilities included patrolling, observing traffic, looking for illicit activity on the

highways, and running records checks.

Agent Acosta said his training included behavior analysis, which he described as

“being able to—for us to be able to pull over a vehicle, we need reasonable suspicion. For

me, a reasonable suspicion is a hunch of articulable facts that will allow us to pull over a

vehicle. [¶] The explanation could be something simple, something simple as a lane

change, the behavior or the person in the vehicle, the vehicle slowing down.”

On the morning of November 8, 2017, Agent Acosta was patrolling in an

unmarked car on Interstate 15 in San Diego County near the southern border of Riverside

County. Agent Acosta said he was there as part of the drug interdiction task force, and the

area he was patrolling is a major corridor for trafficking narcotics from Mexico.

At approximately 9:45 a.m., Agent Acosta saw Mendoza’s blue Jeep Liberty

traveling on I-15 near Highway 76. Consistent with his usual practice, he said, he ran her

3 plates and learned the vehicle had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border within the last week.

“It was—what I do on [the] highway, I run vehicle plates, and I try to get any nexus to

the border. So, I run plates and look at them. And this vehicle had recent nexus to the

border when I saw it.” Agent Acosta also learned the car was registered to a woman who

resided in Chula Vista, near the U.S.-Mexico border. On cross-examination, Agent

Acosta said he obtained no other information about the car or the driver at that time and

acknowledged there was nothing else about the vehicle that drew his attention.

Based on the recent border crossing, Agent Acosta approached Mendoza and her

vehicle. “So, the initial thing that I did, I saw that it had a nexus [to the U.S.-Mexico

border]. I pulled up next to the vehicle to see who was driving the vehicle, see if it was a

female, male, then determine if it’s the same person that was in the vehicle just by

gender. And when I did that, I couldn’t see her. [¶] So, I rolled down my window, I

looked over at her, and she looked over at me.” He said he believed he pulled alongside

Mendoza on her passenger side and the two made eye contact after he rolled down his

driver-side window. He said they maintained eye contact for a while because he

remembered “leaning forward in the vehicle to get a better look when I think she got a

really good look at me.”

According to Agent Acosta, Mendoza’s reaction was cause for suspicion. He said,

after “I introduced myself by rolling down the window, having her see [me], [and] me I

see[] her” he was able to judge her reaction against how the general public drives.

Whereas the public “don’t seem nervous they don’t seem to be erratic in lane changing,

4 slowing down,” Mendoza, “immediately slowed down in speed and then got behind me.”

According to Agent Acosta, he moved his vehicle into the slow lane, to the right of her,

but Mendoza “was not willing to pass me even though I slowed down to approximately

50 miles an hour.” They drove like that—Agent Acosta ahead of Mendoza and one lane

to her right—for about three miles. At that point, Mendoza passed Agent Acosta’s car on

the left. He said she had both hands on the wheel and didn’t look at him as she passed.

Agent Acosta decided to initiate a traffic stop and activated his patrol vehicle’s

lights and siren once he was behind her. He described the totality of the circumstances

warranting the stop like this: “So, the totality is based off of the nexus to the border—

recent nexus to the border, female crossing it, female driver of the vehicle, driving

behavior, lane changes behind me, speed, not passing me for—I believe it was

approximately three miles even though I slowed down considerably because—in

comparison to the general public that was on the highway that day, her rigid posture once

I approached the vehicle again. All of that and I thought I had a reasonable suspicion to

pull over the vehicle.”

Once Mendoza had stopped, Agent Acosta approached the vehicle, identified

himself as a border patrol agent, and began conducting a roadside interview in Spanish.

During the interview, Agent Acosta noticed a black backpack on the passenger-side

backseat of the car. He asked Mendoza for permission to search the vehicle and she

consented. Inside the backpack, he found seven packaged bricks of cocaine, each

weighing approximately one kilogram.

5 B. The Court Proceedings

The Riverside County District Attorney charged Mendoza with transporting a

controlled substance for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11352, subd. (a); count 1) and

possessing a controlled substance for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11351; count 2). On

both counts, they alleged Mendoza possessed more than four kilograms of cocaine.

(Health & Saf.

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People v. Mendoza, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-mendoza-calctapp-2020.