C.D.Ill.: Twice flying an airplane across the country and immediately returning was RS

While the defendants’ conduct in flying an airplane across the country and back within hours may have been perfectly lawful, on the totality, there was reasonable suspicion to encounter them. United States v. Eymann, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138482 (C.D.Ill. Oct. 5, 2016):

Eymann and Lyons correctly point out that a person might have perfectly lawful reasons to fly a plane across the continent and then fly back within hours, to land late at night in an empty, rural airport, and to carry a box off of the plane. But the potential lawfulness of a given person’s behavior does not defeat reasonable suspicion, and reasonable suspicion does not require knowledge of actual criminal acts. Rather, an officer may form reasonable suspicion based on legal, but merely suspicious, activity—in fact, that is perhaps the very nature of reasonable suspicion. … In sum, the Court finds that the airplane’s prior history of flying twice across the country and returning after mere hours on the ground, and the plane’s third eastbound cross-country flight, during which Eymann and Lyons landed late at night at an empty, rural airport and carried a box off the plane gave the officers reasonable suspicion to conduct the Terry stop.