CA1: 25-year-old prior could be considered by officer in RS totality

Reasonable suspicion was mounting from the beginning of the stop. Defendant was excessively nervous and repeatedly (to the surprise of the officer) consented to a search of the vehicle. Defendant’s 25 year old conviction wasn’t too stale to be considered in the totality of reasonable suspicion. United States v. Dion, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 10239 (1st Cir. June 8, 2017):

Dion goes on to argue that his twenty-five-year-old conviction was far too old to support reasonable suspicion. This doesn’t persuade either: in assessing all the circumstances, officers are permitted to consider all criminal misdeeds, regardless of when they took place. See McGregor, 650 F.3d at 822-23 (rejecting argument that a prior conviction was too old to be considered in reasonable-suspicion calculus). And in any event, it was not just the fact of conviction that Blake found suspicious. It was also significant that Dion misrepresented the extent of his criminal history by omitting that he had been on the hook not just for possession, but also trafficking, and that he had been caught up not just in marijuana, but also cocaine.

In sum, Blake’s suspicions were mounting with nearly every passing moment.”Evaluating whether an officer’s suspicions are (or are not) reasonable is a fact-sensitive task, bound up in the warp and woof of the surrounding circumstances.” Chhien, 266 F.3d at 8 (citing Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S. Ct. 1319, 75 L. Ed. 2d 229 (1983)). As we examine those suspicions, we give deference to Blake’s perceptions. See id. Here, Blake’s growing suspicions (and questioning) were reasonable. As we have said, these stops are an “ongoing process,” and for that reason, the appropriateness of what Blake did depends on what he knew (or had reason to believe) and how the events of the stop unfold. See Ruidíaz, 529 F.3d at 29 (citing Romain, 393 F.3d at 71). Indeed, the focus of the stop can shift, as it did here, and Blake permissibly “increase[d] the scope of his investigation by degrees” as his suspicions grew. Id. (quoting Chhien, 266 F.3d at 6; citing Sowers, 136 F.3d at 27 (giving the okay on increasingly intrusive questions and unrelated questions when suspicions escalate during a stop)). The questions Blake posed fell squarely within this universe of authority, and to the extent those questions (and his Google Maps search for Yardley) elongated the stop, it was permissible.