49 pounds of fentanyl suppressed because the stop was extended without reasonable suspicion. United States v. Salazar, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109153 (W.D. Okla. May 18, 2026):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\nThe Government concedes–as it must, on this record–that Deputy Flemming prolonged the stop beyond its traffic-related mission to conduct the canine sniff. The only question, then, is whether by that moment Deputy Flemming had developed reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking independent of the traffic violation that justified the stop in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Government identifies three factors that it says, in combination, cleared that threshold: (1) Salazar’s nervous demeanor, (2) Salazar’s unusual travel plans and inability to recall a detail of those plans, and (3) Salazar’s vehicle ownership (or lack thereof). The Court thus examines Salazar’s demeanor, travel plans, and vehicle ownership in turn, mindful that the whole may exceed the sum of its parts, but equally mindful that a stack of innocuous facts does not become suspicious merely by being stacked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
. . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A closing observation. Deputy Flemming’s hunch was right. There were, in fact, nearly forty-nine pounds of fentanyl concealed in Salazar’s vehicle. The temptation, knowing what we now know, is to pat Deputy Flemming on the back and call this good police work. The Court resists the temptation, for two reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first is that we see only the hunches that pay off. Deputy Flemming’s instincts led him to a loaded car on this October morning, and the record of that success now sits before the Court. What the record does not show-what no record ever shows-is how many other motorists have been pulled to the shoulder of Interstate 40 for minor (and often quite subjective) traffic violations, peppered with questions by interdiction officers fishing for inconsistencies, searched after similarly iffy drug dog alerts, and sent on their way with nothing found and no suppression motion to memorialize the intrusion. A rule that credits hunches by their hits, while ignoring their misses, is not a rule at all. It is a lottery, and the Fourth Amendment was written to end the lottery, not to ratify its winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second is that the exclusionary rule means what it says. It is a judge-made remedy, and it carries a judge-made cost: very good evidence of a very real crime will not be heard by the jury that would otherwise convict on it. That cost is borne, in this case and in others like it, by the public whose safety the drug laws exist to protect. The Court does not minimize the cost. But the cost is the price of the rule, and the rule is the price of the right. A Fourth Amendment that yielded whenever the search turned out to be fruitful would protect only the innocent and the lucky. And the innocent, by and large, rarely have need to invoke its protection. But the guilty do. Love it or hate it, that is the uncomfortable arithmetic of exclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Motion to Suppress (Dkt. 27) is GRANTED.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
49 pounds of fentanyl suppressed because the stop was extended without reasonable suspicion. United States v. Salazar, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109153 (W.D. Okla. May 18, 2026):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reasonable-suspicion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64098,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64097\/revisions\/64098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}