explaining that under the collective knowledge doctrine, or fellow officer rule, in order to determine if an investigatory stop, search, or arrest complied with the Fourth Amendment, the court looks to the collective knowledge of all of the officers involved in the investigation, even though all the infor- mation known to all the officers is not communicated to the officer who actually under- took the challenged action
How later courts described this case
- explaining that under the collective knowledge doctrine, or fellow officer rule, in order to determine if an investigatory stop, search, or arrest complied with the Fourth Amendment, the court looks to the collective knowledge of all of the officers involved in the investigation, even though all the infor- mation known to all the officers is not communicated to the officer who actually under- took the challenged action
- holding that communication of why a suspect should be seized is not affirmatively required, and that reaffirming application of the collective knowledge doctrine in situations where the officer conducting the stop was only given a request containing only descriptions of the suspect, not the factual basis for the relaying officer’s determination that probable cause existed
- explaining this court has applied the collective knowledge doctrine “regardless of whether [any] information [giving rise to probable cause] was actually 2 13-16305 communicated to” the officer performing the arrest; suggesting, but not requiring, communication among officers as a way to distinguish which officers are part of an investigation, and which are not
- holding that reasonableness inquiry considers “the collective knowledge of all the officers involved,” regardless of whether information was communicated to particular officers
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join Judge O’Scannlain’s opinion, but write separately to emphasize what this case is not about. This is not a case where the investigating officers ordered a fellow officer to conduct a traffic stop because they lacked probable cause for a narcotics stop. Sergeant Meier had probable cause to order a narcotics stop, and that’s exactly what he did. He requested that the arresting officer make it look like a “traffic stop” as a safety measure, to prevent the risk of harm to a lone officer trying to make a narcotics arrest before backups could arrive on the scene. But that did not change the nature of the stop, which remained- — in substance — a narcotics stop.
*1038 Concern for the officer’s safety was entirely justified because the evidence suggested that the suspects were seasoned drug traffickers with access to sophisticated equipment to ply their trade. It was not unreasonable for Sergeant Meier to fear that the suspects might use force against the officer who made the stop, had they realized the real reason for it. Thus, disguising the stop as a “traffic stop” was a valid law enforcement tactic calculated to ensure an officer’s safety. The case would, of course, be quite different if an officer who had no probable cause or reasonable suspicion were to conduct (or direct another officer to conduct) a traffic stop in the hope of finding something illegal or delaying the suspect. That kind of pretextual traffic stop is clearly prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Wallace, 213 F.3d 1216, 1220-21 (9th Cir.2000).