United States v. Ostos

United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit

No. 20-50122
Summary Calendar

United States of America,

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

Herman Ostos,

Defendant—Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
USDC No. 2:19-CR-479-2

Before Clement, Higginson, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Herman Ostos was convicted of one count of conspiracy to transport
illegal aliens and two counts of transportation of illegal aliens. The district
court sentenced Ostos to concurrent terms of nine months of imprisonment,
followed by concurrent three-year terms of supervised release. Ostos

*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
October 20, 2020

Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
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No. 20-50122
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challenges the denial of his motion to suppress, asserting that the trooper did
not have reasonable suspicion to stop the truck Ostos occupied. He
maintains that Texas Transportation Code § 545.051 must be read in pari
materia with Texas Transportation Code § 545.060. According to Ostos,
when § 545.051 and § 545.060 are read together, a driver may be cited for
driving on the wrong half of the roadway only if the road is clearly marked;
however, in his case, the road was not clearly marked.
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, this court reviews the
constitutionality of the traffic stop, including whether there was reasonable
suspicion to initiate a stop, de novo and reviews the district court’s factual
findings for clear error. See United States v. Cervantes, 797 F.3d 326, 328 (5th
Cir. 2015). The constitutionality of a traffic stop is examined under the two-
pronged analysis described in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). United States
v. Pack, 612 F.3d 341, 349-50 (5th Cir. 2010), modified on other grounds on
denial of reh’g, 622 F.3d 383 (5th Cir. 2010). This appeal focuses solely on
the first Terry prong—whether the trooper’s decision to conduct a stop of
the truck Ostos occupied was justified at its inception. See id. at 350.
“For a traffic stop to be justified at its inception, an officer must have
an objectively reasonable suspicion that some sort of illegal activity, such as
a traffic violation, occurred, or is about to occur, before stopping the
vehicle.” United States v. Lopez-Moreno, 420 F.3d 420, 430 (5th Cir. 2005).
“[R]easonable suspicion exists when the officer can point to specific and
articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those
facts, reasonably warrant the search and seizure.” Id.
We need not reach the question whether § 545.051 and § 545.060
must be read in pari materia, because even if the trooper erred in determining
that he had a legal basis to stop the truck, his mistake of law can “give rise to
the reasonable suspicion necessary to uphold the seizure under the Fourth
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Amendment,” if it was objectively reasonable. Heien v. North Carolina, 574
U.S. 54, 57 (2014). Here, any mistake of law in determining that the driver
of the truck violated § 545.051 was objectively reasonable—the statutory
provisions do not facially indicate that they should be read in pari materia,
Texas courts have not held that the statutes should be read in pari materia,
and the trooper’s interpretation of § 545.051 was consistent with the wording
of the statute. Thus, there was reasonable suspicion to justify the stop. See
id. at 57, 66-67; United States v. Alvarado-Zarza, 782 F.3d 246, 249-50 (5th
Cir. 2015).
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
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