United States of America v. Shue Moua

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-2774
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Shue Moua
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the District of Minnesota
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Submitted: March 19, 2025
Filed: August 1, 2025
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Before COLLOTON, Chief Judge, ERICKSON and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
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ERICKSON, Circuit Judge.
A jury convicted Shue Moua of possession with intent to distribute
methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) & (b)(1)(B). Moua moved
to suppress the drugs found during a traffic stop of her vehicle, asserting the stop

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was invalid at its inception and unreasonably prolonged. The district court1 denied
her motion and sentenced her to a 72-month term of imprisonment. Because there
was reasonable suspicion of criminal activity for the traffic stop and the stop was not
unreasonably extended, we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
During the early morning hours of March 2, 2023, a Carlton County,
Minnesota Sheriff’s Deputy, Nils Hansen, was parked at a Kwik Trip gas station.
The weather was inclement, and Kwik Trip’s premises were covered in ice and snow.
While at the Kwik Trip, Deputy Hansen observed a car park next to a gas pump.
When the driver, later identified as Shue Moua, exited the car, she tripped. Realizing
she was parked on the wrong side of the pump to fill gas, Moua got back inside the
vehicle and repositioned her car in a manner that Deputy Hansen found odd—that
is, by executing a “180-degree turn through multiple short and choppy motions.”
Moua’s conduct caused Deputy Hansen to suspect she was impaired. Deputy
Hansen also observed that the vehicle did not appear to have a rear or front license
plate, nor did he notice a temporary registration tag.
Deputy Hansen followed Moua as she left the gas station. After following her
for several miles, Deputy Hansen initiated a traffic stop. As he approached the car,
he noticed “some type of paper” in the rear window for the first time. Moua’s speech
was slurred, and she could not locate insurance for the vehicle. As their conversation
continued, Deputy Hansen noted Moua’s eyes were bloodshot, her teeth displayed
signs of drug use, and her pupils were dilated while in the beam of his flashlight. He
observed a canister of pepper spray on Moua’s keychain and a make-up case with
cellophane sticking out of it in the back seat of Moua’s car.
1 The Honorable John R. Tunheim, United States District Judge for the District
of Minnesota.

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Because Deputy Hansen suspected Moua was impaired by a controlled
substance, he asked her to submit to a series of field sobriety tests. Moua agreed.
Before conducting the field sobriety tests, Moua and Deputy Hansen had a 13-
minute conversation about, among other things, Moua’s prior convictions. During
the conversation, Deputy Hansen sought and received consent to search Moua’s car.
A second squad car arrived and Moua waited in it while Deputy Hansen
searched her car. After Deputy Hansen did not find anything of interest in the make-
up bag, Moua revoked her consent. Deputy Hansen then paused his search and
explained to Moua that he was arresting her for impaired driving and for possession
of the pepper spray on her keychain. With Moua under arrest, the officers called a
tow truck to impound the vehicle. Before it was towed, the officers conducted an
inventory search, which revealed approximately one kilogram of methamphetamine
on the passenger side by the floorboards.
Moua was charged with possession with intent to distribute
methamphetamine. She moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the search
of her vehicle, contending Deputy Hansen lacked reasonable suspicion to stop her
vehicle and, after he stopped it, he unreasonably extended the detention. Following
an evidentiary hearing, a magistrate judge recommended Moua’s motion to suppress
be granted on the ground that Deputy Hansen lacked reasonable suspicion to initiate
a stop. After considering the government’s objections, the district court found
Deputy Hansen had reasonable suspicion to initiate a traffic stop for impaired driving
and vehicle registration defects, and the stop was not unreasonably extended.
Moua was convicted by a jury, and the district court sentenced her to 72
months’ imprisonment. Moua appeals, asserting the district court erred when it
denied her motion to suppress.

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II. DISCUSSION
The district court, relying on the magistrate judge’s report and
recommendation and the transcripts from the evidentiary hearing, concluded there
was sufficient evidence in the record to find reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop.
We review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions
de novo. United States v. Austin, 104 F.4th 695, 698–99 (8th Cir. 2024).
Moua contends Deputy Hansen lacked reasonable suspicion of criminal
activity to justify the stop of her vehicle. A traffic stop is a seizure under the Fourth
Amendment, even if the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention is
brief. Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 255 (2007). To comply with the Fourth
Amendment, a traffic stop must be supported by probable cause or reasonable
suspicion. United States v. Linnell, 93 F.4th 1102, 1105 (8th Cir. 2024). In
Minnesota, where Moua was stopped, vehicles must display both front and rear
license plates. Minn. Stat. § 169.79, subd. 1 & subd. 6. Minnesota recognizes
nonresidents’ registrations through reciprocity agreements, Minn. Stat. §§ 168.181,
168.187, and requires vehicles in Minnesota to display temporary registrations
where a license plate would normally be affixed, Minn. Stat. § 168.092.
The district court credited Deputy Hansen’s testimony that at the time he
initiated the traffic stop, he did not see a license plate or registration tag on Moua’s
vehicle. This Court has distinguished traffic stops where an officer observes a
temporary registration tag but cannot read every detail from situations where the
officer is unable to see or discern whether the vehicle has a valid registration tag at
all. See, e.g., United States v. Givens, 763 F.3d 987, 990 (8th Cir. 2014). In Givens,
this Court contrasted a traffic stop involving an officer who saw a valid temporary
tag but could not read the expiration date from the stop of a vehicle that had no metal
license plates and no “readily apparent temporary paper registration card.” Id. at
991. The Court determined that the first set of circumstances did not give rise to
reasonable suspicion, but the second set gave the officer “an objectively reasonable
basis justifying the stop of the vehicle.” Id.

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Deputy Hansen testified that he did not see a license plate or temporary tag on
Moua’s vehicle until after he stopped her. While approaching Moua’s vehicle,
Deputy Hansen saw “some type of paper mounted in the rear window.” Although
Moua points to a still photo taken from the gas station depicting her rear window,
the district court found Hansen “did not see a license plate or registration on the car”
and “believed that all states required a rear-mounted registration in the license plate
bracket.” A traffic stop may still be lawful even when an officer’s initial
observations are incomplete. United States v. Hollins, 685 F.3d 703, 706 (8th Cir.
2012) (citing United States v. Smart, 393 F.3d 767, 770–71 (8th Cir. 2005)).
Deputy Hansen’s testimony, which the district court credited, is not
inconsistent with the evidence in the record. The still images in Exhibit 1 and
Exhibit 4, on which the dissent relies, are misleading when stripped of context.
Exhibit 1 is an image, not from the vantage point of Deputy Hansen, but captured by
an elevated security camera fixed across the parking lot from where Deputy Hansen
was located. Exhibit 4 is an image from a video recorded in the headlights of Deputy
Hansen’s patrol vehicle after he had effectuated the traffic stop. This image is from
a closer vantage point with brighter illumination than was available when Deputy
Hansen initiated a stop of Moua’s vehicle.
The dissent’s reliance on a zoomed in image taken from an elevated vantage
point is inconsistent with our precedent, which precludes using the vision of
hindsight to determine whether reasonable suspicion existed at the time Deputy
Hansen signaled Moua to stop. See Hollins, 685 F.3d at 706 (upholding traffic stop
for no license plates, as officers did not see the In Transit sticker until after
approaching the vehicle); United States v. Mendoza, 691 F.3d 954, 959 (8th Cir.
2012) (noting an officer’s effort to inspect a vehicle registration tag after stopping
the vehicle “has no bearing on whether [the officer] had reasonable suspicion to
make the traffic stop in the first place”).
With no registration in the license plate bracket and unable to see a temporary
registration tag in the rear window until approaching the vehicle, Deputy Hansen

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reasonably believed that a law had been violated at the time of the stop. See United
States v. Foster, 15 F.4th 874, 877 (8th Cir. 2021) (noting even minor violations may
establish grounds for a traffic stop). Even if Deputy Hansen was mistaken about
Moua’s compliance with Minnesota law, his mistake “was an objectively reasonable
one.” See Smart, 393 F.3d at 770 (officer reasonably suspected a violation of local
license plate requirements based on his initial, incomplete observations). The
district court did not clearly err when it credited Deputy Hansen’s testimony that he
did not see a license plate or registration tag on Moua’s vehicle. In light of those
facts, the district court did not err when it concluded that reasonable suspicion
existed to stop Moua’s vehicle.
Even if we were to assume Deputy Hansen lacked reasonable suspicion to
stop Moua’s vehicle based on a registration violation, the traffic stop was lawful
because Deputy Hansen also had reasonable suspicion that Moua was impaired.
Moua stumbled at the gas station and clumsily repositioned her car. Williams v.
Decker, 767 F.3d 734, 739 (8th Cir. 2014) (“errant parking” contributed to officers’
reasonable suspicion that an individual was operating a vehicle while intoxicated).
Deputy Hansen testified that Moua was unable to maintain a constant position in her
lane while driving and was traveling at an unusually slow speed. See Navarette v.
California, 572 U.S. 393, 402 (2014) (acknowledging that erratic behavior on the
road is a common sign of intoxication). After Deputy Hansen stopped Moua, he
observed additional signs of impairment including slurred speech, bloodshot eyes,
and persistently dilated pupils. Ultimately, officers seized nearly one kilogram of
methamphetamine from Moua’s vehicle. Deputy Hansen was entitled to evaluate
the totality of the circumstances in deciding whether to stop Moua’s vehicle, and he
could reasonably suspect criminal activity despite potential innocent explanations
for individual behaviors. United States v. Reddick, 910 F.3d 358, 361 (8th Cir.
2018) (citing Navarette, 572 U.S. at 403).
To the extent Moua argues that the district court should not have overruled
the magistrate judge’s credibility findings without first holding its own hearing, her
argument was forfeited in the district court and waived on appeal. Moua did not

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request a hearing in the district court when the government objected to the magistrate
judge’s credibility finding. Nor did she object after the district court filed its order
or seek reconsideration of that order. A defendant forfeits a right when he or she
fails to timely assert it. United States v. Mariano, 729 F.3d 874, 880 (8th Cir. 2013).
Although this Court may review a forfeited issue for plain error, there was no
obvious error. Id. at 880–81. In United States v. Raddatz, the Supreme Court
observed that “[n]either the [Federal Magistrates Act] nor its legislative history
reveals any specific consideration of the situation where a district judge after
reviewing the record in the process of making a de novo ‘determination’ has doubts
concerning the credibility findings of the magistrate.” 447 U.S. 667, 681 n.7 (1980).
A conflict in the circuits has developed in Raddatz’s wake, and this Court has
suggested that while a district court must review a magistrate judge’s credibility
findings de novo, it “need not conduct a de novo hearing.” Taylor v. Farrier, 910
F.2d 518, 521 (8th Cir. 1990); see also United States v. Azure, 539 F.3d 904, 910
(8th Cir. 2008) (observing “de novo review requires that the district court either
listen to the tape of the hearing or read the hearing transcript”).
On appeal, Moua mentioned the argument only once, in the summary of
argument section of her opening brief. She did not develop this claim by, for
example, citing Raddatz or any of the court of appeals decisions on the issue left
open in Raddatz. An undeveloped argument is waived. E.g., Dunn v. Does 1-22,
116 F.4th 737, 750 n.2 (8th Cir. 2024); see also Meyers v. Starke, 420 F.3d 738,
742–43 (8th Cir. 2005) (“To be reviewable, an issue must be presented in the brief
with some specificity.”)
Moua also contends the traffic stop was unreasonably prolonged. Stops
“exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made”
generally violate “the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable seizures.”
Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 350 (2015). As a result, “[o]nce an officer
finishes the tasks associated with a traffic stop, it is unreasonable to further detain
the vehicle’s occupants unless something occurs during the stop to generate
reasonable suspicion to justify the further detention.” Austin, 104 F.4th at 699.

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While Moua spent a total of 45 minutes by the side of the road, “there is no
per se time limit on all traffic stops.” United States v. Riley, 684 F.3d 758, 765 (8th
Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). An officer need only act diligently to pursue the
mission of the stop. United States v. Rederick, 65 F.4th 961, 967 (8th Cir.), cert.
denied, 144 S. Ct. 241 (2023). An officer’s mission may evolve during the stop, as
when the officer develops “reasonable suspicion of drug-related activity during the
routine traffic-stop tasks.” Id. Likewise, “[a]n officer’s inquiries into matters
unrelated to the justification for the traffic stop … do not convert the encounter into
something other than a lawful seizure, so long as those inquiries do not measurably
extend the duration of the stop.” Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 333 (2009).
Here, Deputy Hansen’s suspicions evolved during the stop. As he spoke to
Moua, Deputy Hansen observed additional signs of impairment: persistently dilated
pupils, evidence of teeth grinding consistent with drug abuse, and slurred speech.
At the same time, he noticed hallmarks of drug trafficking, such as the cellophane in
Moua’s make-up case. Relying on his training and experience, Deputy Hansen made
a decision to investigate further. Our precedent allows law enforcement to pursue
those leads by asking Moua to submit to field sobriety tests and by exploring her
prior convictions. See United States v. Rivera, 570 F.3d 1009, 1013 (8th Cir. 2009)
(concluding questions about a person’s criminal history “are permissible incidents
of a routine traffic stop”). In addition, Moua consented to prolonging the stop
because “[w]hen a motorist gives consent to search his vehicle, he necessarily
consents to an extension of the traffic stop.” Id.
Because Deputy Hansen had reasonable suspicion to stop Moua’s vehicle and
the stop was not unreasonably prolonged, the district court did not err when it denied
Moua’s motion to suppress.
III. CONCLUSION
We affirm the judgment of the district court.

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GRASZ, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
Both in its brief and at oral argument, the United States asserted that
Minnesota law requires all temporary motor vehicle registrations to be placed in the
rear license plate holder and that Minnesota law makes no exceptions for vehicles
registered in other states. Not surprisingly, it turns out the government’s assertion
is incorrect. Minnesota does not require out-of-state drivers to stop at the border and
change plates or the location of their temporary registrations to avoid being pulled
over. As a result, no probable cause existed for the seizure of Moua based on her
vehicle’s temporary Wisconsin registration. In my view, the majority opinion is
inconsistent with Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (2014), and fails to protect
Moua’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure. And like the only
judge to see and hear witness testimony at the suppression hearing, I conclude no
reasonable suspicion existed to believe Moua was an impaired driver.2 For these
reasons, I respectfully dissent.
Although it takes relatively little to establish reasonable suspicion or even
probable cause for a traffic stop, this is one affirmance in which I cannot silently
abide. Safeguarding what little protection remains under the Fourth Amendment
against unreasonable seizures by the government in the context of automobiles is
simply too important. I worry our jurisprudence related to traffic stops is hollowing
out what little Fourth Amendment protection exists on the road. See South Dakota
v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 367–68 (1976) (treating an individual’s expectation of
privacy as “significantly” diminished when in an automobile because, in part, it
2 Deputy Hansen’s alternative theory for seizing Moua — that she was driving
impaired — fairs no better than his temporary registration theory. The magistrate
judge’s report and recommendation thoroughly explains that the circumstances cited
by Deputy Hansen did not give rise to reasonable suspicion. There is nothing
suspicious about a woman slipping in an icy parking lot, driving below the speed
limit when traveling behind a snowplow on a snow-covered highway, or being
unable to drive perfectly straight within her lane in those conditions.

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“seldom serves . . . as the repository of personal effects” (quoting Cardwell v. Lewis,
417 U.S. 583, 590 (1974))).
In this case we are dealing with the most common modern form of government
seizure, the traffic stop. The familiarity of the setting should not diminish the
importance of maintaining constitutional principles. On the contrary, in our highly
mobile society many people spend significant portions of their lives behind the
wheel (nearly eight and a half hours each week, on average). The automobile is an
integral, if not indispensable, component of daily life and livelihood, and
government seizures most often occur while one is in an automobile. See id. Thus,
the constitutional protection against unreasonable government seizures while on the
road is more important than at any time in our history.
Although the protection of the Fourth Amendment has been severely
weakened in the automobile context, it is not dead. Importantly, some of the most
basic Fourth Amendment principles remain the same as in other contexts. As Justice
Scalia affirmed, “An automobile stop is . . . subject to the constitutional imperative
that it not be ‘unreasonable’ under the circumstances. As a general matter, the
decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause
to believe that a traffic violation has occurred.” Whren v. United States, 517 U.S.
806, 810 (1996). See also Kansas v. Glover, 589 U.S. 376, 380 (2020) (citing United
States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417–18 (1981)). True, this is not a high bar. As the
majority opinion notes, even a minor violation of traffic law will suffice. See ante,
at 5. Still, the Fourth Amendment does not allow fantasy violations of the law to
justify the government’s seizures of travelers. The Fourth Amendment tolerates
mistakes by law enforcement officers — whether a mistake of fact or of law. Heien,
574 U.S. at 57, 66. However, as the Supreme Court has emphasized, “[t]he Fourth
Amendment tolerates only reasonable mistakes, and those mistakes—whether of
fact or of law—must be objectively reasonable.” Id. at 66.
In the present case, I believe Deputy Hansen’s layered mistakes of fact and
law are not objectively reasonable. The test for objectivity is more than a nod to the

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Constitution and a wink to the prosecution.3 Start with the mistake of law. Deputy
Hansen believed Moua was violating Minnesota law by not properly displaying her
temporary registration. Unlike the mistake of law in Heien, his mistake was
objectively unreasonable. In Heien, the officer’s mistake of law was determined to
be reasonable by the Court only after careful review of the statute at issue. Id. at 67–
68. Specifically, the mistake was determined to be reasonable because of an
ambiguity in the North Carolina statute regulating brake lights — it was unclear
under the statute whether a single working lamp was sufficient. Id. Here, there is
no such ambiguity in the relevant statutes. As the majority opinion acknowledges,
Minnesota allows out-of-state vehicles to operate in Minnesota without complying
with Minnesota’s requirement that vehicles registered in Minnesota display both a
front and rear license plate. See ante, at 4. Similarly, Minnesota law does not require
out-of-state vehicles to display temporary registrations only in the license plate
holder area, as it does for Minnesota vehicles. See Minn. Stat. §§ 168.092, 168.181,
168.187.
The unambiguous nature of the law — not to mention the proximity of
Minnesota to states like Wisconsin, which require only one license plate and require
temporary registrations to be placed in the rear window, Wis. Admin. Code Transp.
§ 132.04(1), just as Moua’s vehicle did — shows Deputy Hansen’s mistake of law
was not objectively reasonable. It is a basic proposition that “[w]e do not examine
the subjective understanding of the particular officer involved.” Heien, 574 U.S. at
66. Thus, a poor understanding of clear law is no excuse. As the Supreme Court
has emphasized, “[A]n officer can gain no Fourth Amendment advantage through a
sloppy study of the laws he is dutybound to enforce.” Id. at 67. Deputy Hansen
testified he was familiar with how Wisconsin handles temporary tags. And, as the
magistrate judge noted, “Wisconsin allows for [temporary registration permits] to be
displayed in the vehicle’s rear window.” I agree with the magistrate judge that
3 The Supreme Court has made it clear that “the inquiry is not as forgiving as
the one employed in the distinct context of deciding whether an officer is entitled to
qualified immunity for a constitutional or statutory violation.” Heien, 574 U.S. at
67.

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beyond this unreasonable claim that placing the tag in the proper location for the
vehicle’s state of registration violated Minnesota law, “Deputy Hansen has not
indicated any facts that suggested the validity of the temporary registration was
suspect or in any way in violation of Minnesota or Wisconsin law.”
Likewise, Deputy Hansen’s alleged mistake of fact is not — even under clear
error review — objectively reasonable. There are two problems with Deputy
Hansen’s claim that he did not see the temporary registration in Moua’s rear window.
First, the only judge to personally hear and observe Deputy Hansen’s testimony
found his testimony not credible:
Deputy Hansen testified that he was unable to notice a temporary
registration on the vehicle before initiating the traffic stop. . . .
However, the registration is plainly and clearly visible from the very
beginning even from a distant security camera located behind the sedan
in the Kwik Trip parking lot. (See Gov’t’s Ex. 1). Additionally, the
temporary vehicle registration can clearly be seen from Deputy
Hansen’s squad vehicle upon the sedan pulling over onto the shoulder.
(See Gov’t’s Ex. 3 at 0:00:57). Finally, before approaching the driver,
Deputy Hansen stopped and closely examined the temporary
registration. The Court does not find it reasonable that Deputy Hansen
could not have seen any indication that there was a large temporary
registration placard in the rear window of Defendant’s vehicle.
Based on these facts, the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation
stated, “the Court finds that the temporary paper registration in the present case was
not obscured. As mentioned previously, the registration can clearly be seen taped to
the rear driver-side window while it was in the Kwik Trip gas station parking lot.”4
4 The court’s discussion begins by stating, “The district court, relying on the
magistrate judge’s report and recommendation . . . .” Ante, at 4. The district court,
however, did not adopt the magistrate judge’s recommendations and reached very
different conclusions.

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Further emphasizing these findings, the magistrate judge concluded:
Deputy Hansen testified he could not see the details of the temporary
registration before stopping the sedan, [but] there is no possibility that
the deputy could not have seen the plainly visible temporary
registration, nor is there any evidence that the deputy could have
formed a reasonable suspicion there was a problem with the registration
itself (such as the registration being expired or otherwise invalid). . . .
[T]he deputy did not have a reasonable suspicion . . . since the stop was
unlawful under the Fourth Amendment.
The district court, of course, was not bound by the magistrate judge’s factual
findings. However, photographic and video evidence in the record conclusively
contradicts and undermines the conclusion that Deputy Hansen’s mistake of fact (the
erroneous belief that there was no temporary registration displayed on Moua’s
vehicle) was objectively reasonable. And the objectivity of this mistake is
contradicted not just by a single image recorded at one location. Rather, it is
undermined by images from several videos. Government Exhibit 1, page 1, and
Government Exhibit 1, page 2, were recorded at the brightly lit gas station where
Moua’s vehicle was observed by Deputy Hansen for an extended period of time. As
shown in Government Exhibit 1, page 2, and by Deputy Hansen’s own testimony,
Moua’s back window with the large temporary registration was only 30 feet from
Deputy Hansen’s truck, on the same level, and with no obstructions between them.
Another video image, Government Exhibit 4, was recorded along the road when
Moua was pulled over, but before Deputy Hansen approached Moua.
Government Exhibits 1 and 4 are shown, along with a closer view of Moua’s
car in the image taken from Exhibit 1. The images show that Moua’s temporary
registration extended nearly half way up the left side of the vehicle’s rear window.5
5 The court notes, “Exhibit 1 is an image, not from the vantage point of Deputy
Hansen, but captured by an elevated security camera fixed across the parking
lot . . . .” Ante, at 5. Indeed. Deputy Hansen had a far closer and better view than
shown in Exhibit 1. He testified the distance from his truck to Moua’s vehicle was
only 30 feet away. The closer view, which the majority disparages, ante at 5, is a

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far more accurate depiction of what Deputy Hansen saw, as can be seen in
Government Exhibit 1, page 2, which shows Moua’s vehicle after she re-positioned
it with the back window facing Deputy Hansen’s truck, just 30 feet away, and at eye
level.

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Like the only judge to personally observe Deputy Hansen testify, I agree these
images plainly contradict his testimony. And I believe they establish the district
court’s findings are clearly erroneous. See United States v. Prokupek, 632 F.3d 460,
462 (8th Cir. 2011). The assessment of clear error sometimes entails applying
common sense, see United States v. Tuton, 893 F.3d 562, 570 (8th Cir. 2018), and I
have never seen a larger or more obvious temporary registration than the one
prominently displayed, and unavoidably visible, in Moua’s rear window. The
subjective failure of an officer to notice the obvious, like deliberate blindness, cannot
support the conclusion that a mistake of fact is objectively reasonable. Endorsing
objectively unreasonable mistakes of fact risks further hollowing out the already-
diminished Fourth Amendment protections that exist any time one is in a vehicle.
I also write separately to recognize a troubling tension in the standard of
review. The district court is statutorily required to conduct a de novo review of the
record when reviewing the magistrate judge’s objected-to credibility finding. See
28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Taylor v. Farrier, 910 F.2d 518, 521 (8th Cir. 1990). We then
review the district court’s factual findings for clear error. Prokupek, 632 F.3d at
462. But what happens when the district court disagrees with a magistrate judge’s
credibility findings without presiding over a hearing: Do we still owe the district
court deference on that credibility finding? A circuit split exists as to whether a
district court must rehear disputed testimony before rejecting a magistrate judge’s
credibility findings. Compare McIntosh v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 987 F.3d
662, 665–66 (7th Cir. 2021) (requiring the district court to hold a separate hearing
to support its own credibility determinations when it rejects the magistrate judge’s
credibility determinations); United States v. Scribner, 832 F.3d 252, 257, 259 (5th
Cir. 2016) (same); United States v. Thoms, 684 F.3d 893, 899–900, 905–06 (9th Cir.
2012) (same); United States v. Powell, 628 F.3d 1254, 1257 (11th Cir. 2010) (same);
Carrion v. Smith, 549 F.3d 583, 587–90 (2d Cir. 2008) (same); United States v.
Hernández-Rodríguez, 443 F.3d 138, 147–48 (1st Cir. 2006) (same); Hill v. Beyer,
62 F.3d 474, 482 (3d Cir. 1995) (same); United States v. Orrego-Fernandez, 78 F.3d
1497, 1501 (10th Cir. 1996) (requiring a district court to rehear testimony only if the
“magistrate [judge]’s credibility findings were dispositive or material to the district

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court’s holding”), with United States v. Davis, 361 F. App’x 632, 635 (6th Cir. 2010)
(unpublished) (“This court answered affirmatively the question Raddatz left open,
holding that a district court may disregard a magistrate [judge]’s credibility findings
without listening to live testimony. United States v. Saltzman, 992 F.2d 1218, 1993
WL 100082, at *2 (6th Cir. 1993) (table).”).
The district court did not rehear disputed testimony here and this is
concerning. “[C]ourts must always be sensitive to the problems of making
credibility determinations on the cold record.” See United States v. Raddatz, 447
U.S. 667, 679 (1980). Indeed, the Supreme Court has “assume[d] it is unlikely that
a district judge would reject a magistrate [judge]’s proposed findings on credibility
when those findings are dispositive and substitute the judge’s own appraisal”
because “do[ing] so without seeing and hearing the witness or witnesses whose
credibility is in question could well give rise to serious questions.” Id. at 681 n.7
(second emphasis added). Although it is not necessary to resolve this issue in this
case considering the clearly erroneous factual findings, it is worth considering in an
appropriate case.
In sum, there was simply no probable cause or reasonable suspicion to initiate
the traffic stop. As such, the seizure of Moua was unlawful under the Fourth
Amendment, and her motion to suppress evidence obtained during the unlawful stop
should be granted. I respectfully dissent.
______________________________

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