United States v. Cecil Ferguson

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Cecil Ferguson appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress a firearm and evidence of drug trafficking found, following a traffic stop, in a car in which he was a passenger. Ferguson argues that the district court erred in finding that the traffic stop was not unlawfully pretextual and in not suppressing the evidence because of the unlawful stop. For the reasons discussed below, we adopt a new test in this Circuit for determining when a traffic stop should be deemed unlawfully pretextual. Applying this test to the stop of defendant…