United States v. Pena-Montes

LUCERO, Circuit Judge.

This Fourth Amendment appeal arises from a traffic stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the course of that stop, a police officer questioned Appellant Jose Luis Pena-Montes, the vehicle’s passenger. This led to his arrest and the discovery that Pena-Montes had been previously removed from the United States after a felony conviction. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), (b). Although the officer initiated the stop based on the reasonable belief that the vehicle lacked a license plate, after he pulled it over, he observed that it did, in fact, display a “dealer tag” but continued the…