United States v. Arvizu

In United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266 (2002), a total of ten factors were involved in an officer's decision to make an investigatory stop in the area of the United States-Mexico border. These included the fact that a minivan containing two adults and three children was on a back road that took it around a vehicle checkpoint at a time when the area was regularly unpatrolled due to a Border Patrol shift change; its route was not taking it to or from any known recreation areas; the children's knees were unusually high as if their feet were on top of some cargo on the floor of the van; and the van's occupants were behaving oddly, with all three children waving in a strange, mechanical manner for four or five minutes after the officer began following them in his patrol vehicle. Id. In United States v. Arvizu, an officer evaluated facially neutral facts to develop a reasonable suspicion that a family driving a van was involved in illegal drug smuggling. Id. at 270-71. The Court considered the officer's subjective interpretation of the facts as part of the totality of the circumstances. Id. at 277. Thus, the Court has demonstrated that there are subjective elements that may be considered in an otherwise objective analysis.