A federal judge later this month will hear final legal arguments over whether he should drop a criminal charge against a U.S. DEA agent who fatally collided with a cyclist in Salem after running a stop sign.
Attorneys for Samuel T. Landis, 39, are continuing to argue that his charge of criminally negligent homicide should be dismissed ahead of the oral argument, scheduled for Nov. 25 in Eugene U.S. District Court.
Landis was pursuing a suspected drug dealer in a central Salem neighborhood in March 2023 when he ran a stop sign and killed cyclist Marganne Allen, 53.
His defense attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the charge in July. They argued that Landis should not be prosecuted because he believed at the time that he needed to run a stop sign to continue pursuing a drug dealer.
The agent’s attorneys doubled down in a court filing on Wednesday, arguing that “his decision was reasonable” and made during a volatile surveillance mission.
Their filing in federal court was in response to the Marion County District Attorney’s Office, which asserted in September that Landis’ actions were “unreasonable” because his pursuit of the drug dealer was not urgent, as agents including Landis testified to a grand jury.
The agent’s attorneys successfully argued last December to have the case moved to federal court so Landis could argue he is immune from prosecution as a federal agent acting in an official capacity. The immunity defense does not exist in state court, where a Marion County grand jury indicted Landis last September on a charge of criminally negligent homicide.
The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in May rejected state attorneys’ efforts to move the case back to Marion County Circuit Court.
On the day of the crash, Landis’ assignment was to follow the suspected drug dealer after an informant participated in a controlled drug deal. But the suspect made a sudden turn onto Southeast Mission Street heading east, and the agent missed the turn. Several officers close to the suspect decided not to follow.
At the time of the crash, four DEA agents and three Salem police officers were pursuing the courier, and Landis was among the furthest from the suspect vehicle.
Landis wanted to keep up with his team and remain undetected, his attorneys said. He was driving east on Southeast Leslie Street approaching the intersection with Southeast High Street. Traffic on High Street has the right of way and does not stop.
Landis decided that he could drive past the stop sign without making a complete stop, and that doing so was necessary to regain his position among “the carefully planned group of law enforcement vehicles,” his attorneys said.
He drove into the intersection at around 18 to 19 miles per hour without stopping, according to testimony from a Keizer police officer. The cyclist, Allen, who had the right of way, then collided with Landis’ government-owned pickup truck.
“In light of what Agent Landis knew at that tense moment, informed by his extensive training and experience with clandestine surveillance missions, his decision was reasonable. He is entitled to immunity,” according to his attorneys’ filing. “This is precisely the type of enforcement action in which agents are permitted to use their judgment to violate traffic laws.”
DEA policy allows its agents to violate traffic laws in certain circumstances.
Landis’ attorneys said every officer involved in the mission on the day of the crash has “made that same decision while performing surveillance.”
They cited grand jury testimony from another DEA agent, Adam Otte, who said that officers sometimes drive faster than the speed limit. “Otherwise there’s no way we could do our job. We’d be completely ineffective,” he testified.
In cases where on-duty officers are involved in crashes, Landis’ attorneys said the key difference between those where officers are entitled to immunity and those where they aren’t is whether their duties at the time “required more than just standard driving.”
“This accident did not occur because Agent Landis was trying to get to the office more quickly to start his normal workday. Rather, it arose in the context of ongoing surveillance of a fentanyl dealer, an important and potentially dangerous law enforcement activity. And while this might not have been a situation that required lights and sirens, it was reasonable for this highly trained and experienced agent to conclude that it required more than just standard driving,” they said.
Landis’ attorneys said the judge only has to decide whether Landis at the time had an “honest and reasonable belief” that he needed to run the stop sign to perform his duties.
“Reasonableness does not require universal agreement that Agent Landis made the right call in that tense, rapidly evolving situation,” they wrote. “Rather, Agent Landis loses the cloak of immunity only if no reasonable officer would have made the same decision.”
Prosecutors previously cited the DEA’s policy, which instructs that “safety of the public and the agent have higher priority than any enforcement activity. Traffic and parking laws will not be violated to the detriment of public and personal safety.”
They argued that Landis violated that policy. “It was in no way reasonable for him to blindly run a stop sign in an unfamiliar area while it was raining heavily,” Marion County Deputy District Attorney David Wilson said in a court filing.
In response, the agent’s attorneys said deciding whether Landis’ judgment was reasonable depends on what he knew at the time, not the outcome of his actions.
“What ultimately happened here was a tragedy, but that outcome does not inform the question of the reasonableness of Agent Landis’ belief that what he did was necessary to the performance of his duties,” they said.
RELATED COVERAGE:
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Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.
