U.S. v. Martin

• Citation: 289 F.3d 392
• Decision Date: 06 May 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-6266.,00-6266.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Timothy MARTIN, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

289 F.3d 392

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Timothy MARTIN, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 00-6266.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Submitted February 1, 2002.

Decided and Filed May 6, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Charles P. Wisdom, Jr. (briefed), Asst. U.S. Attorney, Joseph L. Famularo, Office of the U.S. Attorney, Lexington, KY, Laura K. Voorhees (briefed), Asst. U.S. Attorney, Covington, KY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

James Stephen Smith (briefed), Ziegler & Schneider, Covington, KY, Timothy Martin, Federal Correctional Institute, Beckley, WV, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: MARTIN, Chief Circuit Judge; GILMAN, Circuit Judge; EDMUNDS, District Judge.^*

EDMUNDS, D.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which GILMAN, J., joined. MARTIN, C.J. (pp. 400-02), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

EDMUNDS, District Judge.

The United States appeals the district court's ruling to suppress a handgun seized during a car stop. For the reasons stated below, this panel REVERSES and REMANDS.

I. BACKGROUND

On January 18, 1999 at approximately 9:20 p.m., officers William Maurer and Gregory Jones of the Covington, Kentucky police department were traveling in an undercover police car on East 8th Street in Covington, Kentucky. They observed a woman, Virginia Wagoner ("Wagoner"), enter a vehicle driven by Defendant Appellee Timothy Martin ("Martin"). The officers testified that they initially observed Wagoner either standing or slowly walking outside wearing nothing more than jeans and a short-sleeved shirt; she was located in front of a parking lot, carrying nothing except a cigarette.¹ According to the officers, the fact that Wagoner was not carrying a purse was significant because prostitutes generally do not carry purses. They also testified that they believed Wagoner had been arrested on prostitution charges in the past.

The officers characterized the area as one known for prostitution, where police routinely conduct undercover prostitution investigations. According to the officers, Wagoner extended her right hand "about waist high" and waved at Martin's vehicle in a manner that the officers recognized to be a prostitute's hailing of a prospective John. Wagoner then entered Martin's vehicle and the two proceeded to drive off. Based upon these facts, the officers suspected that Wagoner was loitering for prostitution purposes, so they requested that officer Gene Neal, who was located hereby in a marked police cruiser, stop Martin's vehicle.

After Neal made the stop, Maurer removed Wagoner from the vehicle and interrogated her as they stood on the sidewalk. Wagoner told Maurer that she had met Martin, known to her only by his first name, at her brother's house approximately one year earlier. She also admitted that she had prior convictions for prostitution and for possession of cocaine. Maurer then interrogated Martin, who told him that he had known Wagoner for two months and that he had met her on one of his walks in the area. The officers testified that Martin could not tell them Wagoner's name.

While Maurer was questioning Martin, officer Jones obtained consent from Wagoner to search her person, at which time he discovered a condom in her pocket. After Maurer and Jones conferred, Wagoner was arrested and charged with loitering for prostitution purposes, a misdemeanor under Kentucky law if the crime is a second offense. Officer Wesley Cook, who had subsequently responded to the scene, then searched the passenger area of the automobile and discovered a .25 caliber semi-automatic pistol beneath the rear passenger floor-mat. Because the officer never observed Wagoner turn around or lean over her seat while seated in the front passenger seat, they concluded that the gun belonged to Martin and charged him with carrying a concealed deadly weapon. After it was determined that Martin had at least one prior felony conviction, he was charged with the federal offense of felon in possession of a firearm.

Martin argues that the discovery of the firearm was made in violation of both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 10 of the Kentucky Constitution. Specifically, Martin argues: (1) the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the car; (2) the interrogation of Martin and Wagoner did not create probable cause to arrest Wagoner; and (3) the search of the car did not satisfy any exception to the warrant requirement because there was no probable cause to search the vehicle, nor was the area behind the passenger seat within Wagoner's immediate control.

In response, the government argues that: (1) the officers had a legal basis to stop Wagoner based on their reasonable suspicion that the crime of loitering for purposes of prostitution was being committed; (2) the officers had probable cause to arrest Wagoner after interrogating her and Martin; (3) independent of the search incident to the arrest, the officers had probable cause to search the vehicle for contraband or evidence of a crime; and (4) the officers had probable cause to arrest Martin for the crime of carrying a concealed deadly weapon.

The district court conducted a suppression hearing and thereafter granted Martin's motion to suppress, based on an analysis of the car stop and the search incident to Wagoner's arrest. We conclude that the district court erred in finding that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to justify the stop of Martin's car and in finding that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest Wagoner.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

In reviewing a district court's determination on suppression questions, "a district court's factual findings are accepted unless they are clearly erroneous...." United States v. Shamaeizadeh, 80 F.3d 1131, 1135 (6th Cir.1996) (citations omitted). The district court's "determinations of reasonable suspicion and probable cause should be reviewed de novo on appeal." Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996).

B. The Car Stop

"The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures." United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 606 (6th Cir.1994). However, a brief investigative stop, or Terry stop, by an officer who is able to point to "`specific and articulable facts'" justifying his or her reasonable suspicion that the suspect has been or is about to be involved in criminal activity is not an unreasonable seizure. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 12, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)). While "the Fourth Amendment requires that the decision to stop the individual be based on something `more substantial than inarticulate hunches[,]' ... `the totality of the circumstances — the whole picture — must be taken into account'" in determining the validity of a challenged stop. United States v. Roberts, 986 F.2d 1026, 1029 (6th Cir.) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 22, 88 S.Ct. 1868).

The scope of law enforcement activities in an investigative stop depends upon the circumstances that originally justified the stop. See United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 607 (6th Cir.1994). "Thus, the officer may ask the detainee a moderate number of questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain information confirming or dispelling the officer's suspicions. But the detainee is not obliged to respond. And, unless the detainee's answers provide the officer with probable cause to arrest him, he must then be released." Id. (quoting Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439-40, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317, (1984) (internal quotations omitted)).

This Court evaluates the legitimacy of the investigatory stop by making a two-part assessment of its reasonableness. First, the Court must determine whether there was a proper basis to stop the individual based upon the officer's "aware[ness] of specific and articulable facts which gave rise to a reasonable suspicion." United States v. Garza, 10 F.3d 1241, 1245 (6th Cir.1993) (quotation omitted). Second, the Court must evaluate "whether the degree of intrusion into the suspect's personal security was reasonably related in scope to the situation at hand, which is judged by examining the reasonableness of the officials' conduct given their suspicions and the surrounding circumstances." Id. (quotation omitted).

Generally speaking, courts do not separately scrutinize each factor relied on by the officer conducting the search. See Sokolow, supra at 8-9, 109 S.Ct. 1581. The fact that a given locale is well known for criminal activity will not by itself justify a Terry stop; but it is among the various factors that officers may take into account. See Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123, 120 S.Ct. 673, 145 L.Ed.2d 570 (2000)(emphasizing that an "individual's presence in an area of expected criminal activity, standing alone, is not enough to support a reasonable, particularized suspicion that the person is committing a crime," but stressing that "officers are not required to ignore the relevant characteristics of a location in determining whether the circumstances are sufficiently suspicious to warrant further investigation").

The Supreme Court recently clarified how the totality of the circumstances test should be applied in United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002). In Arvizu, a border patrol agent was found to have reasonable suspicion to conduct a car stop where: the stop occurred in a remote area of rural southeastern Arizona, an area known by law enforcement to be frequented by drug smugglers; defendant was driving a minivan, a vehicle known to be used be drug smugglers; time of day indicated that defendant intended to pass through area during agents' shift change.

Furthermore, the border patrol agent saw five occupants in the minivan; an adult man was driving, an adult woman sat in the front passenger seat, and three children were in the back....