U.S. v. Ruidiaz

• Decision Date: 12 June 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-1988.,07-1988.
• Citation: 529 F.3d 25
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Florentino RUIDÍAZ, Jr., Defendant, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

529 F.3d 25

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Florentino RUIDÍAZ, Jr., Defendant, Appellant.

No. 07-1988.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard May 7, 2008.

Decided June 12, 2008.

Robert S. Sinsheimer, with whom Lauren M. Thomas and Denner Pellegrino, LLP were on brief, for appellant.

James E. Arnold, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Michael J. Sullivan, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

Before TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge, SELYA, Senior Circuit Judge, and HOWARD, Circuit Judge.

SELYA, Senior Circuit Judge.

Charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, defendant-appellant Florentino Ruidíaz, Jr., attempted to suppress the most damning evidence against him. The district court denied the motion. The defendant thereafter entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to challenge that order.

Following the imposition of sentence the defendant, acting on the reservation, instituted this appeal. We conclude that the police acted reasonably under the circumstances and, accordingly, uphold the lower court's refusal to suppress the evidence in question.

I. BACKGROUND

In reviewing the disposition of a motion to suppress, "[w]e recount the relevant facts as the trial court found them, consistent with record support." United States v. Lee, 317 F.3d 26, 30 (1st Cir.2003). The venue of the events at issue here is Brockton, Massachusetts.

Not long after midnight on July 17, 2005, a 911 caller reported a shooting. The caller told the dispatcher that he was a neighbor, situated at or near 126 French Avenue. He said that he had heard gunfire on the street and that those involved were wearing red shirts. Pertinently, the caller stated that the shooter or shooters were in a green Mercedes Benz parked on the street at the French Avenue address.

The dispatcher received the caller's assurance that the police could return the call and confirmed the telephone number from whence the call had originated. At no time did the caller furnish his name. Moreover, he warned that he would not be on the street when the officers arrived.

News of the reported shooting was transmitted immediately to the Brockton police department. Officers Thomas Hyland and Brian Benvie, who as personnel seconded to the "impact shift" were designated to handle calls about dangerous situations, responded. Both officers were veterans of the force: each had worked as a Brockton policeman for at least seven years; each had made many arrests and dealt extensively with armed suspects; and each was aware that the locus of the incident was within a notorious high-crime area.

The 911 dispatcher told the officers what he had learned from the caller. Officer Hyland, having been trained in the workings of the 911 system, knew that callers' telephone numbers were automatically disclosed and recorded by the system.

Within five minutes of receiving the report, the two officers reached 126 French Avenue. Upon their arrival, they observed a green Mercedes parked on the wrong side of the street (i.e., facing the wrong way), partially on the sidewalk. The vehicle's front passenger door was fully ajar and jutted out into the street. As positioned, the Mercedes was in obvious violation of at least two dictates embodied in a municipal ordinance. See Brockton Rev. Ords. ch. 12, art. 4, § 12-71.

The officers approached the car and shined their flashlights into it. They observed the defendant slumped over in the front passenger seat. The district court did not make a finding about the color of the defendant's shirt.

The defendant did not respond to the flashlight beams. Concerned that he might be either injured or dead, Officer Hyland reached into the vehicle, touched the defendant's shoulder, and asked if he was okay. The defendant replied profanely, "Are you f ____ okay?" Startled by this outburst, Officer Hyland began to worry that the defendant might be a shooter, not a victim. Fearing that the defendant might be armed, the officer asked him to step out of the car. The defendant replied either "Why do you want me out of the f ____ car?" or "Why the f ____ do you want me out?" The officer then grabbed the defendant's right arm and pulled him from the vehicle.

At this point, Officer Benvie came to his partner's assistance. He grabbed the defendant's left arm and helped to force the defendant to the ground. By that time, another police cruiser had arrived. A third patrolman, Officer Nazaire Paul, conducted a pat-frisk that disclosed a loaded handgun tucked into the defendant's waistband. An arrest followed.

A search of the surrounding area revealed nothing of consequence. Officer Benvie tried the 911 caller's telephone number and spoke to someone, but the person would not identify himself.

We fast-forward to August 24, 2005, when a federal grand jury indicted the defendant on a single count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). After the usual formalities (not relevant here), the defendant moved to suppress the gun and ammunition. He argued that the police had acquired that evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The government opposed the motion.

The district court conducted an evidentiary hearing. It ultimately denied the motion from the bench. The court found that the government had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the officers' actions were reasonable under the circumstances. The court later memorialized its findings and conclusions in a well-reasoned rescript. See United States v. Ruidíaz, Crim. No. 05-10214, slip op. (D. Mass. June 28, 2007) (unpublished).

On January 17, 2007, the defendant entered a conditional guilty plea, see Fed. R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2), reserving the right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion. The district court sentenced him to serve a 180-month incarcerative term. This timely appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

This appeal tests the limits of a so-called Terry stop. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19-20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The defendant contends that the police lacked sufficient legal justification to order him from the Mercedes, effect his removal, and frisk him. In order to place his contention in context, we first erect the legal framework applicable to Terry stops and then apply that framework to the facts as supportably found by the district court. Our standard of review for orders granting or denying suppression is familiar: we scrutinize the district court's factual findings for clear error and evaluate its conclusions of law (including its constitutional determinations) de novo. Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996); United States v. Chhien, 266 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.2001).

A. The Legal Framework.

Because even a temporary police detention constitutes a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, that detention must be reasonable in order to pass constitutional muster. Terry, 392 U.S. at 19, 88 S.Ct. 1868; Chhien, 266 F.3d at 5-6. The oversight of brief investigatory stops has two aspects. First, a police officer must have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of an individual's involvement in some criminal activity in order to make the initial stop. Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868; Chhien, 266 F.3d at 6. Second, actions undertaken pursuant to that stop must be reasonably related in scope to the stop itself "unless the police have a basis for expanding their investigation." United States v. Henderson, 463 F.3d 27, 45 (1st Cir.2006).

Reasonableness in this context is a construct that must be judged according to objective criteria; it is not dependent on an individual officer's subjective motives. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868; see also Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). Not surprisingly, then, an inquiry into reasonableness requires a reviewing court to consider the totality of the surrounding circumstances. United States v. Romain, 393 F.3d 63, 71 (1st Cir.2004). This inquiry is fact-sensitive, and the requisite objective analysis must be performed in real-world terms. In other words, reasonableness requires a practical, commonsense determination, see United States v. Sowers, 136 F.3d 24, 28 (1st Cir.1998) — a determination that entails a measurable degree of deference to the perceptions of experienced law enforcement officers, see Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657; Chhien, 266 F.3d at 8.

Because reasonable suspicion is a protean concept, suspicion sufficient to justify an investigatory stop may be rooted in any of a variety of permissible scenarios. One such scenario exists when presumptively reliable information about criminal activity is provided by third parties. See, e.g., Romain, 393 F.3d at 71. That scenario includes reasonable inferences that may be drawn when that information is viewed in light of the attendant circumstances. See id.

While no perfectly precise definition of reasonable suspicion exists, it is well established that, in terms of the continuum of knowledge, reasonable suspicion requires more than a mere hunch but less than probable cause. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989); Romain, 393 F.3d at 71. It follows, therefore, that no direct link between the suspect and the suspected criminal activity need be forged in order to achieve reasonable suspicion. Chhien, 266 F.3d at 6.

A Terry stop is not necessarily a snapshot of events frozen in time and place. Often, such a stop can entail an ongoing process. For that reason, "[t]he propriety of an officer's actions after an initial stop depends on what the officer knows (or has reason to believe) and how events unfold." Romain, 393 F.3d at 71. This means that if an officer undertakes an investigation pursuant to a Terry stop, his ensuing actions must be "fairly responsive to the emerging tableau." Chhien, 266 F.3d at 6. As the investigation...