U.S. v. Burleson
| Decision Date | 12 September 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 10–2060.,10–2060. |
| Citation | 657 F.3d 1040 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellant,v.Carl Roy BURLESON, Defendant–Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Richard A. Friedman, Attorney, United States Department of Justice (Kenneth J. Gonzales, United States Attorney; Nathan J. Lichvarcik, Assistant United States Attorney; Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General; Gregory D. Andres, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, with him on the briefs), Washington, D.C., for Plaintiff–Appellant.Steve G. Sosa, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Las Cruces, N.M., for Defendant–Appellee.Before O'BRIEN, SEYMOUR, and EBEL, Circuit Judges.EBEL, Circuit Judge.
Defendant–Appellee Carl Roy Burleson and two companions were stopped by a Roswell police officer because they were walking in the middle of the street and because they were carrying an unleashed dog, which aroused the officer's suspicions. After telling the three individuals that they were not permitted to walk in the street and satisfying himself that the dog was not stolen, the officer asked the individuals for their names and requested a warrants check on each of them. Police dispatch informed the officer that Mr. Burleson had an outstanding warrant, and during the ensuing arrest, the officer found two handguns and ammunition on Mr. Burleson.
In the district court, Mr. Burleson moved to suppress evidence of the handguns and ammunition as fruit of an unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The district court granted the motion, concluding that at the time the officer obtained Mr. Burleson's identity and requested the warrants check, the officer had already completed the purposes of the detention and thus he had no lawful basis to further detain Mr. Burleson. The government appeals that decision. Exercising jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3731, we reverse.
Shortly before midnight on May 2, 2008, Officer Jeff Kuepfer of the Roswell, New Mexico, Police Department was patrolling a neighborhood in Roswell when he observed Mr. Burleson and two companions exit an alleyway and begin walking in the middle of the street side-by-side. One of the individuals was carrying a pit bull without a leash.
Officer Kuepfer decided to question the individuals for two reasons. First, they were walking in the middle of the street, which is a violation of a New Mexico statute and a Roswell ordinance. Second, they were carrying a dog that appeared to be older than a puppy, which Officer Kuepfer found odd and which concerned Officer Kuepfer based on reports of dog thefts in the city. Officer Kuepfer therefore believed that further investigation was appropriate, especially in light of the fact that the police department had within the past week received reports of criminal activity in the immediate area, including property damage, vehicular burglaries, and a shooting. Although Officer Kuepfer did not intend to cite the individuals for a traffic violation, he wanted to give them a verbal warning for walking in the street, find out who they were and what they were doing, find out why they were carrying the dog, and determine whether the dog could have been stolen.
Officer Kuepfer thus got out of his patrol car and asked the group to “hold up.” ( Aplt. App'x. at 21.) He approached them and informed them that they were not permitted to walk in the middle of the street. He then talked to them about what they were doing and about the dog, after which he asked for their names:
I just basically said, Hey, how you guys doing tonight? Just, what's going on? Where are you heading? And, through just talking to them, I found out that they were heading home, that the dog was theirs, that the reason why they were carrying the dog was because, if they put him down, he'd run off from them. So that made sense to me, okay. Asked them for their names.
( Id.)
Once Officer Kuepfer obtained their names, he immediately requested a warrants check on each of them, using the portable radio attached to his belt. Shortly thereafter, police dispatch responded that there was an outstanding warrant for an individual named Carl Burleson. The total duration of this initial encounter, from the time at which Officer Kuepfer stopped the individuals to the time at which dispatch informed Officer Kuepfer that Mr. Burleson may have an outstanding warrant, was three to five minutes.
At that point, Officer Kuepfer told Mr. Burleson that he may have an outstanding warrant, and asked Mr. Burleson for identification or for his date of birth and Social Security number so that Officer Kuepfer could verify that the warrant really was for Mr. Burleson. Mr. Burleson provided his date of birth and Social Security number, and Officer Kuepfer confirmed that the warrant was indeed for Mr. Burleson. Officer Kuepfer then told Mr. Burleson that he was under arrest for the warrant, and while Mr. Burleson was turning around, he told Officer Kuepfer, “Just so you know, I do have guns on me.” Officer Kuepfer handcuffed Mr. Burleson and, during the ensuing a pat-down, discovered two handguns and ammunition in Mr. Burleson's pants pocket and waistband.
On November 13, 2008, Mr. Burleson was indicted in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico for possession of a firearm subsequent to a felony conviction in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). On June 22, 2009, Mr. Burleson filed a motion to suppress the handguns, arguing that Officer Kuepfer's seizure of Mr. Burleson violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment. On September 8, 2009, the district court held an evidentiary hearing on Mr. Burleson's motion, at which Officer Kuepfer was the only witness to testify.
On February 8, 2010, the district court issued an order granting Mr. Burleson's motion to suppress. The court determined that the encounter between Officer Kuepfer and Mr. Burleson was not consensual, but that Officer Kuepfer had sufficient justification to stop Mr. Burleson and his companions because they were committing a pedestrian traffic violation by walking in the middle of the street. However, the court concluded that Officer Kuepfer exceeded the permissible scope of the detention when he ran the warrants check. Specifically, the court noted Officer Kuepfer's own testimony that when he stopped the group he did not intend to issue anyone a citation but rather simply administer a verbal warning. The court then determined that his initial statement to the group that they were not permitted to walk in the middle of the street constituted his intended “verbal warning.” ( Aplt. App'x. at 82.) The court found that Officer Kuepfer then asked the group what they were doing, where they were going, and why they were carrying the dog, and that, according to his own testimony, Officer Kuepfer was satisfied with the answers given by Mr. Burleson and his companions.
The court determined that “at that point, Officer Kuepfer had accomplished his stated purpose for the stop of issuing a warning regarding the traffic violation and had satisfied his concerns about any other possible criminal activity they may have been involved in with respect to the dog.” ( Id.) Because the court found no evidence that the group did anything further to raise additional suspicion of criminal activity by that point, it determined that Officer Kuepfer “had no lawful basis for continuing the detention to run a warrant check on [Mr. Burleson] and his companions.” ( Id. at 83.) Accordingly, the court concluded that “the guns and ammunition discovered in [Mr. Burleson's] possession pursuant to his arrest constitute fruit of the poisonous tree and should be suppressed.” ( Id. at 84.)
On March 4, 2010, the Government filed a motion for reconsideration. The government argued that the district court's grant of the motion to suppress contravened United States v. Villagrana–Flores, 467 F.3d 1269 (10th Cir.2006), in which we held that it was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment for an officer to run a warrants check during an investigative stop of a pedestrian.1 The district court, however, distinguished Villagrana–Flores on two bases. First, the court determined that there was no question that the officer in Villagrana–Flores had reasonable suspicion to detain the defendant at the time the officer ran the warrants check, whereas in this case “Officer Kuepfer's reasonable suspicion had dissipated entirely when he ran the warrants check.” (Aplt. App'x at 93.) Second, the court determined that the officer in Villagrana–Flores was presented with a “precarious situation” involving a detainee “who may have presented a danger to the officer,” whereas in this case “Officer Kuepfer had no objective basis for fearing for his safety.” ( Id.) Accordingly, the district court denied the government's motion for reconsideration. The government filed a timely notice of appeal of this decision as well as the district court's earlier grant of Mr. Burleson's suppression motion.
On appeal, the parties do not challenge the district court's determinations that (1) the encounter between Officer Kuepfer and Mr. Burleson was not consensual, and (2) the initial detention was nonetheless justified because Officer Kuepfer observed Mr. Burleson and his companions commit a pedestrian traffic violation. Thus, the only issue on appeal is whether Mr. Burleson was lawfully detained at the time that Officer Kuepfer checked his name for warrants. As discussed below, we answer this question in the affirmative.
“When reviewing an order granting or denying a motion to suppress, we accept the district court's factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, and we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the district court's determination.” United States v. Caro, 248 F.3d 1240, 1243 (10th Cir.2001). However, we review de novo the district court's legal conclusions, United...
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