United States v. Bernacet

• Decision Date: 01 August 2013
• Docket Number: Docket No. 12–2584–cr.
• Citation: 724 F.3d 269
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Ronnie BERNACET, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

724 F.3d 269

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,

v.Ronnie BERNACET, Defendant–Appellant.

Docket No. 12–2584–cr.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: May 1, 2013.

Decided: Aug. 1, 2013.

Darrell B. Fields, Appeals Bureau, Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., New York, NY, for Appellant Ronnie Bernacet.

Matthew L. Schwartz, Assistant United States Attorney (Iris Lan, Assistant United States Attorney, on the brief), for Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY, for Appellee United States of America.

Before: SACK, WESLEY, and CARNEY, Circuit Judges.

WESLEY, Circuit Judge:

Ronnie Bernacet appeals from a judgment of conviction entered against him in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Laura Taylor Swain, Judge) following a one-day bench trial on October 25, 2011. Bernacet was convicted of one count of possessing a firearm following a conviction for a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court sentenced Bernacet to 57 months' imprisonment and three years' supervised release.

Bernacet asserts that (1) the use of a criminal history database search at a routine traffic checkpoint rendered the stop an unconstitutional seizure of his person; (2) the police lacked probable cause to believe that he was violating his parole; and (3) warrantless arrests for parole violations are unconstitutional in New York. We disagree and find that: (1) the criminal history database search was a de minimis extension of the constitutional traffic checkpoint; (2) the police had probable cause to believe that Bernacet was violating his parole; and (3) Bernacet's arrest was constitutional, notwithstanding state laws prohibiting officers from arresting parole violators without a warrant in the absence of a crime or offense. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

Background

On October 5, 2010, New York Police Department (“NYPD”) officers conducting a two-hour scheduled traffic-safety vehicle checkpoint in the Bronx stopped motorists to check their driver's licenses and vehicle registrations. They collected licenses from only the drivers and ran each driver's license through NYPD's “FINEST” system using a mobile device terminal (“MDT”) in the squad car. This “generate[d] a report from the New York Statewide Police Information Network (‘NYSPIN’), which includes data from multiple sources, including” Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) databases, New York State law enforcement records, and New York Department of Motor Vehicle (“DMV”) records. Callahan Dec. “An officer cannot ... elect to run a FINEST search from an MDT through some but not all of these databases.” Id. It typically took less than one minute to run each of the license checks conducted at the stop. Id. Officer Patrick Callahan, who had conducted “approximately 100 vehicle safety checkpoints at that location” during his 22 years with the NYPD, ran licenses through the FINEST system. Id. The checkpoint resulted in two felony arrests, including Bernacet's.

Bernacet pulled up to the checkpoint at approximately 11:45 p.m. He gave his driver's license to Officer Ramon Garcia, who passed it to Callahan. When he ran Bernacet's license, Callahan noticed that Bernacet was on parole. Knowing that parolees in New York customarily have 9:00 p.m. curfews, he instructed Garcia to “check it out.” Id. Garcia confronted Bernacet about his suspected parole violation. Garcia contends that Bernacet replied that “he forgot and was sorry.” Garcia Dec. Bernacet “has claimed variously that he replied, ‘What, I'm on violation of parole?’ and ‘I don't have a curfew my parole officer know I am here [sic].’ ” United States v. Bernacet, No. 11–cr–00107–LTS, 2011 WL 10895014, at *1, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101258, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 7, 2011) (citations omitted).

Garcia asked Bernacet to step out of the car. Garcia maintains that he then saw a handgun protruding from Bernacet's pocket; Bernacet alleges that the firearm was not discovered until Garcia frisked him. Id. Garcia then arrested Bernacet. A frisk incident to the arrest revealed a gravity knife in addition to the loaded, .25–caliber Armi–Galesi–Bresci semi-automatic pistol. After receiving his Miranda warnings, Bernacet made several incriminating statements. Id.

Discussion

Bernacet contends that the officers (1) should not have searched law enforcement databases at a traffic safety checkpoint, (2) did not have probable cause to believe that he was violating his parole, and (3) were not authorized under state law to arrest him for a parole violation, and that therefore his arrest was unconstitutional. Success on any of these claims would require suppression of the handgun and incriminating statements Bernacet made pursuant to his arrest. We hold that the NYSPIN search was reasonable; the officers had probable cause to believe that Bernacet was violating his parole; and his warrantless arrest was not unconstitutional. The district court's decision to admit the handgun and Bernacet's incriminating statements was therefore proper. Accordingly, we affirm Bernacet's conviction.

I. Use of Drivers' Licenses to Search Law Enforcement Databases at the Traffic Stop Was Reasonable

Bernacet does not challenge the legality of the traffic stop itself, and he does not argue that the search of law enforcement databases unconstitutionally infringed his privacy interests.¹ Rather, he contends that the NYPD's search of law enforcement databases at a traffic stop was constitutionally unreasonable because it was not closely related to the purpose of the checkpoint. In light of the de minimis intrusion on motorists that was imposed by the law enforcement database search, the traffic stop as conducted was constitutional.

A. The Government's Interests Outweighed the Drivers' Interests in This Fixed, Traffic–Safety Checkpoint

The Supreme Court has endorsed the government's interest in conducting a fixed checkpoint to monitor traffic safety as a benefit that outweighs drivers' privacy interests. In Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), the Court struck down roving stops of automobiles without any particularized suspicion. However, the Court suggested that “[q]uestioning of all oncoming traffic at roadblock-type stops” was a lawful alternative method to provide for traffic safety. Id. In City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 47, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000), the Court struck down drug interdiction checkpoints while noting that its holding “d[id] nothing to alter the constitutional status of ... the type of traffic [safety] checkpoint that we suggested would be lawful in Prouse.”

In this case, the traffic safety checkpoint was conducted at an “accident prone location in the impact zone,” and officers processed 49 cars in two hours. Vehicle Checkpoint Form.² The waiting times that each car experienced are fairly characterized as “brief” and “no more onerous than [delays] that typically accompany normal traffic congestion.” Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 426, 124 S.Ct. 885, 157 L.Ed.2d 843 (2004); see also Mich. Dep't of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 452, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990) (stating that the “ ‘objective’ intrusion” on motorists subjected to checkpoint stops is “measured by the duration of the seizure and the intensity of the investigation”). This traffic safety checkpoint was thus lawful, and is not on its own challenged by Bernacet.

B. Gathering Additional Information Did Not Make the Stop Unconstitutional

Bernacet argues, however, that the addition of law enforcement database searches renders unconstitutional the otherwise lawful traffic checkpoint. The search of the NYSPIN databases took approximately one minute per motorist; of that one minute, some portion was consumed by the search of DMV records.³ Dist. Ct. Doc. 20–4. The fact that “ordinary criminal wrongdoing,” Edmond, 531 U.S. at 38, 121 S.Ct. 447, was uncovered in the course of an otherwise lawful checkpoint designed for a permissible purpose does not invalidate the checkpoint or the arrest. Lidster, 540 U.S. at 423, 124 S.Ct. 885. The police encountered information suggesting that a parole violation was ongoing; the Fourth Amendment did not require them to ignore this information merely because the officers' primary focus was on traffic safety. “The law does not require the police to ignore evidence of other crimes in conducting legitimate roadblocks.” United States v. Lopez, 777 F.2d 543, 547 (10th Cir.1985); see also United States v. Morales, 788 F.2d 883, 886 (2d Cir.1986).

The duration of the stop was not significantly increased by the fact that the MDTs search multiple databases, including law enforcement databases. Although our decision in United States v. Harrison, 606 F.3d 42 (2d Cir.2010), related to traffic stops instead of checkpoints, it applies with equal force in this context, where the initial stop is not challenged. In Harrison, we wrote that “an officer's inquiries into matters unrelated to the justification for the traffic stop ... do not convert the encounter into something other than a lawful seizure, so long as those inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of the stop.” Id. at 45 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted); see also Lidster, 540 U.S. at 427–28, 124 S.Ct. 885.

Finally, we note that Bernacet does not argue that the checkpoint was illegal in itself or that the stated purpose of protecting traffic safety in an accident prone location was pretextual. He argues, instead, that it was improper for the police, at a lawfully conducted traffic safety checkpoint, to search for parole status in addition to DMV records. If he were able to establish that the checkpoint was actually conducted for basic crime control purposes and not for vehicle safety reasons, then we would likely find the checkpoint unconstitutional. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 41, 121...