United States v. Williams

• Citation: 796 F.3d 951
• Decision Date: 07 August 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–3532.,14–3532.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee v. Lawrence Edward WILLIAMS, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

796 F.3d 951

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Lawrence Edward WILLIAMS, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 14–3532.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: June 11, 2015.

Filed: Aug. 7, 2015.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Oct. 1, 2015.

Thomas Patrick Deaton, Jr., St. Louis, MO, argued, for appellant.

Thomas J. Mehan, Asst. U.S. Atty., St. Louis, MO, argued (Richard G. Callahan, U.S. Atty., Allison Hart Behrens, Asst. U.S. Atty., on the brief), for appellee.

Before GRUENDER, BEAM, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Lawrence Williams was indicted for possessing a firearm as a felon. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). A jury found Williams guilty, and the district court¹ sentenced him to 66 months' imprisonment. Williams appeals his conviction. We affirm.

I.

On January 26, 2013, Officer Jennifer Hendricks of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was driving her patrol car when its license plate recognition (“LPR”) system gave an alert about a nearby car. The LPR system scans the license plates of cars that are within range of cameras mounted on the patrol car and can generate an alert if a scanned car is connected to a wanted person.

The alert showed Officer Hendricks that a man named Otis Hicks was associated with a nearby car and was wanted by the St. Louis County Police Department, a department that neighbors Hendricks's, for first-degree domestic assault. The alert also said that Hicks may be armed and dangerous. The LPR alert did not explain how or when Hicks was associated with the car.

After pulling the car over, Officer Hendricks approached the driver's side and saw two men inside. She asked the driver for his license, which identified him as Otis Hicks. Officer Hendricks then waited for a second police officer to arrive. Upon arrival, Officer David Christensen asked the passenger, Williams, to get out of the car and present identification. According to Officer Christensen, Williams patted his waistband two times while getting out of the car and Williams's hands were shaking uncontrollably as he retrieved his identification. Officer Christensen handcuffed Williams and conducted a pat-down search for weapons. Officer Christensen felt what he recognized to be a firearm and removed a handgun from Williams's waistband. After finding the handgun, Officer Christensen found a bag containing “a dark rock-like substance” in Williams's pocket that was later identified as heroin.

A federal grand jury indicted Lawrence Williams for one count of possessing a firearm as a felon. Before trial, Williams moved to suppress the handgun and heroin. A magistrate judge² held an evidentiary hearing and heard testimony from Officers Hendricks and Christensen. The magistrate judge recommended the denial of Williams's motions. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's relevant proposed factual findings and rulings.

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), the Government notified Williams that it would introduce his prior firearm-possession convictions at trial. Williams submitted two motions in limine that sought to exclude his 2002 conviction for possessing a firearm as a felon, his 1995 conviction for unlawful possession of a concealable firearm and unlawful use of a firearm, and his earlier conviction of first-degree robbery. Williams also moved to exclude the heroin. The district court denied Williams's motions to exclude the heroin and the 2002 and 1995 convictions. However, the court excluded the earlier robbery conviction because of, among other reasons, “the age, when it was completed, the similarity of the offenses, and the fact that we will already have two others that will be introduced into evidence.”

At trial, Williams's counsel attempted to cross-examine Officer Hendricks about her motivation for testifying that Williams had actual possession of the handgun. After Williams's counsel asked Officer Hendricks if she had been frustrated with prosecutors' past decisions regarding whether to bring firearm charges, the Government objected, and the following colloquy took place at sidebar:

Counsel: Judge, it's my good faith belief that the police officers in the city of St. Louis sometimes decide to charge somebody with a gun that they found in the car even though the gun was not found on the person, and that the person that they decide to charge is the person in the car that has the worst record.

Court: Have you got some evidence of this that you are going to present here?

Counsel: No, I want to ask her.

Court: Do you have some evidence of that fact that you are prepared to present to me?

Counsel: No.

After the Government argued that this had “nothing to do with the facts of this case,” the court asked Williams's counsel about the foundation for this line of questions:

Court: I am just going to tell you, [Counsel], absent some evidence to support some good faith belief that that occurs or occurred here, I will not permit you to go down that road.

Counsel: Well, may I tell the Court that my good faith belief is based on talking to a retired police officer about this case?

Court: No. If you want to bring that police officer in to testify here, then I will take his proffer and we can go from there.

Counsel: All right.

Court: But I will not permit you on the record that we have here to suggest that with respect to this witness.

After Officer Hendricks finished testifying, Officer Christensen took the stand. Before cross-examining Officer Christensen, Williams's counsel asked the court if he would be barred from pursuing the same line of questions:

Counsel: I assume [the Government] still wants to object and that you would make the same ruling, that I'm not allowed at this time to go into questions about the relationship between the police department and the warrant office at the [prosecutor's office].

Court: Not for the purpose and based upon the record that you have made today, correct.

After the witnesses testified, the court gave limiting instructions to the jury on how it should consider the evidence of Williams's 2002 and 1995 convictions. The jury found Williams guilty.

II.

A.

Williams first argues that Officer Hendricks lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the car. See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979) ; Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 255–57, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007). According to Williams, because Officer Hendricks lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the car, the handgun and heroin were fruits of an illegal stop and should have been suppressed.³ See generally Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963).

We review the district court's factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Farnell, 701 F.3d 256, 260 (8th Cir.2012). “The Fourth Amendment permits an investigative stop of a vehicle if officers have a reasonable suspicion the vehicle or its occupants are involved in criminal activity.” United States v. Bell, 480 F.3d 860, 863 (8th Cir.2007). If police have reasonable suspicion, they “may briefly stop an individual and make reasonable inquiries aimed at confirming or dispelling the suspicion.” United States v. Hughes, 517 F.3d 1013, 1016 (8th Cir.2008). “Reasonable suspicion must be supported by more than a mere hunch, but the likelihood of criminal activity need not rise to the level required for probable cause, and it falls considerably short of satisfying the preponderance of the evidence standard.” United States v. Roberts, 787 F.3d 1204, 1209 (8th Cir.2015) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “We consider the totality of the circumstances when determining whether an officer has a particularized and objective basis to suspect wrongdoing.” United States v. Robinson, 670 F.3d 874, 876 (8th Cir.2012).

Officer Hendricks relied upon the notice from the LPR system that: (1) Hicks was associated with a nearby car, (2) Hicks was wanted by the St. Louis County Police Department for first-degree domestic assault, and (3) Hicks may have been armed and dangerous. Williams nonetheless argues that Officer Hendricks did not have reasonable suspicion to conduct the traffic stop because a “police officer who receives an alert from the LPR system has no way of knowing the extent of the person's relationship to the vehicle.” Williams and the Government seem to agree that there are no reported federal decisions that have specifically dealt with the use of an LPR system in the Fourth Amendment context. However, as we have held, “if a flyer or bulletin has been issued on the basis of articulable facts supporting a reasonable suspicion that the wanted person has committed an offense, then reliance on that flyer or bulletin justifies a stop to check identification, to pose questions to the person, or to detain the person briefly while attempting to obtain further information.” Farnell, 701 F.3d at 262 (internal alteration omitted) (quoting United States v. Smith, 648 F.3d 654, 659 (8th Cir.2011) ). “Police officers may rely upon notice from another police department that a person or vehicle is wanted in connection with the investigation of a felony ‘when making a Terry stop, even if the notice omits the specific articulable facts supporting reasonable suspicion.’ ” Smith, 648 F.3d at 659 (internal alteration omitted) (quoting United States v. Jacobsen, 391 F.3d 904, 906 (8th Cir.2004) ).

We fail to see how the use of the LPR system makes any difference in this case. Williams does not cite any precedent holding that the mechanism through which an officer receives notice from another department matters for Fourth Amendment purposes. Indeed, the LPR system merely automates what could otherwise be accomplished by checking the license-plate number against a “hot sheet” of numbers, inputting a given number into a patrol car's computer, or “calling in” the number to the police station. Thus, we conclude that Officer Hendricks was entitled to “rely upon notice from...