Miles v. United States

• Decision Date: 29 March 2018
• Docket Number: No. 13–CF–1523,13–CF–1523
• Citation: 181 A.3d 633
• Parties: Everett MILES, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

181 A.3d 633

Everett MILES, Appellant,

v.UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 13–CF–1523

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Decided March 29, 2018

Argued May 12, 2016

William T. Morrison for appellant.

Monica P. Dolin, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Channing D. Phillips, United States Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and Uma M. Amuluru, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before GLICKMAN, BECKWITH, and MCLEESE, Associate Judges.

Dissenting opinion by Associate Judge McLeese at page 646.

Beckwith, Associate Judge:

Appellant Everett Miles challenges the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress tangible evidence, arguing that the police lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to conduct the Terry stop¹ that led to his being charged with and later convicted of several gun-related offenses.² He argues that the anonymous tip that formed the basis for his stop—a 911 call from a "concerned citizen" describing a man with characteristics similar to Mr. Miles's, "shooting a gun in the air"—was insufficiently corroborated and thus was not shown to be reliable. He contends, in particular, that his flight when police officers approached him near the location of the alleged shooting was not sufficient to corroborate the tip. We agree and therefore reverse.

I.

At the suppression hearing, the government presented the testimony of Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officers Juan Sanchez and Shalonda Davis. Officer Sanchez testified that he was on patrol in Southeast D.C. at around 8 a.m. on March 24, 2013, when he heard a series of radio transmissions about a man with a gun. These transmissions were played at the suppression hearing.³ The initial transmission stated that a "concerned citizen" who did not give a "callback number" had reported "a black male with a blue army jacket ... shooting a gun in the air." The radio transmission described the subject's location as the "4500 [block of] Texas Avenue, Southeast" and stated that he was "headed toward Ridge Road." An updated transmission from an officer in the area indicated that the subject was "in the 4800 block of ... Alabama Avenue."⁴ Officer Sanchez, who was alone in his car, testified that he drove to the intersection of Alabama and F Streets, where he observed a man, Everett Miles, who "matched the description" from the transmission—that is, according to the officer, Mr. Miles appeared to be wearing an Army-type "camouflage jacket."⁵ Officer Sanchez also saw another MPD officer, Demond James, "walking behind" Mr. Miles and "point[ing] at him like that's him." According to Officer Sanchez, Officer James was between twenty and twenty-five feet behind Mr. Miles, who was the "only person on the street at all" that morning.

As Mr. Miles was walking south in the 4900 block of Alabama Avenue, Officer Sanchez parked his car "[r]ight on F [Street] and the corner," "blocking the sidewalk [Mr. Miles] was walking on to conduct a stop."⁶ Officer Sanchez testified that when he "slightly got out of the car" and asked Mr. Miles to stop, Mr. Miles "ran to his left to the back of [the] cruiser towards F Street." After briefly pursuing Mr. Miles on foot, Officer Sanchez detained him in the middle of the intersection, "grabb[ing] his waistband from his back." Officer Sanchez testified that he "felt a hard object on the right front side of his waistband," an object that "felt like a gun." Officer Sanchez "called out gun" to the other officers on the scene—Officer James and Officer Davis—while attempting to hold Mr. Miles's hands up to prevent him from reaching for the weapon. Officer Davis then retrieved the gun from the right front side of Mr. Miles's waistband.

Officer Davis herself testified that she was on patrol when she heard a radio transmission for a man who was wearing an Army jacket and carrying a gun near Texas Avenue. While driving toward that location, Officer Davis "saw a subject fitting the description" from the radio transmission—a "black male with an Army print jacket" that was "dark colored." Shown a photo of Mr. Miles wearing the jacket on cross-examination,⁷ Officer Davis testified that it "look[ed] a little green, a little tan," but that the picture seemed "distorted." According to Officer Davis, Mr. Miles was walking along the 4800 block of Alabama Avenue when she first saw him, and there were no other people on the street.

According to Officer Davis, she initially drove past Mr. Miles to inform Officer James, who was parked at the end of the block, that she thought she had spotted the subject described in the radio transmission. The two officers drove in Mr. Miles's direction, and Officer James exited his vehicle after Mr. Miles "refused to stop and started running." Officer Davis testified that Officer Sanchez then pulled in front of her car and eventually stopped the fleeing Mr. Miles on foot. In Officer Davis's recollection, Officer Sanchez, in tussling with Mr. Miles, said "[g]un, gun, gun" while trying to hold Mr. Miles's hands over his head. Officer Davis testified that she saw the handle of the gun in Mr. Miles's front waistband and grabbed the weapon.

At the conclusion of the suppression hearing the court made the following findings. At about 8:08 a.m. on March 24, 2013, the MPD dispatcher "received a call from an unidentified citizen who indicated that there was a man with a gun" on the 4500 block of Texas Avenue, Southeast. According to the radio transmission, the subject was a "black male" "wearing a blue Army-type jacket." A few minutes later, the subject was found "within a couple of blocks" of the original location "wearing a jacket that matched in the officer's mind the description provided by the dispatcher." Examining the photo introduced into evidence, the court found that the jacket seemed "mostly gray but [with] a bluish tint of the gray." After noting Officer Davis's testimony that the color in the photo was distorted, however, the court found that on the morning of the stop, "the jacket that Mr. Miles was wearing" appeared to be "a blue Army-type jacket." The court also found that Mr. Miles "took off running" when "Officer Sanchez asked Mr. Miles to stop so that Sanchez could investigate further."⁸ The court found that Mr. Miles's flight reflected "consciousness of guilt on his part."

In denying Mr. Miles's suppression motion, the trial court concluded that the "running by itself would not be sufficient but running coupled with the fact that he ... match[ed] the description of the individual who was seen with the gun" is "more than sufficient to establish reasonable articulable suspicion and allow the officers to detain Mr. Miles in the way that they did."

II.

Mr. Miles argues that the police lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to stop him and that the trial court therefore erred in denying his motion to suppress. In reviewing the trial court's denial of a motion to suppress, "we defer to the trial court's findings of evidentiary fact unless clearly erroneous, and we view those facts, and the reasonable inferences that stem from them, in the light most favorable to the government." Sharp v. United States , 132 A.3d 161, 166 (D.C. 2016). We review de novo the trial court's ultimate legal conclusion that the police had reasonable suspicion to stop Mr. Miles.⁹ See id.

"The Fourth Amendment prohibits ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’ by the Government, and its protections extend to brief investigatory stops of persons"—so-called Terry stops—"that fall short of traditional arrest." United States v. Arvizu , 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002). Accordingly, such a stop is lawful only if "the detaining officers ... have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity." United States v. Cortez , 449 U.S. 411, 417–18, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981). While the level of suspicion that is required is "considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence," United States v. Sokolow , 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989), the Fourth Amendment "requires ‘some minimal level of objective justification’ for making the stop" and an officer "must be able to articulate something more than an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or "hunch." ’ " Id. (first quoting INS v. Delgado , 466 U.S. 210, 217, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984), and then Terry , 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868 ). The court considers various factors in deciding whether a Terry stop is justified. See, e.g. , Bennett v. United States , 26 A.3d 745, 753 (D.C. 2011) (listing factors such as time of day, flight, and an informant's tip). "Although each factor is useful in determining whether there were articulable facts justifying the stop, these factors ‘are not elements of a conjunctive test,’ and no one factor is ‘outcome determinative.’ " Umanzor v. United States , 803 A.2d 983, 993 (D.C. 2002) (quoting In re D.A.D. , 763 A.2d 1152, 1155 (D.C. 2000) ). In other words, "we must consider ‘the totality of the circumstances—the whole picture.’ " Sokolow , 490 U.S. at 8, 109 S.Ct. 1581 (quoting Cortez , 449 U.S. at 417, 101 S.Ct. 690 ).

"[C]ourts are properly wary of sustaining seizures on the basis of anonymous tips, and require a substantial measure of corroboration of information anonymously provided." Brown v. United States , 590 A.2d 1008, 1015 (D.C. 1991). To furnish reasonable suspicion, it is not enough that an anonymous tip alleges criminal activity and provides "[a]n accurate description of [the] subject's readily observable location and appearance." Florida v. J.L. , 529 U.S. 266, 270, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000). A tip that does nothing more than identify a suspect "does not show that the tipster has knowledge of concealed criminal activity." Id. at 272, 120 S.Ct. 1375. Rather, for a tip to justify a Terry stop, there must be corroborating circumstances that show that the "tip [is] reliable in its assertion of...