U.S. v. Lenoir

• Decision Date: 04 February 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-1492.,02-1492.
• Citation: 318 F.3d 725
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kenneth R. LENOIR, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 725

318 F.3d 725

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kenneth R. LENOIR, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 02-1492.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued November 7, 2002.

Decided February 4, 2003.

Rehearing Denied February 26, 2003.

Andrew B. Baker, Jr. (argued), Office of the U.S. Atty., Hammond, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Matthew J. Elliott (argued), Beckman Lawson, Fort Wayne, IN, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and MANION, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Circuit Judge.

The government indicted Defendant Kenneth R. Lenoir for knowingly possessing firearms after having been convicted of a felony. Lenoir filed a motion to dismiss the charge and a motion to suppress evidence seized by the police during a warrantless entry of his home, both of which the district court denied. A jury then convicted him. Prior to sentencing, Lenoir objected to the Presentence Report's recommendation that he be sentenced as an armed career criminal under § 4B1.4(a) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual. Following a hearing, the district court overruled Lenoir's objections and sentenced him to 270 months' imprisonment. Lenoir appeals the admission of evidence seized by police during the warrantless entry of his home as well as the district court's finding that he qualified as an armed career criminal. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

On the afternoon of January 4, 2000, Detective Sergeant Tom Branson of the Gary, Indiana, Police Department overheard a police radio dispatch about a disturbance involving an unidentified male with a gun in the St. John Homes area, a known high crime neighborhood. The disturbance took place near 2153 Carolina Street, and Branson understood that the man with the gun had left that address. Arriving on the scene shortly thereafter, Branson observed a man later identified as Lenoir walking down an alley only one-eighth of a block east of 2153 Carolina Street. Lenoir appeared to be intoxicated and seemed to be carrying something under his coat.

As Lenoir continued down the alley, Branson saw a shotgun and a rifle protruding from inside Lenoir's coat. Branson also saw an ammunition magazine for the rifle that appeared capable of holding over twenty rounds. Branson knew that Indiana law did not prohibit Lenoir from carrying the guns, but a city ordinance prohibited possession of an ammunition magazine of this capacity. In Indiana, however, police cannot make arrests for violations of city ordinances. Branson continued to monitor Lenoir and radioed the information to backup. Lenoir appeared to be trying to maintain a grip on the guns, and Branson observed Lenoir stop, put the guns down on the ground, and re-grip them.

Just as Lenoir picked up the guns again, police cars approached from the opposite end of the alley. According to Branson, Lenoir looked in the direction of the police cars and then fled into a home located at 2125 Vermont, only a short distance away. At the time, police did not know that Lenoir lived at this address with his mother. Officer Travis Jolly yelled, "Police, Stop!" and pursued Lenoir. Jolly saw Lenoir have trouble entering the home, and so Jolly followed closely behind Lenoir without knocking or seeking permission to enter. Jolly apprehended Lenoir at the bottom of a small basement staircase just to the right of the front door. Upon being caught, Lenoir struggled with Jolly, which resulted in a cut requiring stitches above Lenoir's eye. Branson had entered the home a few seconds behind Jolly and observed Jolly bringing Lenoir up the basement staircase. Branson also saw a woman and children in the home. Branson went down the basement staircase and removed the shotgun, rifle, and Lenoir's coat, which were lying on the floor approximately fifteen feet inside the house.

The rifle was an SKS assault rifle with a magazine capacity greater than twenty rounds, although only two bullets were in the magazine; the shotgun was a Mossberg 12-gauge. When Jolly brought Lenoir outside another officer recognized Lenoir as a convicted felon and police arrested him for being a felon in possession of a firearm as well as for battering a police officer and resisting law enforcement.

Lenoir was indicted for possession of firearms by a convicted felon based on his conviction for burglary in the Superior Court of Lake County, Indiana, in May 1994. Lenoir filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from the warrantless entry of his home and a motion to dismiss the charges. At the hearing on his motion to suppress, Lenoir testified that he went to 2153 Carolina Street to retrieve his guns so that he could store them at his mother's home; he was scheduled to enter a halfway house that day as part of his parole for the burglary conviction. Lenoir also admitted that he consumed forty ounces of beer that morning. He claimed that he dropped his keys when he stopped and placed the guns on the ground and that he made a "slight fast walk" to his house. Lenoir denied running to his house and denied being aware that police were pursuing him. He also claimed that he entered his house, put the guns in the basement, covered them with his jacket, and proceeded back up the stairs before seeing Branson and being grabbed by Officer Jolly. Finally, Lenoir claimed that Branson directed a third officer to proceed into the basement and look for the guns.

Finding Lenoir's testimony not credible, the district court denied Lenoir's motions. Lenoir renewed the motion to suppress prior to trial, and it was again denied, leading to a one-day jury trial. At the close of the government's case, Lenoir renewed the motion for a third time, and the court denied it again. Lenoir presented no evidence at trial and was convicted by the jury.

Prior to sentencing, Lenoir filed an objection to the Presentence Report's recommendation that he be sentenced as an armed career criminal. Lenoir had been convicted on separate occasions of Commission of a Felony While Armed in Indiana in 1975, Burglary in Indiana in 1980 and 1994, Breaking and Entering at Night with Intent to Commit a Felony in Massachusetts in 1990, and of possession of cocaine with intent to sell in Florida. The first sentencing hearing was continued in order to give Lenoir, acting pro se at this point, time to file specific objections to the Presentence Report, to which he filed several. When the sentencing hearing was finally held, the district court overruled Lenoir's objections and held that he qualified as an armed career criminal under § 4B1.4(a) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual as a result of his 1980, 1990, and 1994 convictions. The district court sentenced him to 270 months' imprisonment. This appeal ensued.

ANALYSIS

A. The Warrantless Entry and Seizure of Evidence

When examining the district court's denial of a motion to suppress, we undertake a de novo review of questions of law, including whether reasonable suspicion exists to justify a Terry stop, and we examine findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Kincaid, 212 F.3d 1025, 1028 (7th Cir.2000); United States v. Scheets, 188 F.3d 829, 836 (7th Cir.1999).

As an initial matter, Lenoir asserts that the district court should not have imputed what Branson knew of Lenoir's behavior to Officer Jolly at the moment Jolly entered Lenoir's home because Jolly did not testify at the suppression hearing. When law enforcement officers are in communication regarding a suspect, however, the knowledge of one officer can be imputed to the other officers under the collective knowledge doctrine. United States v. Sawyer, 224 F.3d 675, 680 (7th Cir.2000). Branson testified that he radioed information about Lenoir to fellow officers, including Jolly, as he watched Lenoir in the alley. Furthermore, Lenoir twice renewed his motion to suppress after the district court denied it at the suppression hearing. The second renewal came after the close of the government's case, during which the court heard Jolly's testimony. The district court, therefore, was free to consider either Branson's or Jolly's testimony and knowledge of the situation when deciding whether Jolly's entrance into Lenoir's home was constitutional.

Lenoir's next argument is that police lacked probable cause to justify the warrantless entry of his home, the seizure of the weapons, and the arrest. This raises two issues; first, we must decide whether police had constitutional authority to detain Lenoir; and second, whether the circumstances of the situation and Lenoir's behavior justified the warrantless entry of his home, the seizure of the guns, and the subsequent arrest of Lenoir for being a probable felon in possession of firearms.

Lenoir argues that police did not have the authority to stop him because they lacked probable cause to believe that he had committed, or was about to commit, a crime. He concedes, however, that police do not always need probable cause to detain an individual when reasonable suspicion exists. Reasonable suspicion amounts to an "`objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity.'" United States v. Swift, 220 F.3d 502, 506 (7th Cir.2000). Put another way, it is something less than probable cause but more than a hunch. Id.

When determining whether reasonable suspicion exists, we examine the totality of the circumstances known to the police at the time of the stop, including the experience of the officers and the behavior and characteristics of the suspect. United States v. Quinn, 83 F.3d 917, 921 (7th Cir.1996). Police can sometimes consider otherwise innocent behavior in determining whether reasonable suspicion exists to detain a person. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 22-23, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Specifically, police observation of an individual, fitting a police dispatch description of a person involved in a disturbance, near in time and geographic location to the disturbance establishes a...