U.S. v. Monteiro

• Decision Date: 05 May 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-2283.,05-2283.
• Citation: 447 F.3d 39
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Amando B. MONTEIRO, Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

447 F.3d 39

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Amando B. MONTEIRO, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 05-2283.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard April 5, 2006.

Decided May 5, 2006.

Theodor B. Heinrich, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Virginia M. Vander Jagt, Assistant United States Attorney, and Michael J. Sullivan, United States Attorney, were on brief, for the United States.

Kevin S. Nixon for the defendant.

Before SELYA and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges, and SAYLOR,^* District Judge.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

Acting on Amando Monteiro's pretrial motion, the district court suppressed from evidence two guns the police obtained during a vehicle stop. The government sought our review pursuant to 18 U.S.C § 1371, which authorizes interlocutory appeals in situations such as this. We affirm.

I.

In an appeal from a suppression order, the district court's findings of fact govern absent a showing of clear error. Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996). Neither party suggests that the district court made such an error, so we recite the facts as the district court found them. We also add a few undisputed details from the record.

Shortly after 4:00 P.M. on March 25, 1999, Boston police responded to reports of gunfire on Eastman Street, in the Dorchester section of the city. The target of the shooting, who escaped unharmed, was Antonio Cabral. The police knew that Cabral was associated with a gang and that his gang and its rival had been involved in a series of shootings. At the scene on Eastman Street, patrol officers James Coyne and Thomas Griffiths spoke with Cabral for about an hour. Cabral reported that two men had shot at him through a fence, while he was standing in his driveway. Cabral said he had no knowledge of the identity of the shooters, but another person who had been nearby told the police that a red Mazda had raced away from Eastman Street shortly after the shooting.

At around 8:00 P.M. that evening, Coyne and Griffiths returned to Eastman Street and interviewed Cabral again. This time, Cabral's mother and brother were present. Cabral again said he had no information for the police. The Cabrals complained that the police "weren't doing enough in the community to stop the violence." Coyne responded that the police could do more if neighborhood residents would "give us information for us to solve these shootings." Cabral then said that he had no information to offer about his own shooting but that he had information about another shooting that same day. Cabral said that a relative told him that she had witnessed gunfire on Shirley Street from two cars, a red Mazda and a red Honda with license plate 5021EV. Coyne asked Cabral who the relative was. Coyne understood Cabral to indicate that the relative was female, but Cabral refused to give her name or any other information about her. The police made no further attempts to identify or locate the unnamed relative.

That same evening, Coyne and Griffiths drove to Shirley Street and looked for some evidence of gunfire, such as spent shell casings or bullet damage. They found none. The officers also searched the police department's records to see if anybody had reported gunfire on Shirley Street. No one had. Coyne later testified at the suppression hearing that it was typical for shootings in the neighborhood to be reported to 911, and for obvious evidence of gunfire to be found at the scene.¹

Coyne ran the 5021EV license plate number through the vehicle registration database and matched the plates to a red Honda belonging to Marcelino Rodrigues. Coyne was familiar with Rodrigues and suspected that he was affiliated with a gang that was a rival to Cabral's. Coyne also knew that Rodrigues had been arrested three weeks earlier in Randolph, Massachusetts, on a firearms possession charge.² Coyne and Griffiths went to the address Rodrigues had listed on his vehicle registration, but Rodrigues was not there. That night, the officers looked for Rodrigues around the neighborhood but did not find him. Coyne and Griffiths radioed other officers in the area to be on the lookout for Rodrigues and the red Honda, but no one saw Rodrigues or his car.

A full week passed during which the police apparently conducted no further investigation of the possible shooting on Shirley Street. Then, on March 31st, Coyne, Griffiths, and a third officer were conducting a traffic stop when they saw Rodrigues and two passengers drive by. The officers rushed to their cars, pursued Rodrigues, and pulled him over for "field interrogation and observation."³ There was no traffic violation or suspicious activity. The defendant was one of Rodrigues's passengers.

Although this appeal is limited to the legality of the initial vehicle stop, we relate briefly what happened thereafter. The officers ordered Rodrigues and his passengers to step out of the car. The third officer, who was not available to testify at the suppression hearing, told Coyne that he had seen a gun in the center console of the car.⁴ The police then handcuffed Rodrigues and his passengers and, upon obtaining a search warrant, searched the car and recovered two guns. These guns comprise the evidence at issue in this appeal. At the scene, the police questioned Rodrigues about the purported Shirley Street shooting and about the attempted shooting of Cabral on Eastman Street. Rodrigues denied involvement in either event.⁵

Subsequently, the state and federal governments indicted the defendant on a variety of charges. In both prosecutions, the defendant sought to suppress evidence gathered in connection with the March 31st stop of Rodrigues's car.⁶ The district court held a two-day evidentiary hearing and issued a thoughtful order. The court concluded: "While this is a borderline case, once the tip [of a shooting on Shirley Street] proved to be unreliable, the hunch [that Rodrigues was involved in criminal activity] was not enough to establish a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity sufficient to stop the red Honda."

II.

The sole question in this interlocutory appeal is whether the police acted reasonably in stopping Rodrigues and his passengers on March 31st. Because only the district court's ultimate Fourth Amendment conclusion is at issue, our review is de novo. United States v. Paradis, 351 F.3d 21, 24 (1st Cir.2003).

When a police officer makes "brief investigatory stops of persons and vehicles that fall short of traditional arrest. . . the Fourth Amendment is satisfied if the officer's action is supported by reasonable suspicion that criminal activity may be afoot," United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted), or if there is "reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and articulable facts, that [the stopped] person . . . was involved in or is wanted in connection with a completed felony," United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 229, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985). In evaluating whether reasonable suspicion existed, we "look at the totality of the circumstances of each case to see whether the detaining officer ha[d] a particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing." Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744 (internal quotation marks omitted). The government bears the burden of showing such a basis. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (plurality opinion); Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979). We allow police officers "to draw on their own experience and specialized training" in making a vehicle stop. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744. But the reasonable suspicion standard imposes meaningful limits on temporary detentions. "[A]n officer's reliance on a mere `hunch' is insufficient to justify a stop." Id. at 274, 122 S.Ct. 744 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)).

While the defendant was neither the driver of the vehicle stopped on March 31st nor then the subject of police suspicion, he was seized when the police stopped Rodrigues's car. Consequently, he has the right to contest the legality of that stop. See United States v. Woodrum, 202 F.3d 1, 5-6 (1st Cir.2000).

III.

The government contends that the totality of the circumstances known to the police provided adequate justification for the March 31st vehicle stop. In its briefs, the government suggests that the police may have suspected Rodrigues of three types of wrongdoing: the purported shooting on Shirley Street; the attempted shooting of Cabral on Eastman Street; and ongoing involvement in what the government terms "gang warfare." However, the government conceded at oral argument that there is "no" information in the record tying Rodrigues or his car to "involvement in the Eastman Street shooting." (Coyne had said essentially the same while testifying at the suppression hearing.) Furthermore, while the police suspected Rodrigues of being a gang member, the government does not contend that there was any reason to suspect that Rodrigues and his passengers were involved in criminal activity when the stop took place on March 31st, or that they were about to be so involved.

The government does argue that the police had a reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and articulable facts, that Rodrigues had committed a crime on Shirley Street on March 25th. (Coyne testified that investigation of this purported crime was his actual motivation in stopping the Honda on March 31st.)⁷

The tip from Cabral's unidentified relative is the focus of the government's argument. Therefore, in section A, we evaluate the appropriate place in the reasonable suspicion analysis i) of that tip and ii) of the factors that the government argues corroborated it. We conclude that the minimally corroborated tip did not alone provide reasonable suspicion for a vehicle stop on March 31st. In section...