United States v. Cole

• Decision Date: 16 April 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-2105,20-2105
• Citation: 994 F.3d 844
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Janhoi COLE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

994 F.3d 844

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Janhoi COLE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 20-2105

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 19, 2021

Decided April 16, 2021

W. Scott Simpson, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Springfield, IL, for Plaintiff - Appellee

Daniel J. Hillis, Attorney, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Springfield, IL, Thomas W. Patton, Attorney, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Peoria, IL, for Defendant - Appellant

Before Rovner, Hamilton, and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.

Hamilton, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal we deal with a pretextual traffic stop for purposes of drug interdiction. Even assuming that the stop was permissible at the outset, the record shows that the officer prolonged the stop by questioning the driver at length on subjects going well beyond the legal justification for the stop. Under Rodriguez v. United States , 575 U.S. 348, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015), prolonging the stop violated the Fourth Amendment and requires suppression of evidence found much later as a result of the actions that prolonged the stop.

I. The Traffic Stop and Later Search

On June 25, 2018, Illinois State Trooper Clayton Chapman was on highway patrol duties and received a message from Deputy Sheriff Derek Suttles about a car that he found suspicious. A Volkswagen hatchback sedan with California license plates was headed east toward Trooper Chapman on Interstate 72. Deputy Suttles reported that the Volkswagen was driving roughly 50 to 55 miles per hour where the speed limit was 70 miles per hour.

Trooper Chapman spotted the Volkswagen, driven by defendant Janhoi Cole, and trailed him with the intent to catch him in a traffic violation to provide a pretext for a roadside stop. That opportunity came after Interstate 72 merged with Interstate 55. In the merging traffic, another car cut off the Volkswagen. Trooper Chapman believed that the Volkswagen trailed the car that cut it off at an unreasonably close distance, in violation of the Illinois Vehicle Code. See 625 ILCS 5/11-710 ("The driver of a motor vehicle shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of such vehicles and the traffic upon and the condition of the highway."). Trooper Chapman pulled Mr. Cole over to the partially unpaved shoulder lane, requested his driver's license and vehicle registration, and ordered him to exit the Volkswagen and sit in the front seat of the police cruiser.

This initial roadside stop lasted ten minutes. It included an eight-and-a-half-minute conversation between Trooper Chapman and Mr. Cole in the police cruiser. Trooper Chapman used about six minutes of that initial conversation to question Mr. Cole about his state of residence, employment, travel history, travel plans, vehicle history, and registration information. Mr. Cole said that he was a traveling chef who split his time between New York, Los Angeles (where his girlfriend lived and the car was registered), and Maryland (where he was presently employed). He claimed to be on a long road trip from Maryland to Cincinnati to Colorado, and back. About eight minutes into the stop, Trooper Chapman told Mr. Cole that he would get off with a warning. But Trooper Chapman said that he preferred to go to a nearby gas station to complete the warning paperwork because he was concerned for their safety on the unprotected shoulder. That was not entirely true. Trooper Chapman testified later that he had already decided that he was not going to let Mr. Cole go until he had somehow managed to search the car for drugs. In response, Mr. Cole said he wanted to get on his way as soon as possible and would go only if he had to. Trooper Chapman made clear that Mr. Cole had no choice. Each drove in his respective car to the gas station. On the drive over, Trooper Chapman radioed to request a drug-sniffing dog.

After they arrived at the gas station, Trooper Chapman requested for the first time Mr. Cole's proof of insurance. Trooper Chapman then learned over the radio that Mr. Cole had been arrested for drug crimes fifteen years earlier. Trooper Chapman continued to interrogate Mr. Cole in a faux-casual manner, about his car, itinerary, travel plans, and residence. Mr. Cole's answers became increasingly contradictory and incoherent. He vacillated about whom he visited in Colorado, how long he had been on the road, and how he had the car insured and registered remotely (suggesting he sent two different girlfriends to "one of those places" to fill out different parts of the paperwork). Upon finishing the warning, over thirty minutes after he first pulled Mr. Cole over, Trooper Chapman informed Mr. Cole that he was not free to leave because he suspected Mr. Cole was transporting drugs. The drug-sniffing dog arrived ten minutes later and quickly alerted to the presence of drugs. Trooper Chapman found several kilograms of methamphetamine and heroin in a hidden compartment and arrested Mr. Cole.

Mr. Cole was indicted on two counts of possessing controlled substances with intent to distribute. He moved to suppress the evidence against him on the ground that it was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment. He claimed that Trooper Chapman did not actually observe any traffic violations so that the stop was unlawful from the beginning. He also asserted that Trooper Chapman prolonged the stop without justification in violation of Rodriguez v. United States , 575 U.S. 348, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015).

Trooper Chapman, Deputy Suttles, and Mr. Cole testified at a suppression hearing about the stop. Trooper Chapman testified that he saw Mr. Cole follow the car ahead of him too closely. He also conceded that issuing a warning normally takes only about 15 minutes and that he delayed part of his investigation. Even before he stopped Mr. Cole, Trooper Chapman had his vehicle registration and driver's license information, and he knew that insurance information was on file.

Relying heavily on a recording from Trooper Chapman's dashboard camera, the magistrate judge's written report and recommendation credited Trooper Chapman's version of the tailgate over Mr. Cole's and concluded that Trooper Chapman had probable cause to stop Mr. Cole for following too closely. The judge also concluded that by the end of the roadside interrogation ten minutes into the stop, Trooper Chapman had a reasonable suspicion that Mr. Cole was a drug courier, justifying the further delays until the arrival of the dog 30 minutes later. The magistrate judge did not address directly the point that we think is decisive under Rodriguez , whether Trooper Chapman prolonged the stop in those first ten minutes by using the time to question Mr. Cole on topics unrelated to the constitutionally permissible, but pretextual, basis for the stop. After the district judge overruled his objections to the magistrate judge's recommendation that the motion to suppress be denied, Mr. Cole pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), reserving his right to appeal the suppression issues. He was sentenced to 74 months in prison.

II. Analysis

This appeal takes us to the niche in Fourth Amendment law governing pretextual traffic stops. The Fourth Amendment forbids "unreasonable searches and seizures," and courts generally must exclude evidence recovered in a search or seizure that violated the Constitution.

United States v. Simon , 937 F.3d 820, 828 (7th Cir. 2019). When faced with the appeal of a motion to suppress decided after an evidentiary hearing, we review the district court's legal conclusions de novo and findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Wilbourn , 799 F.3d 900, 908 (7th Cir. 2015).

Police officers may "seize" (stop and detain) drivers, but only where such a stop is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Delaware v. Prouse , 440 U.S. 648, 663, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979). A full-blown arrest must be supported by probable cause. See Martin v. Marinez , 934 F.3d 594, 598 (7th Cir. 2019), citing Holmes v. Village of Hoffman Estates , 511 F.3d 673, 679 (7th Cir. 2007). A lesser seizure, such as a brief, investigatory stop, may be based on a mere reasonable suspicion, supported by "specific and articulable facts," that the subject is engaged in criminal activity. Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).

Though reasonable suspicion is a lower standard than probable cause, it must still be reasonable —a Terry stop requires more than curiosity, inchoate suspicion, or a hunch. United States v. Rodriguez-Escalera , 884 F.3d 661, 668 (7th Cir. 2018) ; United States v. Paniagua-Garcia , 813 F.3d 1013, 1014 (7th Cir. 2016) (a "mere possibility" of unlawful activity is not "enough to create a reasonable suspicion of a criminal act"); see generally Heien v. North Carolina , 574 U.S. 54, 60, 135 S.Ct. 530, 190 L.Ed.2d 475 (2014) (suspicion must be "particularized and objective"). Traffic stops, due to their relative brevity, are usually analyzed under the constitutional framework for Terry stops as opposed to formal arrests. Rodriguez , 575 U.S. at 354, 135 S.Ct. 1609, quoting Knowles v. Iowa , 525 U.S. 113, 117, 119, 119 S.Ct. 484, 142 L.Ed.2d 492 (1998).

The constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops does not depend on the real motives of the officers involved. In Whren v. United States , 517 U.S. 806, 818–19, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996), the Supreme Court held that pretextual stops for minor traffic violations do not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment so long as the officer has probable cause for the driving violation.

Pretextual traffic stops are common in drug interdiction efforts, and they seem to be easy to initiate lawfully. As then-Attorney General Robert Jackson said long ago, "We know that no local police force can strictly enforce the traffic laws, or it would arrest...