United States v. Tiru-Plaza

• Citation: 766 F.3d 111
• Decision Date: 09 September 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–1888.,13–1888.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. José TIRU–PLAZA, Defendant, Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

766 F.3d 111

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,

v.José TIRU–PLAZA, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 13–1888.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Sept. 9, 2014.

K. Hayne Barnwell, with whom Rebecca A. Jacobstein, Office of Appellate Advocacy, was on brief, for appellant.

John A. Mathews II, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Rosa Emilia Rodríguez–Vélez, United States Attorney, and Nelson Pérez–Sosa, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, were on brief, for appellee.

Before TORRUELLA, DYK,^* and KAYATTA, Circuit Judges.

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge.

Defendant–Appellant José Tiru–Plaza (“Tiru”) appeals from the district court's denial of his motion to suppress the firearm discovered when a police officer pat-frisked him during a traffic stop.

After stopping a car—in which Tiru was a passenger—for a traffic infraction, officers from the Puerto Rico Police Department, evidently suspecting that the car might have been stolen, ordered the driver to exit the vehicle and open the hood to permit inspection of the vehicle identification number (the “VIN”) stamped on the engine block. When the driver complied, the movement revealed a gun tucked into his waistband. The officers then detained the driver, ordered Tiru to exit the vehicle, and pat-frisked him, revealing a firearm hidden in Tiru's waistband. Subsequently, Tiru was placed into custody and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. He sought to suppress the gun as the fruit of an illegal search. The district court denied Tiru's motion, and he now appeals. Concluding that the officers had an objectively reasonable basis to frisk Tiru, we affirm.

I. Background

A. The Traffic Stop and Frisks

We present the facts as found in the evidentiary hearing and in the matter “most compatible” with the district court's ruling, consistent with record support. See United States v. McGregor, 650 F.3d 813, 816 (1st Cir.2011) (citing United States v. Dancy, 640 F.3d 455, 457–58, 460–61 (1st Cir.2011)).¹

On March 10, 2012, at around 11:00 p.m., Officers José Casiano–García (“Officer Casiano”) and Edwin Martínez–Vargas (“Officer Martínez”) spotted a Mitsubishi Lancer driving down a road in Yauco, Puerto Rico. The car's driver, Jenson Morales–Ramos (“Morales”), was accompanied by Tiru and two young women. The officers—seeing the metal glint of a disengaged buckle over Morales's shoulder—concluded that the car's occupants were not wearing seat belts.

When the officers turned on their lights to signal that the car should pull over, Morales failed to stop immediately.² After traveling only a short distance, and without speeding up or taking evasive action, however, he obeyed the officers' command. After approaching the vehicle, Officer Casiano asked Morales for his driver's license and registration. Morales could not provide a driver's license, and he handed the officer a photocopy of the car's original registration ³ on which the VIN could not be made out. The illegible registration and failure to provide a license gave rise to some suspicion that the car may have been stolen.⁴ On that basis, Officer Casiano asked Morales to exit the vehicle and open the hood for purposes of inspecting the VIN on the car's engine. When Morales obliged, the resulting movement caused his shirt to lift up and revealed a green pistol grip in his waistband.

Seeing the gun, Officer Casiano yelled “arma” ⁵ and ordered Morales to place his hands on the hood of the vehicle. Having been alerted to the presence of a firearm by his partner, Officer Martínez ordered Tiru to exit the vehicle and submit to a pat-frisk. When Officer Martínez ran his hands along Tiru's waist he felt a hard object that he believed could be a weapon, inserted two fingers under his waistband, and extracted a black pistol. Tiru was then taken into police custody. After the arrival of two more police officers, the female passengers were also detained, although they were later released without charges.⁶

B. Denial of Tiru's Motion to Suppress His Firearm

Tiru was indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). He filed a motion to suppress the firearm evidence, principally arguing that: (1) the officers lacked any reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle or to order Morales to open the hood, requiring suppression of the gun as fruit of an unlawful search; and (2) even if the initial stop and subsequent frisk of Morales were legal, the officers lacked any reasonable suspicion that Tiru was dangerous or engaged in criminal activity, making his pat-frisk unlawful.

The case was referred to a magistrate judge, who held an evidentiary hearing on October 29, 2012. The magistrate judge's report and recommendation concluded that the initial traffic stop was lawful, and that Tiru lacked standing to challenge the legality of the officer's attempt to search under the vehicle's hood. However, the magistrate judge ultimately found that, under a totality-of-the-circumstances test, there was no objectively reasonable basis to suspect that Tiru was armed or dangerous. The report therefore recommended suppression.

The district court disagreed with the magistrate judge's conclusion as to the totality of the circumstances surrounding Tiru's pat-frisk. The district court found that certain “facts are undisputed in this case”: the young age ⁷ and number of occupants in the car (four); the late hour (11:00 p.m.); Morales's failure to immediately pull over and stop the car when prompted to do so by the police officers; and the discovery of Morales's gun. On the basis of these factors, the district court found an objectively reasonable basis for the officer's frisk of Tiru. The court thus denied the motion to suppress.

Tiru pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to thirty-three months' imprisonment and a supervised-release term of three years. Nevertheless, he reserved the right to seek appellate review of the district court's decision to deny suppression. He now exercises that right.

II. Discussion

On an appeal from a denial of a motion to suppress, our review of the district court's decision is bifurcated. First, factual conclusions and credibility determinations are reviewed only for clear error. United States v. Camacho, 661 F.3d 718, 723 (1st Cir.2011). Under this clear-error review, we grant significant deference to the district court, overturning its findings only if, after a full review of the record, we possess “a definite and firm conviction” that a mistake was made. McGregor, 650 F.3d at 820 (citing United States v. Woodbury, 511 F.3d 93, 96 (1st Cir.2007)); see also United States v. Cruz–Jiménez, 894 F.2d 1, 7 (1st Cir.1990) (“Where there are two competing interpretations of the evidence, the district court's choice of one of them cannot be clearly erroneous.”).

Second, in contrast, we review legal conclusions—including the district court's probable cause and reasonable suspicion determinations, as well as its ultimate decision to grant or deny the motion to suppress— de novo. Camacho, 661 F.3d at 723; United States v. Crespo–Ríos, 645 F.3d 37, 41 (1st Cir.2011). In assessing these legal conclusions, however, we also give appropriate weight to the inferences drawn by the district court and the on-scene officers, recognizing that they possess the advantage of immediacy and familiarity with the witnesses and events. See United States v. Dapolito, 713 F.3d 141, 147 (1st Cir.2013) (citing Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 698–99, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996)); United States v. Smith, 423 F.3d 25, 35 (1st Cir.2005) (“De novo review in this particular context is not unmindful of the district court's reasoning (nor the reasoning of the officers)....”).

A. The Fundamentals: the Fourth Amendment and Terry Stops

The Fourth Amendment protects an individual's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. SeeU.S. Const. amend. IV; see, e.g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (quoting Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 222, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960)). Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable, unless they fall within a well-defined and specifically enumerated exception to the warrant requirement. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454–55, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971); see also Camacho, 661 F.3d at 724 (citing Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 338, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009)). The Fourth Amendment's protection is ensured by, among other means, the exclusionary rule, which in certain circumstances requires suppression of evidence that is the product of an unlawful search or seizure. See, e.g., Terry, 392 U.S. at 12, 88 S.Ct. 1868; Camacho, 661 F.3d at 724.

Included in the Fourth Amendment's protective ambit are Terry stops—those “brief investigatory stops of persons or vehicles 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); see also Camacho, 661 F.3d at 724 (“The protections of the Fourth Amendment apply not only to traditional arrests, but also to those brief investigatory stops generally known as Terry stops.”); United States v. Chhien, 266 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.2001) (recognizing that a traffic stop constitutes a Fourth Amendment seizure of both the vehicle and its occupants (citing Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979)). Such stops are reasonable, and consequently do not offend the Fourth Amendment, only where officers have “a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity ‘may be afoot.’ ” United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868)); Camacho, 661 F.3d at 724–25 (describing the reasonable suspicion required to validate a Terry stop). During a valid Terry stop, a police...