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Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 4, 2016 Decided April 29, 2016

No. 14-3051

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

MARK STUBBLEFIELD,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cr-00171-1)

Joshua M. Parker argued the cause for appellant. With 

him on the briefs was David W. DeBruin, appointed by the 

court.

Lena H. Hughes, Bristow Fellow, U.S. Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief 

was Elizabeth Trosman, Assistant U.S. Attorney. Suzanne G. 

Curt, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: TATEL, BROWN, and MILLETT, Circuit Judges.

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Opinion of the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN:

BROWN, Circuit Judge: This case is, at its core, a factintensive dispute over probable cause. Witness descriptions 

of a serial robber—a middle-aged black man of short build 

and facial disfigurement—helped produce a police sketch, 

which was then used in canvassing efforts, which netted an 

identification, which led police officers to the identified

suspect, and their approach prompted that suspect, Mark 

Stubblefield, to flee for two blocks until he was apprehended 

and arrested. We are asked to decide whether, in view of this

totality of circumstances, probable cause to arrest Stubblefield

existed. We hold that it did. 

I

Between January and April 2008, an unknown suspect 

committed a series of bank robberies in Washington, D.C. 

Witnesses described the robber as a thin, middle-aged black 

man, of short build—between 5’1” and 5’3”— and possessing

an unusual facial complexion. Descriptions of his 

complexion varied slightly. Some used the word “scarring,” 

while others used terms like “markings,” “birthmarks,” 

“divots,” or “impressions . . . under his cheeks.” However, all 

acknowledged the disfigurement.

Video surveillance showed a man, matching the robber’s 

description, running down a nearby street and hopping in a 

taxi cab just minutes after one of the robberies. FBI Special 

Agent Luis DeJesus tracked down the cab driver, who had 

been paid with a marked $20 bill the day before. The driver 

recalled dropping the man at 7th Street and Florida Avenue.

Using a sketch produced from witness descriptions, FBI 

agents canvassed nearby areas and distributed “wanted” 

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posters throughout Washington D.C. in search of anyone who 

might recognize the robber. In early May, one individual did. 

This person recognized the subject as a man who frequented 

the area of 7th Street and Florida Avenue NW, the same 

location identified by the cab driver. A few days later on the 

morning of May 12, this same individual informed the FBI 

that he or she had again spotted that same man, whom the 

informant referred to as “Mark,” this time at 7th and Rhode 

Island Avenue—a few blocks from Florida Avenue. 

Some time after receiving this tip, two officers went to

the intersection and approached a man who matched the 

robber’s description. When the man saw them, he ran; they 

pursued and apprehended him two blocks away, where he was 

promptly arrested and searched. The search uncovered a 

small, inch-and-a-half long crack pipe in the suspect’s pocket. 

The arresting officers made no mention of the bank robberies 

in their arrest report, listing possession of drug paraphernalia 

as the basis for the arrest.

The suspect, now identified as Mark Stubblefield, was 

booked, photographed, and processed. Agent DeJesus 

incorporated Stubblefield’s booking photograph into a photo 

array containing pictures of eight other men. He showed the 

array to two of the seven eyewitnesses. One witness, a branch 

manager, positively identified Mr. Stubblefield based on the 

photograph. The other, a teller, initially stated the photo 

didn’t match, but then added, “It really looks like him, I’m not 

sure, you know, I don’t know.” Based on the manager’s 

positive identification, Agent DeJesus obtained and executed

a separate arrest warrant, this time charging Stubblefield with 

bank robbery. 

Before trial, Stubblefield’s attorney filed two motions to 

suppress—one, alleging in-court and out-of-court testimony 

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stemmed from impermissibly suggestive identification 

procedures, and the other, concerning Stubblefield’s postarrest statements and actions at police headquarters. Neither 

motion alleged a Fourth Amendment violation. 

At trial, the government called thirty-seven witnesses. 

None of the eyewitnesses identified Stubblefield in court. 

Their testimonies focused, instead, on their pre-trial 

identifications and descriptions of the robber. Only 

Detectives DeJesus and Elmer Baylor identified Stubblefield 

in court. And aside from these pre- and in-trial 

identifications, the government put on no other evidence 

directly linking Stubblefield to the bank robberies. 

Nonetheless, a jury convicted Stubblefield of six counts 

of bank robbery and one count of attempted bank robbery, 

and he received a sentence of 180 months’ imprisonment. 

This court affirmed his conviction on direct appeal, see 

United States v. Stubblefield, 643 F.3d 291 (D.C. Cir. 2011), 

and Stubblefield comes before us now on a motion to vacate 

that conviction due to ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC), 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). The district court denied 

Stubblefield’s motion and declined to issue a certificate of 

appealability. United States v. Stubblefield, 931 F. Supp. 2d 

118 (D.D.C. 2013).

II

Stubblefield’s ineffective assistance of counsel argument 

is relatively straightforward: He contends his booking 

photograph was obtained in violation of the Fourth 

Amendment, and had his counsel moved to suppress it, there 

wouldn’t have been sufficient evidence to sustain a 

conviction. To prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel 

motion premised on a Fourth Amendment claim, the 

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defendant bears the burden of “prov[ing] that his Fourth 

Amendment claim is meritorious.” Kimmelman v. Morrison, 

477 U.S. 365, 375 (1986). Attempting to carry that burden, 

Stubblefield, through court-appointed Amicus, asserts three 

separate, if overlapping, grounds for suppression: one, the 

police lacked reasonable suspicion to stop him; two, the crack 

pipe was discovered through an impermissible search; and 

three, the government lacked probable cause to arrest 

Stubblefield for bank robbery. As the foregoing recitation 

demonstrates, Stubblefield proffers “a substantial showing of 

the denial of a constitutional right,” and we grant his request 

for a certificate of appealability. See Slack v. McDaniel, 329 

U.S. 473, 484 (2000). Accordingly, we review his IAC claim 

de novo. United States v. Abney, 812 F.3d 1079, 1087 (D.C. 

Cir. 2016).

Affirming the district court’s conclusion that there was 

probable cause to arrest Stubblefield for bank robbery would 

render inert his other two arguments, both of which are 

premised on a lack of reasonable suspicion. So we begin 

there. Determining probable cause requires examination of

the totality of circumstances rather than facts in isolation. 

Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 231–32 (1983). Like a mosaic

formed from many pieces, it is the whole picture, viewed 

from the proper perspective, that deserves our attention. No 

single piece, no matter how colorful or ornate, can duplicate 

the impact of the image formed when the parts are viewed 

together. Here, proper attention to the totality of

Stubblefield’s case—to the entire pattern—creates a portrait 

that clearly supports the district court’s finding of probable 

cause. 

Three facts in particular shape the portrait. First, the

witness descriptions of the robber uniquely identify and 

clearly match Stubblefield’s characteristics. Witnesses 

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described the robber as a middle-aged black man, of thin, 

short build and with some sort of facial disfigurement. Of 

these descriptions, two are particularly distinctive: the height 

and the facial disfigurement. As to the robber’s height, 

witnesses identified the robber as between 5’1” and 5’2”.

1

Given that, for black men ages 40–59, a height even of 5’5” is 

considered the bottom fifth percentile,2 the robber’s height—

which matched Stubblefield’s height of 5’2”—is a unique 

identifier. In addition to the robber’s unusually short build, he 

exhibited unique facial disfigurement. While it’s true that 

witness descriptions toggled between “scarring” and “divots” 

and “markings,” many eyewitnesses readily noticed the 

robber’s distinctive facial disfigurement. And again, the 

described disfigurement, another unique identifier, was 

consistent with Stubblefield’s disfigurement. Second, two 

different sources put the robber at or very near the location 

where Stubblefield was arrested. The cab driver told police 

he dropped the robber off at the intersection of 7th and 

Florida Avenue. And a citizen-informant told the FBI that a 

man matching the robber’s description frequented that exact 

same intersection. Stubblefield was ultimately apprehended a 

few blocks from there—7th and Rhode Island—after 

 1 Stubblefield attempted at trial and again here on appeal to suggest 

other witness descriptions put the robber’s height around 5’5” or 

5’6”. Amicus Reply Br. 5. As support, Amicus directs the court to 

a colloquy at trial between defense counsel and a branch manager 

in which the branch manager could not recall what height she told 

police, only that the robber “was a smaller gentleman, probably 

below average” who was “possibly” “five-foot five or shorter.” 

S.A. 139. Thus, the discrepancy was minor and equivocal; the 

consensus described an exceptionally short male. 

2 See U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., National Health 

Statistics Reports: Anthropometric Reference Data for Children and 

Adults: United States, 2003-2006, Oct. 22, 2008, at 16, available at

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr010.pdf.

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receiving another tip from the same informant. Third, when 

the police followed that tip to 7th and Rhode Island and 

approached Stubblefield, he fled and eluded the police’s chase 

for two blocks. Whether any of these facts is sufficient alone 

for probable cause or whether reasonable suspicion ripened, at 

some point, to probable cause, we need not decide. Placed 

alongside each other, these three pieces—the witness 

descriptions matching Stubblefield’s unusual visage and 

physique, Stubblefield’s location at or near the place 

witnesses had previously seen him, and his flight from the 

police—form a convincing depiction of probable cause.

In an attempt to divide and minimize, Amicus responds 

by isolating and impeaching each fact. Regarding the witness 

descriptions, Amicus contends “the perpetrator’s one

distinctive feature” was his “scarring or mark[ings] on his 

face,” and asserts Stubblefield lacked that one feature. 

Amicus Br. 26. And absent that one feature, Amicus avers,

Stubblefield matched only the generic descriptions, which is 

insufficient since “there were almost certainly other short, 

black men somewhere between the ages of 36 and 50 in the 

area.” Id. at 25. But here, Amicus overplays its hand in two 

important respects. First, the record doesn’t support the 

argument that “scarring” was the robber’s one distinctive 

feature. To the contrary, witnesses described the robber as 

possessing a facial complexion more similar to Stubblefield’s 

than the one Amicus depicts. See e.g. Stubblefield, 931 F. 

Supp. 2d at 120 (“unusual facial complexion”); Trial Tr. day 1

at 89 (“a very sunken face” with “bumps”); Trial Tr. day 3 at 

42 (“I don’t know whether it was gashes or wrinkles, but you 

could definitely see marks, an indentation in his cheeks”). To 

be sure, witnesses equivocated on whether it was a scar, bad 

skin, bumps, or divots, but one thing was clear: the robber had 

some sort of disfigurement, and that disfigurement was 

consistent with Stubblefield’s. Second, Amicus glosses over 

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just how distinctive the robber’s height is and, thus, how 

relevant it is to our probable cause calculus. Individuals a full 

three inches taller than Stubblefield still fall in the bottom 

fifth percentile. There are relatively few middle-aged men of 

such height in America. There are even fewer middle-aged 

men of such height who also have visible facial 

disfigurement. That Stubblefield matches both supports a 

finding of probable cause. 

None of the cases Amicus cites persuades us otherwise. 

For instance, the Supreme Court found no probable cause to 

search a traveler’s luggage for drugs in Reid v. Georgia, 448 

U.S. 438 (1980). That traveler had no luggage other than a 

shoulder bag, arrived from Fort Lauderdale (a hotbed of 

cocaine trafficking), and arrived early in the morning when 

law enforcement presence is diminished. Those 

circumstances, the Court explained, “describe[d] a very large 

category of presumably innocent travelers.” Id. at 441. That 

conclusion is unsurprising, since finding probable cause there 

would have meant everyone traveling from Fort Lauderdale in 

the early morning with light luggage forfeited the Fourth 

Amendment’s protection. Nothing even approaching that 

scenario exists in Stubblefield’s case. 

And our conclusion that no probable cause existed in 

United States v. Short, 570 F.2d 1051 (D.C. Cir. 1978), is 

easily distinguishable from the case at hand. We concluded a 

description consisting of a black “male approximately 18 to 

19 years old, 5’9 to 5’10” tall, 145 to 155 pounds, with a short 

Afro-bush haircut and dark complexion, . . . wearing a camelcolored, waist-length leather jacket and blue trousers” was not 

sufficiently specific. Id. at 1053–54. But unlike 

Stubblefield’s, those descriptors (with the possible exception 

of the suspect’s clothing, distinguishable for other reasons)

are extraordinarily common characteristics that “fit[] many 

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young people in that area of Washington.” Id. at 1054. It was 

precisely for this reason we concluded the description was 

“insufficient to narrow the number of suspects to a level 

tolerable under the Fourth Amendment.” Id. Stubblefield’s is 

a very different case. We are convinced that if the description

in Short had identified a thin, middle-aged black man, 

approximately 5’2” tall with facial disfigurement, the number 

of suspects would have narrowed to a tolerable level.

As to location, Amicus advances two arguments, both 

centered on the informant’s tips. First, Amicus contends that, 

since little is known about the tipster, the tips were unreliable. 

Because we know nothing of the informant’s identity or 

record, Amicus argues, we are unable to “infer” much at all

about the tipster’s credibility. Id. To the contrary, the 

reliability of this informant’s tip, obtained in a face-to-face 

encounter with FBI canvassers, surpasses others the Supreme 

Court has previously blessed. See Alabama v. White, 496 

U.S. 325 (1990) (concluding an anonymous tip exhibited 

sufficient indicia of reliability to justify an investigatory stop); 

Navarette v. California, 134 S. Ct. 1683 (2014) (holding that 

an anonymous call reporting apparent drunk driving was 

sufficiently reliable). In-person tips are “inherently more 

trustworthy” than anonymous ones. United States v. 

Thompson, 234 F.3d 725, 729 (D.C. Cir. 2000). 

Amicus’s second argument indicts the lack of record 

evidence concerning how much time elapsed between the 

informant’s May 12th tip and the officers’ arrival at 7th and 

Rhode Island. Amicus suggests the record reveals only that 

“both occurred in the morning” and requests, at the very least, 

an evidentiary hearing to fill in the gaps. Amicus Reply Br. 8.

It is true the record is incomplete. But even if we were to 

discover, after supplementing the record, that the police 

dithered for an hour before arriving at the scene, it wouldn’t 

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change our conclusion.3 The citizen-informant who provided 

the tip told police the individual “frequented the area,” which 

suggests the person hangs around longer than, say, a passing 

commuter. Thus, even if there was a long response time, the 

person identified by the informant was likely still in the 

vicinity. Moreover, as we noted earlier, the individual 

identified by the informant, by the robbery witnesses, and 

ultimately by the police possessed not one, but two 

extraordinarily rare characteristics. Given all the other 

evidence suggesting probable cause here, whether the police 

promptly pursued the tip or not would hardly alter the 

probable cause mosaic at all. 

Finally, Amicus argues Stubblefield’s flight from police 

does not add anything to this portrait of probable cause 

because the record does not demonstrate his flight was 

“headlong” or “unprovoked.” Amicus Br. at 30. Those terms 

come from the Supreme Court’s decision in Illinois v. 

Wardlow, in which the court held that “[h]eadlong” or 

“unprovoked flight” can suggest wrongdoing and justify 

further investigation. 528 U.S. 119, 124–25 (2000). While 

we agree the record is scant, we do not agree with Amicus’s 

ultimate contention for two reasons. First, the record tells us 

that Stubblefield “fled on foot,” that “[a] chase ensued,” and 

that he was ultimately apprehended two blocks away from 

where he was first approached. Aff. in Support of Arrest 

Warrant for Mark Stubblefield at 4. The Wardlow opinion 

 3 This is unlikely, in any event. In his original arrest report from 

May 12, the arresting officer noted the time of the arrest was 7:49 

AM. Thus, before 7:49 AM, the officers received the tip, arrived at 

the scene, approached Stubblefield, chased him two blocks, stopped 

him, patted him down, discovered drugs, and then arrested him.

While it is true the record does not say when the informant called 

the police, the arrest was made early enough in the morning to 

dampen fears that an alarming delay occurred.

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strikes an explicit contrast between a person’s “right to ignore 

the police and go about his business” and “unprovoked flight 

upon noticing the police.” 528 U.S. at 124–25. Whatever can 

be made of the scant record before us, it is clear Stubblefield’s 

flight and attempt to outrun the police were “just the 

opposite” of “going about one’s business.” Id. at 125. And 

second, this piece of the mosaic must not be viewed in 

isolation. If all we had before us was an instance of 

unprovoked flight, the probable cause question would favor 

Stubblefield. See United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 706 

(1985) (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“[F]light alone cannot give 

rise to probable cause.”). But that’s not all we have before us. 

We’ve already shown how the witness descriptions, combined 

with Stubblefield’s location, at the very least contributed to a 

reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. That is crucial—

because while flight alone cannot sustain a finding of 

probable cause, it can when “coupled with pre-existing 

reasonable and articulable suspicion.” Id. 

III

As we said at the outset, this case is fundamentally about 

probable cause, a “fluid concept[,] turning on the assessment 

of probabilities in particular factual contexts.” Gates, 462 

U.S. at 232. This case’s factual context, its assemblage of 

interlocking pieces, reveals a mosaic that clearly depicts 

probable cause. Because the FBI had probable cause to arrest 

him for bank robbery, Stubblefield’s Fourth Amendment 

argument for suppression is not meritorious and, therefore, his 

ineffective assistance of counsel claim fails. The decision of 

the district court is accordingly

Affirmed.

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