Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01263/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01263-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Veronica Maria Sallis
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 07-1263

___________

United States of America, * 

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* District of Minnesota.

Veronica Maria Sallis, *

* 

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: October 5, 2007

Filed: November 2, 2007

___________

Before WOLLMAN, BYE, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

___________

SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.

Veronica Maria Sallis appeals the denial of her motion to suppress and sentence

following her conditional plea of guilty to one count of bank robbery in violation of

18 U.S.C. § 2113(a). We affirm. 

I.

On the morning of December 21, 2005, a black woman entered the Wells Fargo

Bank in Hopkins, Minnesota, and wrote a demand note on a deposit slip which stated:

“give me the money or I’ll shot you Don’t try anything stupid Is your life worth It

Appellate Case: 07-1263 Page: 1 Date Filed: 11/02/2007 Entry ID: 3368708
-2-

think[.]” The woman passed the note to a teller, the teller gave the woman $1,359.00,

and the woman exited the building. At 10:02 a.m., Officer James Stromberg of the

Minnetonka, Minnesota Police Department received a police radio transmission

reporting that the Wells Fargo Bank in Hopkins had just been robbed. The dispatch

described the bank robber as a black female wearing black clothes and driving a tan

Pontiac Grand Am. At the time, Stromberg was on patrol near the border between

Hopkins and Minnetonka, and he proceeded to the border area to watch for the

suspect. At 10:06 a.m., approximately four minutes after the initial robbery report,

Stromberg saw a black woman standing outside of a tan or gold Pontiac Grand Am

in front of the Brentwood Park Townhomes, located about one-half to three-quarters

of a mile from the Wells Fargo Bank. The woman was wearing a coat with a furtrimmed hood pulled up over her head. Stromberg radioed to dispatch his

observations and intention to investigate and then returned to where he had seen the

woman and the vehicle. However, by the time Stromberg made it back to the

Brentwood Park Townhomes, the car and the woman were gone. Stromberg radioed

this information to dispatch and requested a stop of the vehicle.

Meanwhile, Sergeant David Riegert, a Minnetonka police officer, who had also

received the dispatches about the bank robbery and driven to the border area of

Minnetonka and Hopkins, heard Officer Stromberg’s transmission about a possible

suspect in a tan Pontiac Grand Am leaving the vicinity of the Brentwood Park

Townhomes. While going westbound on Highway 7, Riegert saw a tan Pontiac Grand

Am traveling eastbound away from the Brentwood Park Townhomes. According to

Sgt. Riegert, the driver and sole occupant of the car was a black woman, who appeared

to have fur lining the hood of her coat. Riegert made a U-turn and followed the Grand

Am eastbound on Highway 7. Riegert reached speeds of 80 to 85 miles per hour as

he caught up to the vehicle. Then, Riegert observed the vehicle make a U-turn to

travel west, whereupon he made a U-turn in the median to follow. Riegert paced the

vehicle traveling at rates varying from 60 to 63 miles per hour in a 55 miles per hour

speed zone as the vehicle continued westbound and exited onto Highway 169. Shortly

Appellate Case: 07-1263 Page: 2 Date Filed: 11/02/2007 Entry ID: 3368708
-3-

after going onto Highway 169, Riegert activated the patrol car’s emergency lights to

make a stop but did not turn on the siren. Riegert then followed two-car-lengths

behind the vehicle for more than one mile until the Grand Am pulled off to the right

and stopped, straddling the fog line, partly on the shoulder and partly in the right lane.

Riegert waited to approach the car until Officer Stromberg, who had heard Riegert’s

radio reports and proceeded to the scene, arrived. According to Riegert, he pulled the

vehicle over because of the information radioed in by Stromberg and the driver was

speeding. 

Stromberg arrived at the scene five to six minutes after Riegert made the stop.

The officers decided to approach the vehicle in a modified high-risk fashion with their

weapons drawn but not raised. Officer Stromberg went to the driver’s door and asked

the driver for a driver’s license. Stromberg recognized the driver as the woman he had

seen at the town home complex. The woman was identified as the defendant,

Veronica Sallis. Stromberg advised Sallis that she matched the description of the

Wells Fargo Bank robbery suspect. Sallis responded that she was coming from the

Knollwood Shopping Mall. Upon Stromberg’s request, Sallis exited the vehicle, and

she was pat searched and her vehicle was searched for weapons. The officers

observed a dark knit stocking cap with cut out eye holes in the passenger seat area. 

Officer Stromberg noticed the odor of intoxicants on Sallis’s breath and that she

appeared confused and stumbled over her words during their four- to five-minute

conversation. Based on his experience, Stromberg suspected that Sallis was

intoxicated. The officers asked Sallis to perform several field sobriety tests. Sallis

failed the heel-to-toe walking test, a one-leg-stand test, and two of the three aspects

of the eye-gaze nystagmus test. Sallis also failed a preliminary breath test when she

refused to provide an adequate sample. At approximately 10:45 a.m., Sallis was

arrested for driving while impaired, and she was handcuffed, searched, and taken to

the Minnetonka Police Department. Sallis submitted to a breath test at approximately

11:42 a.m., which registered a .13 blood-alcohol content. Sallis was later transferred

to the Hopkins Police Department. There, Federal Bureau of Investigations Special

Appellate Case: 07-1263 Page: 3 Date Filed: 11/02/2007 Entry ID: 3368708
1

The Honorable Michael J. Davis, United States District Judge for the District

of Minnesota.

2

The Honorable Arthur J. Boylan, United States Magistrate Judge for the

District of Minnesota.

-4-

Agent Dave Rapp advised Sallis of her Miranda rights, and Sallis confessed to him

that she had robbed the Wells Fargo Bank in Hopkins. 

On January 18, 2006, Sallis was charged with one count of bank robbery in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a). Sallis moved to suppress evidence seized pursuant

to the vehicle stop, which she alleged violated the Fourth Amendment because she

was not stopped for speeding and police officers did not have a reasonable articulable

suspicion of criminal activity when they stopped her vehicle. The district court,1

adopting the report and recommendation of the magistrate judge,2 denied the motion

concluding that the vehicle stop did not violate Sallis’s Fourth Amendment rights

because Officer Riegert had: (1) reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation for

speeding and (2) reasonable articulable suspicion that the driver had been involved in

a bank robbery in that the vehicle and the driver met the description of the robbery

suspect and were observed within close proximity to the crime scene. Sallis thereafter

conditionally pled guilty, reserving her right to appeal the denial of her motion to

suppress. At sentencing, the district court, over Sallis’s objection, increased Sallis’s

base offense level by two levels for making a “threat of death” under United States

Sentencing Guidelines (“Guidelines”) section 2B3.1(b)(2)(F) based on the note Sallis

presented to the bank teller during the course of the robbery. See United States

Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual, § 2B3.1(b)(2)(F) (Nov. 2006). The

district court imposed a Guidelines sentence of 37 months with a three-year term of

supervised release and ordered $1,359.00 in restitution. Sallis brings this appeal.

Appellate Case: 07-1263 Page: 4 Date Filed: 11/02/2007 Entry ID: 3368708
-5-

II. 

Sallis claims that the vehicle stop violated the Fourth Amendment, contending

that the district court’s contrary conclusion is error in two ways. First, the district

court clearly erred in finding that the vehicle stop was based on a traffic violation

because Officer Riegert actually stopped the vehicle to investigate the bank robbery.

Second, the district court’s determination that the stop was justified on the basis of

Officer Riegert’s reasonable articulable suspicion that the driver had been involved

in a bank robbery was error because the description of the suspect in the police alert

was not sufficiently particular to justify the stop. 

We review the denial of a motion to suppress de novo and its underlying factual

determinations for clear error, United States v. Torres-Lona, 491 F.3d 750, 755 (8th

Cir. 2007), reversing “only if the district court’s decision is unsupported by substantial

evidence, based on an erroneous interpretation of applicable law, or, based on the

entire record, it is clear a mistake was made.” United States v. Harper, 466 F.3d 634,

643 (8th Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 127 S. Ct. 1504 (2007) (internal quotation omitted).

“An officer has probable cause to conduct a traffic stop when he observes even

a minor traffic violation. ‘This is true even if a valid traffic stop is a pretext for other

investigation.’” United States v. Coney, 456 F.3d 850, 855-56 (8th Cir. 2006) (internal

citation omitted) (quoting United States v. Linkous, 285 F.3d 716, 719 (8th Cir.

2002)); see Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996) (holding that an

officer’s subjective intentions for conducting a traffic stop “play no role in ordinary,

probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis”); United States v. Herrera-Gonzalez, 474

F.3d 1105, 1109 (8th Cir. 2007) (“[T]he constitutional reasonableness of a traffic stop

does not depend on the actual motivations of the officer involved, and the subjective

intentions of the officer making the stop are irrelevant in determining the validity of

the stop.”); United States v. Andrews, 465 F.3d 346, 347 (8th Cir. 2006) (per curiam)

(“[T]he fourth amendment is not violated if an objectively good reason for a traffic

Appellate Case: 07-1263 Page: 5 Date Filed: 11/02/2007 Entry ID: 3368708
-6-

stop exists, whatever the actual subjective motive of the officer making the stop may

have been.”); United States v. Thomas, 93 F.3d 479, 485 (8th Cir. 1996) (finding a

traffic stop for failing to wear seatbelts is valid “even if the police would have ignored

the traffic violation but for their suspicion that greater crimes are afoot”). 

When police officers have an objectively reasonable basis to believe that a

driver is speeding, this court has found probable cause to conduct a traffic stop and

has held that the officers’ subjective intentions in making the stop did not affect the

stop’s validity for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. PereiraMunoz, 59 F.3d 788, 790-91 (8th Cir. 1995) (rejecting defendant’s challenge of

vehicular stop for speeding as pretextual because defendant did not dispute that he was

speeding and “[s]o long as the officer is doing nothing more than he is legally

permitted and objectively authorized to do, his actual state of mind is irrelevant for

purposes of determining the lawfulness of a stop”); United States v. Stapleton, 10 F.3d

582, 583-84 (8th Cir. 1993) (holding that police officers had probable cause to stop

defendant’s automobile once they determined that it was exceeding the speed limit,

regardless of whether an unverified anonymous tip that the vehicle was being used to

transport crack cocaine was sufficient, by itself, to establish probable cause and

whether officers would ordinarily stop a car exceeding the speed limit by five to ten

miles per hour). Because Sallis does not dispute that she was speeding, PereiraMunoz and Stapleton establish that Officer Riegert’s actual motivation for stopping

Sallis’s vehicle is not relevant. Therefore, we hold that the district court’s finding that

there was a traffic violation is supported by the evidence, and, as such, there was

probable cause to stop Sallis’s vehicle. Accordingly, the district court properly denied

the motion to suppress. 

Appellate Case: 07-1263 Page: 6 Date Filed: 11/02/2007 Entry ID: 3368708
-7-

III.

Sallis next argues that the district court erred in applying the sentence

enhancement pursuant to Guidelines section 2B3.1(b)(2)(F). Sallis asserts that the

demand note that she handed to the teller stating that she would shoot the teller if the

money was not handed over is insufficient to warrant application of the enhancement

because it was not accompanied by any actions suggesting that she had the means or

intent to shoot. 

“We review the district court’s interpretation and application of the Guidelines

de novo.” United States v. Minnis, 489 F.3d 325, 332 (8th Cir. 2007). The

Guidelines authorize a two-level enhancement “if a threat of death was made” in the

course of a robbery. USSG § 2B3.1(b)(2)(F). The commentary to section 2B3.1

instructs that a “threat of death . . . may be in the form of an oral or written statement,

act, gesture, or combination thereof” and that “the defendant does not have to state

expressly his intent to kill the victim in order for the enhancement to apply. For

example, an oral or written demand using words such as . . . ‘Give me the money or

I will shoot you’ . . . would constitute a threat of death.” USSG § 2B3.1, comment.

(n.6). The application note also directs a sentencing court to “consider that the intent

of the provision is to provide an increased offense level for cases in which the

offender(s) engaged in conduct that would instill in a reasonable person, who is a

victim of the offense, a fear of death.” Id.

In this case, it is undisputed that, in the course of robbing the Wells Fargo Bank

in Hopkins on December 21, 2005, Sallis gave the victim teller a note that read: “give

me the money or I’ll shot you Don’t try anything stupid Is your life worth It think[.]”

The first phrase in Sallis’s note, “give me the money or I’ll shot you,” is, but for the

spelling error, identical to the example contained in the commentary to section 2B3.1,

“Give me the money or I will shoot you.” See United States v. Gallimore, 491 F.3d

871, 876 n.3 (8th Cir. 2007) (“The commentary is authoritative as to the meaning of

Appellate Case: 07-1263 Page: 7 Date Filed: 11/02/2007 Entry ID: 3368708
-8-

a sentencing guideline.”) (citing Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 38 (1993)

(“[C]ommentary in the Guidelines Manual that interprets or explains a guideline is

authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent

with, or a plainly erroneous reading of, that guideline.”)); United States v. Mooney,

425 F.3d 1093, 1100-01 (8th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (noting that, despite the now

advisory nature of the Guidelines, the commentary “retains its value” in

“interpret[ing] the guidelines and . . . assist[ing] courts in their application”), cert.

denied, 126 S. Ct. 2889 (2006). The phrase “Is your life worth It[?]” further colors

the demand note as a “threat of death” under section 2B3.1(b)(2)(F). Moreover,

Sallis’s intent is “immaterial” because we apply an objective test in determining

whether the enhancement should apply. United States v. Cadotte, 57 F.3d 661, 662

(8th Cir. 1995) (per curiam). We conclude that Sallis’s note indicating that she would

shoot if the teller did not comply with Sallis’s demand amounted to a threat of death.

Therefore, the district court appropriately applied a two-level enhancement for a threat

of death under section 2B3.1(b)(2)(F). 

IV.

For the reasons given, we affirm the district court’s denial of Sallis’s motion to

suppress and her sentence.

______________________________

Appellate Case: 07-1263 Page: 8 Date Filed: 11/02/2007 Entry ID: 3368708