Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-09-02699/USCOURTS-ca8-09-02699-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Theotis A. Muhammad
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 09-2699

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United States of America,

Appellee,

v.

Theotis A. Muhammad,

Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States

District Court for the Western

District of Missouri.

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Submitted: March 12, 2010

 Filed: May 11, 2010

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Before BYE, COLLOTON and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

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GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Theotis Muhammad was indicted on one count of aiding and abetting the armed

robbery of a credit union, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a), (d), and 2, and one

count of aiding and abetting the use of a firearm during a crime of violence, the

robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 924(c)(1)(A) and 2. Before trial, Muhammad

moved to suppress evidence seized during a pat-down search of his person conducted

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The Honorable Dean Whipple, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri, adopting the report and recommendations of the Honorable Sarah

W. Hays, United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Missouri. 

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less than two hours after the robbery. The district court1

 denied the motion, and a jury

convicted Muhammad on both counts. Muhammad appeals the denial of the motion

to suppress. For the following reasons, we affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND 

On May 28, 2008, at approximately 11:15 a.m., an armed robbery occurred at

the United Labor Credit Union in Kansas City, Missouri. When FBI Special Agent

Kevin McCrary arrived at the credit union at 11:50 a.m., officers from the Kansas City

Police Department and FBI special agents had already begun to investigate the

robbery. Officers told Agent McCrary that a man, later determined to be Theotis

Muhammad, came into the credit union minutes before the robbery and asked for the

key to the restroom. Muhammad then left the credit union and entered a common area

in the building where the credit union is located, which housed the restroom. A short

time later, a second man, later determined to be Yacub Williams, entered the credit

union carrying a handgun and wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and gloves.

Williams approached a teller, brandished the handgun, and demanded cash. Williams

took more than $2,000 and fled the credit union, running toward the nearby Park

Highlands apartments. Moments later, Muhammad returned the restroom key to the

credit union and left, heading in the same direction as Williams.

Agent McCrary eventually learned that officers were speaking with two men

at the Park Highlands apartments who matched witnesses’ descriptions of the robber

and the man who borrowed the key to the restroom. Agent McCrary then viewed the

credit union’s surveillance videos. The videos showed a clear image of Muhammad’s

face and also showed Muhammad talking to Williams in the common area

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immediately before Williams robbed the credit union. Agent McCrary inferred that

Muhammad was casing the credit union for Williams. 

At approximately 12:30 p.m., Agent McCrary arrived at the apartment complex

and approached the two men with whom officers had been speaking, Muhammad and

Williams. Agent McCrary recognized Muhammad as the man who requested the

restroom key and noticed that Williams was wearing dark black Nike Air Jordan shoes

with a royal blue stripe, which matched the shoes the robber wore. Agent McCrary

asked Muhammad if he was the man who entered the credit union moments before the

robbery. Muhammad confirmed that he was in the credit union before the robbery and

that he had borrowed the key to the restroom.

Agent McCrary handcuffed Muhammad and performed a pat-down search.

Agent McCrary testified that he performed the search “to determine whether or not

[Muhammad] had a weapon.” During the pat-down, Agent McCrary felt a “hard

object” approximately four inches long and three inches wide in the back pocket of

Muhammad’s pants. He asked Muhammad what the object was, and Muhammad

stated that it was his wallet. Observing that the object “felt like an item that could

conceal a weapon,” Agent McCrary removed the object from Muhammad’s pocket.

The object turned out to be a bi-fold leather wallet that Agent McCrary testified was

“bulging with cash,” such that he could see large amounts of cash without opening the

wallet. Agent McCrary seized the cash and counted $541. He then matched five of

the $20 bills in Muhammad’s wallet to five “bait bills” with recorded serial numbers

that were stolen during the robbery and placed Muhammad under arrest.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Muhammad with aiding

and abetting Williams’s robbery of the credit union and Williams’s use of the handgun

during the robbery. Muhammad moved to suppress the evidence seized during the

pat-down search, arguing that the search exceeded the scope of a protective search

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Muhammad also moved to suppress certain statements he made to law

enforcement officers, but that issue is not before us on appeal.

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allowable under the Fourth Amendment.2

 The district court denied the motion, and

a jury convicted Muhammad on both counts. The district court sentenced Muhammad

to 180 months’ imprisonment. Muhammad appeals the denial of his motion to

suppress.

II. DISCUSSION

On appeal, Muhammad concedes that Agent McCrary was permitted to conduct

a limited pat-down search for weapons under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

Muhammad argues that Agent McCrary impermissibly expanded the scope of the

search by removing the wallet from Muhammad’s pocket and seizing the cash

protruding from the wallet. We must first determine whether Agent McCrary was

permitted to remove the wallet from Muhammad’s pocket. If Agent McCrary lawfully

removed the wallet, we must then decide whether he was permitted to seize the cash

protruding from the wallet. 

When considering a motion to suppress evidence, we review the district court’s

findings of facts for clear error, and we review de novo whether the search violated

the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Inman, 558 F.3d 742, 745 (8th Cir.) (citing

Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 698-99 (1996); United States v. OliveraMendez, 484 F.3d 505, 509 (8th Cir. 2007)), cert. denied, 558 U.S. ---, 130 S. Ct. 304

(2009). “Because this case proceeded to trial, we examine the entire record, not

merely the evidence adduced at the suppression hearing, in considering the denial of

[the] motion to suppress.” Id. (citing United States v. Anderson, 339 F.3d 720, 723

(8th Cir. 2003)).

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 Under Terry, a law enforcement officer may conduct a warrantless pat-down

search “for the protection of himself or others nearby in order to discover weapons if

he has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person may be armed and presently

dangerous.” United States v. Roggeman, 279 F.3d 573, 577 (8th Cir. 2002) (citing

Terry, 392 U.S. at 30). “Because the ‘sole justification’ for such a search is the

protection of the officer and others, its scope must be confined to a search reasonably

designed to discover concealed weapons.” Id. (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 29). An

officer may, however, seize other evidence discovered during a pat-down search for

weapons as long as the search “stays within the bounds marked by Terry.” United

States v. Hanlon, 401 F.3d 926, 930 (8th Cir. 2005) (quoting Minnesota v. Dickerson,

508 U.S. 366, 373 (1993)).

Muhammad contends that because Agent McCrary knew that the object in

Muhammad’s back pocket was not a weapon or an object concealing a weapon, Agent

McCrary could not lawfully remove the wallet from Muhammad’s pocket. See

Hanlon, 401 F.3d at 930 (concluding that an officer may not seize an item from a

person’s pocket “after having concluded that no weapons are present” (citing

Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 378)). The record does not support this assertion. Agent

McCrary testified that during a pat-down search it is often difficult to tell whether an

object is a weapon or might conceal a weapon merely by touching the object. He

stated that officers must generally “pull [the suspicious object] out and actually

inspect it” to determine whether the object presents a safety concern. He further

testified that he was not certain what the hard four-inch long and three-inch wide

object in Muhammad’s pocket was, but he said that the item “felt like an object that

could conceal a weapon.” The district court credited Agent McCrary’s testimony, and

we find no basis in the record to disagree with the district court. See id. (stating that

a district court’s decision to credit testimony is “virtually unreviewable on appeal”

(quoting United States v. Marks, 328 F.3d 1015, 1018 (8th Cir. 2003))). Thus, we

reject Muhammad’s assertion that Agent McCrary knew that the object in

Muhammad’s back pocket was not a weapon or an object concealing a weapon.

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Furthermore, the pat-down search that Agent McCrary performed was

reasonably designed to discover concealed weapons. See Roggeman, 279 F.3d at 577-

78 (concluding that “[c]ourts are required to apply an objective test” to determine

whether a protective search was justified). Muhammad concedes that Agent McCrary

was permitted to perform a pat-down search to determine whether Muhammad was

carrying a concealed weapon. Agent McCrary then reasonably determined that the

four-inch long and three-inch wide “hard object” in Muhammad’s back pocket could

be a weapon or could conceal a weapon that presented a threat to officer safety, such

as a knife, box cutter or razor blade. An objectively reasonable officer in Agent

McCrary’s situation would not be required to blindly accept Muhammad’s assertion

that the object he felt was a wallet rather than a weapon or an object that could conceal

a weapon. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 23 (“[I]t would be unreasonable to require that

police officers take unnecessary risks in the performance of their duties.”). Indeed,

a dangerous weapon such as a small knife, box cutter or razor blade could have been

concealed in the wallet itself. Accordingly, this pat-down search stayed within the

bounds of Terry, and the Fourth Amendment permitted Agent McCrary to remove the

object from Muhammad’s pocket. However, our inquiry does not end here. We must

next decide whether Agent McCrary lawfully seized the cash protruding from the

wallet.

“[S]earches and seizures ‘conducted outside the judicial process, without prior

approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth

Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well delineated

exceptions.’” Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 372 (citations omitted) (quoting Thompson v.

Louisiana, 469 U.S. 17, 19-20 (1984) (per curiam)). One such exception is the plainview doctrine. The plain-view exception allows officers to seize contraband or other

evidence of a crime in limited situations. See United States v. Clay, 579 F.3d 919, 932

(8th Cir. 2009), cert. denied sub nom. Stovall v. United States, 559 U.S. ---, 78

U.S.L.W. 3481 (2010). Under the plain-view exception, officers may seize an object

without a warrant if they are lawfully in a position from which they view the object,

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the incriminating character of the object is immediately apparent, and the officers have

a lawful right of access to the object. Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 375 (citing Horton v.

California, 496 U.S. 128, 136-37 (1990); Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 739 (1983)

(plurality opinion)); see also United States v. Bustos-Torres, 396 F.3d 935, 944 (8th

Cir. 2005). 

Because we conclude that Agent McCrary lawfully removed the wallet from

Muhammad’s pocket and Muhammad does not dispute that the cash was visible

without opening the wallet, the first and third requirements of the plain-view

exception are met. The only remaining question is whether the incriminating nature

of the cash was immediately apparent to Agent McCrary. “Immediately apparent” in

the Fourth Amendment context means that the officer performing the search has

“probable cause to believe an item is incriminating.” United States v. Green, 560 F.3d

853, 858 (8th Cir.) (citing Skokos v. Rhoades, 440 F.3d 957, 961 (8th Cir. 2006)), cert.

denied, 558 U.S. ---, 130 S. Ct. 288 (2009); Bustos-Torres, 396 F.3d at 944-45 (citing

Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 376). Probable cause does not require absolute certainty; it

only requires “that the facts available to a reasonably cautious man would warrant a

belief that certain items may be contraband or stolen property or useful as evidence

of the crime.” Green, 560 F.3d at 858 (quoting United States v. Garner, 907 F.2d 60,

62 (8th Cir. 1990)). 

Here, Agent McCrary had recently viewed the credit union’s security videos

and identified Muhammad entering and exiting the credit union and thereafter talking

to Williams moments before Williams committed the armed robbery. Agent McCrary

had been informed that Williams stole over $2,000 in cash and fled in the direction of

the Park Highlands apartments and that Muhammad walked toward the same

apartment complex after the robbery. Officers found Muhammad and Williams

together at the apartment complex less than one hour after the robbery. Agent

McCrary then saw cash protruding from Muhammad’s wallet. While cash is not

inherently incriminating, under these circumstances, Agent McCrary had probable

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cause to believe that the cash protruding from the wallet was evidence of the robbery.

See Bustos-Torres, 396 F.3d at 945. Thus, the plain-view exception permitted Agent

McCrary to seize the cash, which then allowed him to confirm that five of the $20

bills were bait bills taken during the robbery. Accordingly, we conclude that the

search and seizure Agent McCrary performed was proper.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of Muhammad’s

motion to suppress the evidence.

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