Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01473/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01473-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael Brooks Bynum
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Richard H. Kyle, United States District Judge for the District

of Minnesota.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 07-1473

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the District 

* of Minnesota.

Michael Brooks Bynum, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: October 18, 2007

Filed: December 5, 2007

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, GRUENDER, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

BENTON, Circuit Judge.

Michael Brooks Bynum conditionally pled guilty to possession of a firearm in

violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2), reserving the right to appeal the district

court’s1

 denial of his motion to suppress. Bynum now asserts that the seizure of a

firearm from his vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment. Having jurisdiction under

28 U.S.C. § 1291, this court affirms.

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I.

On April 23, 2006, Minneapolis police officer Burns and his partner

encountered a Bronco traveling about 50 in a 30 miles-per-hour speed zone.

Following, they observed it turn right at a red light without stopping or signaling, and

then turn left without signaling. The Bronco stopped in a driveway. The officers

pulled behind it. 

The driver, Bynum, looked over his shoulder at the officers, reached down to

the floorboard, and exited the Bronco, looking in various directions and leaving the

driver’s door open. Based on this behavior, Officer Burns believed that Bynum might

fight or flee, so he escorted him to the squad car, conducted a pat-down search, and

found Bynum’s I.D. Officer Burns recognized Bynum’s name as a suspect in two

gun-pointing incidents and as having a suspended license. Bynum admitted his

license was suspended, and Officer Burns’s partner confirmed it. During the stop, the

owner of the house informed Officer Burns that he did not know Bynum and

questioned why the vehicle was in his driveway. 

Officer Burns testified that it is Minneapolis Police Department policy to

inventory, tow, and impound a vehicle unless it can be released to the registered

owner who has a valid driver’s license. Because Bynum’s license was suspended,

Officer Burns reapproached the Bronco to conduct an inventory search. However,

before beginning the search (without getting into the Bronco), Officer Burns saw,

through the open driver’s door, a semi-automatic handgun, knives, and vials of

marijuana on the floorboard. He retrieved these items and arrested Bynum. 

Bynum was charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

He moved to suppress the firearm and any resulting statements, arguing that no

exception to the warrant requirement justifies the warrantless search of his vehicle.

The magistrate judge recommended, and the district court agreed, that Bynum’s

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motions be denied. Bynum entered a conditional plea of guilty, reserving his right to

appeal, which he now invokes. 

II.

This court reviews “the district court’s factual determinations in support of its

denial of a motion to suppress for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo.”

United States v. Poe, 462 F.3d 997, 999 (8th Cir. 2006). This court “will not reverse

the district court’s decision regarding a motion to suppress ‘unless it is not supported

by substantial evidence on the record; it reflects an erroneous view of the applicable

law; or upon review of the entire record, [this court] is left with the definite and firm

conviction that a mistake has been made.’” United States v. Perez-Perez, 337 F.3d

990, 993-94 (8th Cir. 2003), quoting United States v. Layne, 973 F.2d 1417, 1420

(8th Cir. 1992). 

Bynum argues that the warrantless search of his vehicle violated the Fourth

Amendment. The “‘Fourth Amendment proscribes all unreasonable searches and

seizures, and it is a cardinal principle that searches 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 welldelineated exceptions.’” United States v. Varner, 481 F.3d 569, 571 (8th Cir. 2007),

quoting Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 133 n.4 (1990). One established and

well-delineated exception is the plain view doctrine. See id. at 572. “It is settled that

an officer, without a warrant, may seize an object in plain view provided the officer

is lawfully in the position from which he or she views the object, the object’s

incriminating character is immediately apparent, and the officer has a lawful right to

access the object.” United States v. Bustos-Torres, 396 F.3d 935, 944 (8th Cir. 2005),

citing Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 375 (1993). Bynum does not contest

that the incriminating nature of the handgun was immediately apparent or that Officer

Burns had a lawful right of access to it. He contends that Officer Burns was not

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lawfully in the position from which he viewed the handgun because he violated the

Fourth Amendment in reapproaching the vehicle. 

The act of looking through a car window is not a search for Fourth Amendment

purposes because “a person who parks a car – which necessarily has transparent

windows – on private property does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in

the visible interior of his car.” United States v. Hatten, 68 F.3d 257, 261 (8th Cir.

1995), citing Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 740 (1983). Neither probable cause nor

reasonable suspicion is necessary for an officer to look through a window (or open

door) of a vehicle so long as he or she has a right to be in close proximity to the

vehicle. See United States v. Beatty, 170 F.3d 811, 814 (8th Cir. 1999). Bynum

lacked a valid driver’s license and had parked his car in a stranger’s driveway. In

accordance with Department policy, Officer Burns had the authority to impound the

vehicle. He was initiating this process by reapproaching the vehicle and thus had a

right to be in close proximity to it. Officer Burns’s seizure of the handgun was

constitutional under the plain view doctrine. See United States v. Gillon, 348 F.3d

755, 759-60 (8th Cir. 2003) (seizure of drugs viewed through car window during

traffic stop constitutional under plain view doctrine).

Finally, Bynum appears to assert throughout his brief that Officer Burns’s

testimony was not credible because he was “abnormally adversarial.” The magistrate

judge and the district court relied on Officer Burns’s testimony in their fact-finding,

and based on the record, Bynum has not shown that this reliance was clearly

erroneous. See United States v. Behler, 187 F.3d 772, 777 (8th Cir. 1999) (“The

district court’s assessment of credibility, however, is virtually unreviewable.”). 

III.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

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