Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-95-03183/USCOURTS-caDC-95-03183-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Lorenzo Conyers
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 20, 1997 Decided July 1, 1997 

No. 95-3183

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

LORENZO CONYERS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 93cr00252-01)

John A. Briley, Jr., appointed by the court, argued the 

cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Anne Pings, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for 

appellee, with whom Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. Attorney, John 

R. Fisher, Thomas J. Tourish, Jr., and Robert A. Spelke,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys, were on the brief.

USCA Case #95-3183 Document #282163 Filed: 07/01/1997 Page 1 of 7
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Before: WALD, GINSBURG, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge: Lorenzo Conyers was convicted 

of possession with intent to distribute over 50 grams of 

cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 21 

U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(iii); distribution of five grams or more 

of cocaine base within 1,000 feet of a school, in violation of 21 

U.S.C. § 860(a); using and carrying a firearm during a drug 

trafficking offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1); and 

carrying a dangerous weapon, in violation of D.C. Code 

§ 22-3204(a)(1). Because he has raised no meritorious challenges to these convictions, we affirm the judgment of the 

district court.

I. Background

The police arrested Lorenzo Conyers as he drove onto the 

4200 block of Fourth Street, S.E. on the evening of May 19, 

1993. A confidential informant had told the police that an 

individual transporting cocaine base would drive either an 

Acura or a Pontiac onto that block at approximately 8:00 

P.M., park, and honk the horn. The informant agreed to aid 

the police, who planned to stake out the block on the night in 

question, by paging Sergeant Christopher Yezzi when he saw 

the individual arrive on the block.

At approximately 8:30 P.M. Conyers drove his Pontiac 

Grand Am to the predicted block, parked, and honked the 

horn. The confidential source paged Sergeant Yezzi, who 

gave the signal to converge upon Conyers. Officer Seth 

Holmes and Sergeant Bruce Fierson drove up and parked 

their police cruiser in front of Conyers' car. Officer Holmes 

drew his gun and approached Conyers. The officer opened 

the driver's side door and told Conyers to raise his hands. 

Conyers complied. Seeing the outline of a gun in Conyers' 

waistband, Officer Holmes reached in and removed a loaded 

.357 Magnum. Another officer later recovered from Conyers' 

pocket eight bags of what proved to be cocaine base.

USCA Case #95-3183 Document #282163 Filed: 07/01/1997 Page 2 of 7
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

II. Analysis

Conyers contends, first, that the stop and search to which 

he was subjected was improper because the confidential 

informant's tip did not create a reasonable articulable suspicion that Conyers was engaged in criminal activity. Second, 

he argues that the level of force used by the police was 

unreasonable and therefore transformed an investigatory stop 

into an arrest unsupported by probable cause. Finally, 

Conyers maintains that the district court committed plain 

error by allowing the Government's expert witness to testify 

regarding the defendant's state of mind.

A. The Investigatory Stop

Conyers argues that the confidential informant did not 

provide the police with information sufficient to give rise to a 

"reasonable articulable suspicion" for stopping and searching 

him. In particular, Conyers contends that under Alabama v. 

White, 496 U.S. 325 (1990), the informant was required to 

provide the police with specific details corroborating his tip. 

This, according to Conyers, the informant failed to do.

The Government responds that Conyers has unjustifiably 

belittled both the reliability of the informant and the quantity 

and quality of the information he provided. Unlike the 

anonymous source in White, the confidential informant in the 

present case was known to the police: He had provided them 

with reliable information upon three prior occasions. The 

information he provided in this case, therefore, did not require the type of corroboration provided to the police by the 

anonymous source in White. The Government further contends that the innocent details provided by the informant 

would have justified an investigatory stop even if the informant had been anonymous, rather than a proven source of 

accurate information: Conyers drove onto the block in one of 

the two makes of automobile the informant had predicted; 

the car had Maryland license plates, as predicted; Conyers 

arrived just about when the informant said he would arrive; 

and he stopped and honked his horn, all as the informant had 

anticipated. Finally, the informant paged Sergeant Yezzi 

USCA Case #95-3183 Document #282163 Filed: 07/01/1997 Page 3 of 7
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

when he saw Conyers drive onto the block, thereby leaving 

little doubt that Conyers was the suspect.

We agree with the Government that the decision of the 

police to stop Conyers was justified. The police may stop an 

individual provided they have a reasonable articulable suspicion that he is engaged in criminal activity. Terry v. Ohio,

392 U.S. 1 (1968). A detailed tip from a known confidential 

informant creates such a reasonable articulable suspicion. 

See Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146-47 (1972) (investigatory stop justified "when a credible informant warns of a 

specific impending crime"). In this case, the police had two 

bases upon which to stop Conyers. First, the confidential 

informant paged the police when Conyers drove onto the 

block. This contemporaneous identification of Conyers as a 

suspected drug courier, made by an established source of 

information, by itself justified the ensuing investigatory stop. 

Second, the innocent details provided by the informantthe 

make of the car that Conyers would be driving, that this car 

would have Maryland tags, the time of his arrival, that he 

would stop and honk the hornwould also have been enough 

to justify the stop without the contemporaneous confirmation, 

in view of the informant's previous reliability.

Conyers further contends that the conduct of the police 

leading to his arrest was not consistent with an investigatory 

stop but was in fact "intended to be an arrest procedure." 

Two officers, driving a marked car, suddenly cut in front of 

Conyers' car and blocked his egress. One of the officers then 

approached Conyers' vehicle with his weapon drawn and told 

Conyers to raise his hands over his head. These actions, 

according to Conyers, constitute an arrest; therefore, the 

police had to havebut, in his view, lacked"information 

sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing that the 

suspect has committed or is committing an offense." United 

States v. Catlett, 97 F.3d 565, 573 (D.C. Cir. 1996), citing Beck 

v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 91 (1964).

The Government argues that the amount of force used to 

stop Conyers was reasonable under the circumstances: The 

police suspected that Conyers was transporting drugs. It is 

USCA Case #95-3183 Document #282163 Filed: 07/01/1997 Page 4 of 7
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

common for a distributor in possession of drugs to flee when 

confronted by the police. The officers acted reasonably, 

therefore, when they pulled their car in front of Conyers' 

vehicle in order to prevent his flight. Moreover, because 

those who transport drugs often carry (and all too often use) 

a firearm, Officer Holmes was reasonable in drawing his 

weapon for his own protection as he approached Conyers 

seated in his car.

We conclude that the detaining officers did not act unreasonably when they pulled their cruiser in front of Conyers' 

car. An officer may take whatever steps are reasonably 

necessary to prevent a subject from fleeing during the course 

of an investigatory stop. See United States v. Laing, 889 

F.2d 281, 285 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (officer may force suspect to lie 

down during investigatory stop in order to reduce risk of 

flight). Conyers would not have been the first person suspected of possessing illegal drugs to take flight when confronted by the police. Blocking Conyers' car in order to 

reduce the risk of flight was, therefore, a reasonable way to 

begin this investigatory stop.

We also conclude that Officer Holmes acted reasonably 

when he approached Conyers with his weapon drawn. An 

officer may stop an individual at gunpoint when the threat of 

deadly force appears "reasonably necessary for the protection 

of the officer." United States v. White, 648 F.2d 29, 34-35 

(D.C. Cir. 1981). The "critical question" is whether "in light 

of the totality of the circumstances as viewed from the 

perspective of a prudent and experienced police officer" the 

force used was "necessary ... to neutralize the threat of 

physical harm." United States v. Clark, 24 F.3d 299, 304 

(D.C. Cir. 1994), quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 24. As we 

observed in Clark, although "it might have been unreasonable 

to assume that a suspected drug dealer in a car would be 

armed" in 1968 when the Supreme Court decided Terry,

nowadays "it could well be foolhardy for an officer to assume 

otherwise." Id. We therefore conclude that Officer Holmes' 

decision to approach Conyers' automobile with his weapon 

drawn was reasonably necessary for his own protection.

USCA Case #95-3183 Document #282163 Filed: 07/01/1997 Page 5 of 7
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

In sum, we conclude that neither the officers' placing a 

police cruiser in front of Conyers' car nor Holmes' approaching Conyers with his weapon drawn transformed this investigatory stop into an arrest.

B. Testimony of Expert Witness

Conyers argues that the district court erred by allowing 

the Government's expert witness to testify that the packaging 

of the drugs found in his possession revealed an intent to 

distribute those drugs, and to support this conclusion by 

observing that "the weapon recovered from appellant's person 

was further proof that he was an experienced drug dealer." 

According to Conyers, Rule 704(b) of the Federal Rules of 

Evidence "prohibited the Government from eliciting this testimony, and the district court erred in receiving and considering such evidence as proof of the element of criminal intent 

on the part of appellant."

The Government counters that its expert witness did not 

offer any opinion about the intent of the defendant. The 

expert testified that the sort of packaging used by Conyers 

was "consistent with distribution in the District of Columbia," 

and that the .357 Magnum is the revolver of choice among 

local drug dealers. The Government contends that this type 

of testimony, offered in order to establish that certain conduct 

comports with established patterns of criminal behavior, does 

not violate Rule 704(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence 

"even where such testimony may support an inference of 

appellant's intent."

We conclude that the trial court's admission of the expert's 

testimony did not violate Rule 704(b). An expert witness may 

testify about an established practice among individuals involved in the drug trade, see United States v. Dunn, 846 F.2d 

761, 762-763 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (expert testimony that packaging paraphernalia, such as vials and wax paper bags, were 

common among drug distributors did not violate Rule 704(b)); 

United States v. Williams, 980 F.2d 1463, 1466 (D.C. Cir. 

1992) (same), provided that he does not speak directly to the 

guilt or innocence of the accused. United States v. Mitchell,

USCA Case #95-3183 Document #282163 Filed: 07/01/1997 Page 6 of 7
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

996 F.2d 419, 421-22 (D.C. Cir. 1993). In this case, the 

government witness did not run afoul of that distinction.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district 

court is in all respects

Affirmed.

USCA Case #95-3183 Document #282163 Filed: 07/01/1997 Page 7 of 7