Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-15-03705/USCOURTS-ca8-15-03705-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Meigel M. Craddock
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 15-3705

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Meigel M. Craddock

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City

____________

 Submitted: September 22, 2016

 Filed: November 8, 2016 

____________

Before SMITH, MELLOY, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

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GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

After a jury trial, Meigel Craddock was convicted of being a felon in

possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Craddock was

sentenced to a mandatory minimum of fifteen years’ imprisonment under the Armed

Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). Craddock makestwo arguments

on appeal: (1) the Terry frisk that led to his arrest exceeded its proper scope, and (2)

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his prior conviction for Missouri burglary does not qualify as a predicate offense

under the ACCA. For the reasons discussed below, we reverse as to the first issue

and do not reach the second.

I.

A few minutes before 11:00 a.m. on November 20, 2013, Officer Charles

Prichard of the Kansas City Police Department was stopped at a stop sign when he

observed a green Pontiac enter the intersection and slow down as if to turn in his

direction. Instead, the Pontiac hesitated for a few moments beforeproceeding straight

through the intersection. Finding this behaviorsuspicious, Officer Prichard called in

the Pontiac’s license plate number and discovered that the vehicle was stolen. He

followed the vehicle but lost sight of it when it turned down a side street. Officer

Prichard then proceeded to drive up and down nearby streets looking for the vehicle. 

At approximately 11:06 a.m., Officer Prichard noticed a man later identified as

Craddock walking down the sidewalk of one of the side streets. Officer Prichard

discovered the stolen Pontiac parked on the side of the street shortly after passing

Craddock, at which point Prichard turned around in order to relocate Craddock. 

Driving back up the street, Officer Prichard saw Craddock standing in the front yard

of a residence about fifty feet from the stolen Pontiac. Officer Prichard did not notice

any other people in the area.

Officer Prichard parked his vehicle and approached Craddock. When Officer

Prichard asked Craddock what he was doing, Craddock appeared nervous and said

he was going home, but he could not provide Officer Prichard with an address. 

Believing that Craddock had just exited the stolen Pontiac, Officer Prichard

handcuffed Craddock and frisked him for a weapon. The frisk did not reveal a

weapon, but Officer Prichard did feel what he believed to be a vehicle key fob in

Craddock’s pants pocket. Officer Prichard removed the key fob from the pocket and,

after noticing that it had a Pontiac emblem, used it to unlock the stolen Pontiac. After

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opening the door of the vehicle, Officer Prichard saw a handgun on the floor next to

the driver’s seat. Upon learning that Craddock was a convicted felon, Officer

Prichard arrested him for possessing a handgun. Craddock’s DNA waslater matched

to DNA discovered on the vehicle steering wheel, but insufficient DNA was present

on the handgun for it to be tested.

On December 11, 2013, Craddock was indicted on one count of being a felon

in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Craddock moved to

suppress the evidence resulting from the frisk of his person and the removal of the

key fob from his pocket. The district court denied the motion, and a jury

subsequently returned a guilty verdict. After determining that Craddock qualified as

an armed career criminal, the court sentenced him to 250 months’ imprisonment and

five years of supervised release.

II.

“When considering a suppression order, we review the district court’s factual

findings for clear error and review de novo its conclusion about whether the Fourth

Amendment was violated during the search.” United States v. Janis, 387 F.3d 682,

686 (8th Cir. 2004). As an initial matter, Craddock’s proximity to the stolen vehicle

and his demeanor when Officer Prichard approached him provided the officer with

reasonable suspicion to frisk Craddock for weapons. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1,

30 (1968); United States v. Hanlon, 401 F.3d 926, 929 (8th Cir. 2005) (“[W]hen

officers encounter suspected car thieves, they also may reasonably suspect that such

individuals ‘might possess weapons.’” (quoting United States v. Rowland, 341 F.3d

774, 784 (8th Cir. 2003))).

However, in order to seize items other than weapons, “the officer conducting

a pat-down search [must] have probable cause to believe the item in plain touch is

incriminating evidence.” United States v. Bustos-Torres, 396 F.3d 935, 944-45 (8th

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Cir. 2005) (citing Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 376 (1993)). The item need

not be contraband, but “[t]o give rise to probable cause, the incriminating character

of the object must be immediately identifiable.” Bustos-Torres, 396 F.3d at 945; see

also United States v. Cowan, 674 F.3d 947, 953 (8th Cir. 2012) (“A police officer

‘lawfully pat[ting] down a suspect’s outer clothing’ may seize any ‘object whose

contour or mass makesits identity immediately apparent’ asincriminating evidence.”

(quoting Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 375) (alterationsin original)). Ultimately, “an item’s

incriminatory nature is immediately apparent if the officer at that moment had

‘probable cause to associate the property with criminal activity’ . . . meaning ‘the

facts available to the officer would warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief

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

crime.’” Cowan, 674 F.3d at 953 (quoting Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 741-42

(1983) (plurality opinion)). Probable cause requires only “a ‘practical, nontechnical’

probability that incriminating evidence is involved,” id. (quoting Brown, 460 U.S. at

742), but the officer may not manipulate the item in order to ascertain the

incriminating character where it is not immediately apparent to him, see Dickerson,

508 U.S. at 379.

In this case, the key fob’s incriminating character was not immediately

apparent upon plain feel. Officer Prichard testified that he was not able to observe

the person driving the car or even identify whether the individual was male or female. 

Officer Prichard did not observe Craddock exit the vehicle, and Officer Prichard had

to turn his patrol car around several times in order to locate Craddock, who did not

attempt to flee. While Craddock was relatively close to the stolen vehicle and

behaving nervously, circumstances which make this question close, feeling an

unidentified key fob in Craddock’s pocket did not provide Officer Prichard with

probable cause to conclude that the key fob belonged to the stolen Pontiac. Key fobs

are extremely common items carried in the pockets of a large portion of the

population on a daily basis. As a result, without more information, Officer Prichard

could not have reasonably associated the key fob with the stolen Pontiac at that point. 

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See United States v. Bailey, 417 F.3d 873, 877 (8th Cir. 2005) (explaining that a

hunch is insufficient to provide reasonable suspicion, much less probable cause). It

was not until Officer Prichard removed the key fob from Craddock’s pocket and

observed the Pontiac emblem that he had reason to associate the key fob with the

stolen vehicle. Thus, as in Minnesota v. Dickerson, the officer required “a further

search, one not authorized by Terry or by any other exception to the warrant

requirement” to determine the item’s incriminating character. 508 U.S. at 379. 

Accordingly, the key fob’s seizure violated the Fourth Amendment.

The Government raises several counterarguments to suppression. First, it

argues that Craddock had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the stolen key fob,

the stolen car, or the handgun. While Craddock had no reasonable expectation of

privacy in the stolen vehicle or contraband, see United States v. Long, 797 F.3d 558,

568 (8th Cir. 2015), he did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents

of his pants pockets. See United States v. $53,082 in U.S. Currency, 985 F.2d 245,

249 (6th Cir. 1993) (finding an expectation of privacy “in items carried on one’s

person”). Second, the Government contendsthat the evidence is admissible under the

inevitable discovery doctrine. The inevitable discovery doctrine provides an

exception to the exclusionary rule where “the prosecution can establish by a

preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately or inevitably would

have been discovered by lawful means.” Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 43, 444 (1984). 

Although the Government argues that the police would have inevitably discovered

the contents of the stolen vehicle, the Government does not contend that the police

would have inevitably discovered the key fob in Craddock’s pocket. Accordingly,

inevitable discovery has no bearing on whether the key fob should have been

suppressed. To the extent the inevitable discovery doctrine applies to evidence other

than the key fob, the district court did not address the question, and we decline to

decide it in the first instance.

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Accordingly, the officer’s seizure of the key fob exceeded the appropriate

scope of a Terry frisk, and it should have been suppressed. As a result, we do not

reach Craddock’s sentencing challenge.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we vacate Craddock’s conviction and remand for

proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

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