Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01407/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01407-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Reubin R. Sanders
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Scott O. Wright, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri, adopting the Report and Recommendation of the Honorable

John T. Maughmer, United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of

Missouri.

 United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 07-1407

___________

United States, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Western District of Missouri.

Reubin R. Sanders, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: October 16, 2007

 Filed: December 20, 2007

___________

Before BYE, BOWMAN, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

___________

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

Reubin R. Sanders was indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He filed a motion to suppress evidence of the firearm,

arguing that it was the product of an illegal seizure. The District Court1

 denied the

motion, and Sanders pleaded guilty to the charge while reserving the right to appeal

the evidentiary issue. Sanders now exercises that right to appeal. We affirm.

Appellate Case: 07-1407 Page: 1 Date Filed: 12/20/2007 Entry ID: 3384463
2

This information was erroneous; after stopping the car and making an arrest,

Officer Uredi learned that the license plate number was registered to a Plymouth

Acclaim.

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The facts in this case are not in dispute. At approximately 6:30 p.m. on

January 23, 2006, Officer Toni Uredi of the Jackson County, Missouri, Sheriff's

Department observed Donald Wilson driving a Plymouth Acclaim in Kansas City,

Missouri. Aware that Wilson's driver's license was suspended, Officer Uredi began

following the car. Officer Uredi radioed in the car's license plate information and was

told that the license plate number was not registered to a Plymouth Acclaim.2

 Officer

Uredi activated his lights and initiated a traffic stop of the car. The car stopped in a

parking lot next to an apartment building in what Officer Uredi considered to be a

high-crime area. Before Officer Uredi could approach the car, Sanders, who was a

passenger in the front seat, got out. Officer Uredi immediately ordered Sanders to

reenter the car, which Sanders did after Officer Uredi repeated the order two more

times. Officer Uredi then approached the driver's side of the car to speak with Wilson.

As he neared the car, Officer Uredi saw a black pistol grip protruding from Sanders's

left front pocket. Officer Uredi radioed for assistance. After other officers arrived,

Sanders was forcibly removed from the car, and a semiautomatic pistol was removed

from his pocket.

Sanders was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm under

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Sanders filed a motion to suppress evidence of the gun on the

ground that he was unlawfully seized when Officer Uredi ordered him to reenter the

car, making evidence of the gun found on his person the so-called "poisonous fruit"

of the seizure. Following an evidentiary hearing, the magistrate judge recommended

that the motion to suppress be denied. The District Court adopted the magistrate

judge's recommendation and denied the motion. Sanders entered a conditional plea

of guilty, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. He now

timely appeals the evidentiary ruling.

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3

In Mimms, the Court adopted a bright-line rule that a police officer may order

the driver of a lawfully stopped car to exit the vehicle.

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"On appeal from a denial of a motion to suppress, we review for clear error the

factual findings of the district court and we review de novo the legal determination

that the Fourth Amendment was not violated." United States v. Robinson, 455 F.3d

832, 834 (8th Cir. 2006). Evidence that is the "'fruit'" of a seizure that violates the

Fourth Amendment is not admissible. United States v. Vega-Rico, 417 F.3d 976, 979

(8th Cir. 2005) (quoting Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 485 (1963)).

Sanders does not contest the legality of the initial stop of Wilson's car. Sanders

argues, rather, that Officer Uredi violated his Fourth Amendment rights by

subsequently ordering him to reenter the stopped car—thereby detaining

him—without a basis to infer that he was involved in criminal activity. If the

detention was not reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, then the gun found as a

result of the detention was the fruit of an illegal seizure and evidence of it should have

been suppressed.

While the Supreme Court has not addressed this particular issue, it has decided

the closely analogous question of whether a police officer may order a passenger in

a vehicle to exit the vehicle during a lawful traffic stop. Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S.

408, 410 (1997). Applying Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the Court balanced the

"'public interest'" in police officer safety with the right of passengers to be "'free from

arbitrary interference by law officers.'" Id. at 411 (quoting Pennsylvania v. Mimms,

434 U.S. 106, 109 (1977) (per curiam)).3

 On the public interest side of the balance,

the Court deemed police officer safety a "weighty interest." Id. at 413. The Court

cited statistics of assaults and killings of police officers during traffic pursuits and

stops, and it noted that when there is more than one occupant in a vehicle, "the

possible sources of harm to the officer" are increased. Id. On the personal liberty side

of the balance, the Court considered that passengers might have a stronger liberty

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4

We have applied this rule in United States v. Beatty, 170 F.3d 811, 813 (8th

Cir. 1999) and United States v. Coleman, 148 F.3d 897, 904 (8th Cir. 1999).

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interest than drivers but noted, "[A]s a practical matter, the passengers are already

stopped by virtue of the stop of the vehicle." Id. at 413–14; see also Brendlin v.

California, 127 S. Ct. 2400, 2407 (2007) (holding that when a police officer makes a

traffic stop, the passenger in the car, in addition to the driver, is seized because a

reasonable passenger would not believe himself free to leave). "The only change in

their circumstances which will result from ordering them out of the car is that they

will be outside of, rather than inside of, the stopped car." Wilson, 519 U.S. at 414.

This intrusion on passengers is "minimal," according to the Court. Id. at 415. 

The Court concluded that "as a matter of course," a police officer may order

passengers of a lawfully stopped car "to get out of the car pending completion of the

stop." Id. at 410, 415.4

 In reaching its decision, the Court found "guidance by

analogy" in Michigan v. Summers, a case holding that police officers could order a

person leaving a house to reenter the house and remain there while officers executed

a search warrant. Wilson, 519 U.S. at 414 (citing Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692

(1981)). The Court invoked its statement in Summers that "'[t]he risk of harm to both

the police and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely exercise

unquestioned command of the situation.'" Wilson, 519 U.S. at 414 (quoting Summers,

452 U.S. at 702–03). 

We believe that the reasoning in Wilson and Summers applies with equal force

to the situation before us, and we hold that Officer Uredi did not violate the Fourth

Amendment when he ordered Sanders to reenter the car. When Officer Uredi stopped

the car, he faced the same safety concerns discussed in Wilson. He was unassisted in

a high-crime area, it was dark, and he was outnumbered by the occupants in the car.

Officer Uredi testified that it is his usual practice at traffic stops to order all occupants

to remain in the vehicle until the completion of the stop. He does this out of concern

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5

We reject Sanders's argument that "[b]ecause the stop occurred in the parking

lot of an apartment complex, rather than on the side of [a] road subject to heavy

traffic, the public safety concerns are not as weighty." Br. for Appellant at 8. The

Wilson Court considered a similar scenario: the danger to police officers arising from

oncoming traffic is generally not present in the case of passengers. 519 U.S. at 413.

The Court concluded, however, that the threat to officer safety remained a weighty

concern because "the fact that there is more than one occupant of the vehicle increases

the possible sources of harm to the officer." Id.

6

Sanders argues that a passenger who is prevented from leaving a car that has

stopped at the passenger's final destination faces a greater intrusion on his personal

liberties than a passenger (like the passenger in Wilson) who is ordered out of a car

and who is free to either leave or to wait until the completion of the stop to continue

his travel. See Wilson, 519 U.S. at 415 n.3 (expressing "no opinion" on whether "an

officer may forcibly detain a passenger for the entire duration of the stop" because the

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for his safety because he does not want "somebody [to] get . . . out of [his] sight." Tr.

of Suppression Hr'g at 26. As in Wilson, the concerns for officer safety in this case

were "weighty." 519 U.S. at 413.5

 

In contrast, the intrusion on Sanders's liberty interest was "minimal." Id. at 415.

As a passenger in a car that was pulled over by police, Sanders was seized as soon as

the car stopped. See Brendlin, 127 S. Ct. at 2407 (holding that a traffic stop results

in a seizure of passengers because a reasonable passenger "would not expect a police

officer to allow people to come and go freely from" the scene and because a

passenger's "attempt to leave the scene would be so obviously likely to prompt an

objection from the officer that no passenger would feel free to leave"). By ordering

Sanders to reenter the car, Officer Uredi simply reinstated the status quo; the only

change in Sanders's circumstances was that he was inside of, rather than outside of,

the stopped car. As soon as Sanders was back inside of the car, Officer Uredi

approached and saw the pistol grip protruding from Sanders's pocket. Thus, the

amount of time that Sanders was detained without reasonable suspicion that he had

committed a crime was de minimis.6

 See Robinson, 455 F.3d at 834 ("We thus

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passenger there "was subjected to no detention based on the stopping of the car once

he had left it"). While Sanders may be correct, we nonetheless conclude that Sanders's

liberty interests were outweighed by the interest in Officer Uredi's safety when Officer

Uredi ordered Sanders back into the car at the onset of the stop. We need not reach

the more general question of whether an officer may detain a passenger for the

duration of a stop without reasonable suspicion that the passenger is or was engaged

in criminal activity.

7

We note that our holding is consistent with the opinions of every other circuit

to address this issue. See United States v. Williams, 419 F.3d 1029, 1034 (9th Cir.)

("We hold that under the Fourth Amendment it is reasonable for an officer to order a

passenger back into an automobile . . . because the concerns for officer safety . . . and

specifically the need for officers to exercise control . . . outweigh the marginal

intrusion on the passenger's liberty interest."), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 1081 (2005);

United States v. Clark, 337 F.3d 1282, 1288 (11th Cir. 2003) (holding that officer did

not violate the Fourth Amendment when he ordered a passenger to reenter a car as a

means of protecting the officer's safety while investigating a crime); United States v.

Moorefield, 111 F.3d 10, 11 (3rd Cir. 1997) (holding that "police officers may

constitutionally order occupants of cars to remain in the vehicle with their hands up

in the air"); cf. Rogala v. District of Columbia, 161 F.3d 44, app. at 53 (D.C. Cir.

1998) (involving a passenger who did not attempt to leave the scene; summarily

affirming and reprinting the district court's opinion, which held that "it follows from

Maryland v. Wilson that a police officer has the power to reasonably control the

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conclude that, even if a suspicionless seizure occurred during the period from the

conclusion of the lawful traffic stop until the officers unquestionably had probable

cause, it was a de minimis intrusion that did not constitute an unreasonable seizure

within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment."). We find this minimal intrusion on

Sanders's personal liberty far outweighed by the safety concerns of Officer Uredi. See

Mimms, 434 U.S. at 111 ("What is at most a mere inconvenience cannot prevail when

balanced against legitimate concerns for the officer's safety."). As the Supreme Court

recognized in Summers and Wilson when facing analogous facts, "[t]he risk of harm

to both the police and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely exercise

unquestioned command of the situation." Summers, 452 U.S. at 702–03, quoted in

Wilson, 519 U.S. at 414.7

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situation by requiring a passenger to remain in a vehicle during a traffic stop"); see

also United States v. Holt, 264 F.3d 1215, 1223 (10th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (stating in

dictum that "during a routine traffic stop, an officer may . . . order the passengers to

remain in the vehicle").

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Because Officer Uredi's detention of Sanders was reasonable under the Fourth

Amendment, the gun found in Sanders's pocket was not the product of an illegal

search. Sanders's motion to suppress was properly denied. The judgment of the

District Court is affirmed.

______________________________

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