Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-03107/USCOURTS-caDC-00-03107-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ronnie Bookhardt
Appellee
United States of America
Appellant

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 5, 2001 Decided January 29, 2002

No. 00-3107

United States of America,

Appellant

v.

Ronnie Bookhardt,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 00cr00024-01)

Suzanne Grealy Curt, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellant. With her on the briefs were Wilma A.

Lewis, U.S. Attorney at the time the briefs were filed, John

R. Fisher, Thomas J. Tourish, Jr., and Arvind K. Lal,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

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A.J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender, argued the cause

and filed the briefs for appellee. Tony W. Miles, Assistant

Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance.

Before: Ginsburg, Chief Judge, and Sentelle and

Garland, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Garland.

Garland, Circuit Judge: This appeal turns on the question

of whether, if a police officer arrests a defendant on a ground

that proves invalid, the arrest is nonetheless lawful if the

same officer had probable cause to arrest the defendant for a

different offense. We answer that question in the affirmative, and, accordingly, reverse the district court's suppression

of evidence discovered in a search incident to the arrest of

defendant Ronnie Bookhardt.

I

On November 19, 1999, Detective Caesar Casiano, a member of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department,

was driving an unmarked car on Washington's Southeast

Freeway. As Casiano was traveling in the far left lane, he

was forced onto the highway's shoulder by Bookhardt's car.

Reentering the road, Casiano observed Bookhardt driving at

high speed and weaving in and out of traffic without using

turn signals. Although (as Casiano subsequently testified) he

was prepared to let Bookhardt get away, Bookhardt exited at

the same ramp as Casiano, and Casiano pulled him over at a

stoplight.

When Casiano asked Bookhardt for his driver's license,

Bookhardt replied that he did not have it with him; he gave

the officer his Social Security number instead. Upon radioing a police dispatcher, Casiano learned that Bookhardt's

license had expired on October 14, 1999--approximately one

month before. Casiano then informed Bookhardt that he was

under arrest for driving with an expired license. Incident to

that arrest, Casiano searched Bookhardt's car and found two

guns, one under the driver's seat and the second under a

floormat on the driver's side. A grand jury subsequently

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indicted Bookhardt for unlawful possession of a firearm by a

convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. s 922(g).

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3),

Bookhardt moved to suppress the use of the guns as evidence.

His motion did not discuss the arrest for driving with an

expired permit. Instead, Bookhardt argued that the initial

traffic stop was unlawful because Detective Casiano lacked

probable cause to believe that he had committed a traffic

violation, and contended that the guns should be suppressed

because they were discovered as a result of the unlawful stop.

Following a hearing, the district court denied Bookhardt's

motion. The court found Casiano's testimony to be credible,

ruled that he had had probable cause to stop Bookhardt for

reckless driving and to arrest him for driving with an expired

license, and held that the discovery of the guns was the

product of a lawful search incident to that arrest.

At the time of the district court's ruling, neither the parties

nor the court realized that, although driving with a license

expired for more than ninety days is a criminal offense under

District of Columbia law, D.C. Code s 40-301(d), driving with

a license expired for ninety days or less is not criminal, id.

s 40-301(d-1).1 The prosecutor learned of the ninety-day

exception before the jury was sworn on the morning of trial

and promptly informed the court and defense counsel, who

renewed Bookhardt's motion to suppress. The court found

that Casiano had had probable cause to arrest Bookhardt for

reckless driving.2 It ruled, however, that since the detective

had chosen instead to arrest Bookhardt for driving with the

expired license, and since it was now apparent that the arrest

on that charge was invalid, the search of the car incident to

arrest was also invalid and its fruits must be suppressed.

Because the guns found in Casiano's search were essential to

proof of the firearms offense for which Bookhardt was indicted, their suppression effectively ended the prosecution.

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1 Recodified in 2001 as D.C. Code s 50-1401.01(d) & (d-1).

2 As discussed infra Part IV, reckless driving is a criminal offense

in the District of Columbia. See D.C. Code s 40-712(b) & (c),

recodified in 2001 as D.C. Code s 50-2201.04(b) & (c).

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Thereafter, the government filed a notice of appeal pursuant

to 18 U.S.C. s 3731, the statute that governs appeals by the

United States in criminal cases.

II

Before reaching the question of whether the car search was

lawful, we must first address Bookhardt's motion to dismiss

this appeal on the ground that the government failed to file,

in a timely fashion, the certification required by s 3731.

That section provides, inter alia, that:

An appeal by the United States shall lie to a court of

appeals from a decision or order of a district court

suppressing or excluding evidence ... in a criminal

proceeding, not made after the defendant has been put in

jeopardy ..., if the United States [A]ttorney certifies to

the district court that the appeal is not taken for purpose

of delay and that the evidence is a substantial proof of a

fact material in the proceeding.

....

The appeal in all such cases shall be taken within

thirty days after the decision, judgment or order has

been rendered and shall be diligently prosecuted.

The provisions of this section shall be liberally construed to effectuate its purposes.

18 U.S.C. s 3731 (emphasis added). In this case, the district

court's order granting the motion to suppress was entered on

September 13, 2000. The government's notice of appeal was

filed October 12, 2000, within the thirty-day window provided

by the statute. The required certification, however, was not

filed until November 2, 2000, approximately three weeks after

the notice of appeal. Bookhardt contends that the government's certification was untimely and that the appeal should

therefore be dismissed.

Section 3731 does not expressly state whether the government must file its certification by the time the notice of

appeal is filed, by the end of the thirty-day period in which

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the appeal may be taken, or by some other time. Although

several circuits have inferred from the purposes underlying

the section that certification should be made at the time the

notice of appeal is filed,3 this circuit has never decided the

question. Nor need we do so today. As the government has

represented that from this point forward its policy will be to

file the s 3731 certification on or before the date it files the

notice of appeal, we do not expect this issue to arise again.

Appellant's Opp'n to Appellee's Mot. to Dismiss at 4 n.2.

More important, for the reasons stated below, it is not

necessary to decide the question in order to resolve the

appeal presently before us.

Assuming that the government filed its certification late, its

tardiness is necessarily fatal only if it is a jurisdictional bar to

consideration of the government's appeal. Although the statute expressly makes the filing of the certification a prerequisite to appeal, see 18 U.S.C. s 3731 (providing that "an appeal

by the United States shall lie ... if the United States

[A]ttorney certifies...." (emphasis added)), it says nothing

about the consequences of failing to file in a timely fashion--a

not surprising state of affairs given, as noted above, that the

statute does not mention a filing deadline for certification at

all. Every circuit to consider the issue has concluded that

untimely filing is not a jurisdictional bar.4 Instead, while

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3 See, e.g., United States v. Smith, 263 F.3d 571, 578 (6th Cir.

2001) (holding that the certification requirement "is intended to

ensure a conscientious pre-appeal analysis by the responsible prosecuting official," and that "[t]he purpose of the certification is clearly

defeated when the government files its certification after initiating

an appeal") (internal quotation marks omitted); see United States v.

Salisbury, 158 F.3d 1204, 1207 (11th Cir. 1998); United States v.

Bailey, 136 F.3d 1160, 1163 (7th Cir. 1998); United States v. Miller,

952 F.2d 866, 875 (5th Cir. 1992); see also United States v. Hanks,

24 F.3d 1235, 1238 (10th Cir. 1994) (suggesting that the certification

should be filed within the thirty-day period allowed for filing the

notice of appeal).

4 See United States v. Smith, 263 F.3d 571, 578 (6th Cir. 2001);

United States v. Romaszko, 253 F.3d 757, 760 (2d Cir. 2001); In re

Grand Jury Subpoena, 175 F.3d 332, 337 (4th Cir. 1999); United

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emphasizing that s 3731 requires a " 'conscientious preappeal analysis by the responsible prosecuting official,' "

United States v. Smith, 263 F.3d 571, 577 (6th Cir. 2001)

(quoting United States v. Carrillo-Bernal, 58 F.3d 1490, 1494

(10th Cir. 1995)), courts have treated untimely certification as

a filing irregularity under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(a)(2), for which the remedy is a matter of the court's

discretion. Such treatment is appropriate, as Rule 3(a)(2)

states that "[a]n appellant's failure to take any step other

than the timely filing of a notice of appeal does not affect the

validity of the appeal, but is ground only for the court of

appeals to act as it considers appropriate, including dismissing the appeal."

In this case the government did file a timely notice of

appeal, and, accordingly, its failure arguendo to file the

accompanying certification in a timely manner "does not

affect the validity of the appeal," but rather leaves us with

discretion to act as we "consider[ ] appropriate." Fed. R.

App. P. 3(a)(2). As to how to exercise that discretion, the

Sixth Circuit has recently observed:

[C]ourts typically consider a variety of factors, including:

when the certificate was filed; the reason for the failure

to timely file it; whether the government did in fact

engage in a conscientious pre-appeal analysis; whether

the government acknowledges that the certification requirement should be taken seriously; any delay or prejudice to the defendant; whether the appeal raises important legal issues needing appellate clarification; and

whether the appeal should be heard in the interest of

justice, or for any other significant reason.

Smith, 263 F.3d at 578 (internal quotation marks omitted).

We have no need to assess the relative import of these

__________

States v. Gantt, 194 F.3d 987, 997 (9th Cir. 1999); United States v.

Salisbury, 158 F.3d 1204, 1206 (11th Cir. 1998); United States v.

Bailey, 136 F.3d 1160, 1163 (7th Cir. 1998); United States v.

Carrillo-Bernal, 58 F.3d 1490, 1492-93 (10th Cir. 1995); United

States v. Miller, 952 F.2d 866, 875 (5th Cir. 1992).

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factors, as each weighs in favor of permitting the government's appeal to go forward in the instant case.

First, the government filed the required certification only

three weeks after filing the notice of appeal, without any

complaint or prompting by either the defendant or the court.5

Second, the government has represented that it did not file

earlier because it was unaware of any requirement to do so.

The government's representation on the point is credible

given that the statute does not contain an express timing

requirement, that this circuit has never before addressed the

question, and that Bookhardt's experienced counsel has conceded that he, too, was unaware of such a requirement. Mot.

for Leave to Late File Mot. to Dismiss Appeal at 1.

Nor is there any reason to doubt the government's representation that it engaged in a conscientious pre-appeal analysis and that this analysis yielded the conclusion that an appeal

under s 3731 was warranted. Appellant's Opp'n to Appellee's Mot. to Dismiss at 14.6 The suppressed evidence was

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5 Bookhardt did not file his motion to dismiss until September 24,

2001, almost eleven months after the government filed its s 3731

certification.

6 Bookhardt contends that a reason to doubt does arise from the

government's request for a thirty-day extension of this court's

briefing schedule, made after its filing of the s 3731 certification, on

the ground that the government needed additional time to complete

its evaluation of whether to pursue the appeal, including time to

obtain authorization from the Solicitor General. See U.S. Attorney's Manual s 9-2.170(A)(2) (providing that any appeal of a decision adverse to the government must be approved by the Solicitor

General). But there is nothing inconsistent between the United

States Attorney's certification that an appeal meets the threshold

requirements of s 3731--that it is not taken for purpose of delay

and that the suppressed evidence is substantial proof of a material

fact--and the need for additional time to determine whether the

case meets other criteria that the Department of Justice may

impose on government appeals in criminal cases. Nor is there

anything in s 3731, which requires certification by "the United

States [A]ttorney," that compels the United States Attorney to

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essential, not merely "material," to the government's case,

and, as we discuss below, the contention that it was wrongly

suppressed is sufficiently reasonable to eliminate any concern

that the appeal was taken "for purpose of delay." Moreover,

the government acknowledges that the certification requirement must be taken seriously, id. at 5, as confirmed by the

fact that it filed the certification within three weeks of the

notice of appeal, without any suggestion from the defendant

or the court that the certification was missing or late. The

defendant, who has been free on bond pending this appeal,

has been unable to articulate any way in which that threeweek hiatus--which did not delay resolution of the appeal at

all--prejudiced him.7 Finally, although the legal issue at

stake here may not be of transcendent importance, it surely is

significant and apparently is in need of some clarification.

Under these circumstances, we conclude that it is "appropriate," Fed. R. App. P. 3(a)(2), and in the interest of justice

to hear this appeal. Accordingly, even assuming that the

government's certification was not timely filed, we deny defendant's motion to dismiss the appeal.

III

In considering an appeal from a decision of a district court,

we review de novo the court's conclusions regarding questions

of law, United States v. Weaver, 234 F.3d 42, 46 (D.C. Cir.

2000), as well as its determinations of probable cause, Ornelas

v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996). We review the

district court's "findings of historical fact only for clear error

and ... give due weight to inferences drawn from those

facts," id., as well as to the court's determination of witness

credibility, United States v. Christian, 187 F.3d 663, 666

(D.C. Cir. 1999).

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obtain approval from the Solicitor General before filing a certification.

7 Cf. Smith, 263 F.3d at 580 (noting that "[a]lthough pre-trial

release is a deprivation of liberty, [the defendant] has not shown

substantial prejudice beyond that deprivation").

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The government contends that the warrantless search of

the passenger compartment of Bookhardt's car, which yielded

the two guns that were suppressed in this case, was lawful

under the well-established "search incident to arrest" exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. See

New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460 (1981).8 The validity of

a search grounded upon that exception depends on the lawfulness of the arrest, which in turn requires probable cause to

believe that a crime has been committed. See Christian, 187

F.3d at 667. As the government concedes, although Detective Casiano arrested Bookhardt for driving with an expired

license, he did not have probable cause to do so because it is

not a crime under District of Columbia law to drive with a

license that has been expired for ninety days or less. See

Appellant's Br. at 12, 16 (conceding that Bookhardt could not

lawfully be arrested on the expired license charge); see also

id. at 9 n.7 (acknowledging for purposes of appeal that, at the

time of the arrest, Casiano was aware that Bookhardt's

license had expired on October 14, 1999). Accordingly, the

remaining questions are: (1) whether Bookhardt's arrest was

lawful if the detective had probable cause to believe that

Bookhardt had committed a different crime (reckless driving),

and (2) whether Casiano did in fact have such probable cause.

We consider the first question in this Part and the second in

Part IV below.

More than twenty-five years ago, this court stated that "an

arrest will be upheld if probable cause exists to support

arrest for an offense that is not denominated as the reason

for the arrest by the arresting officer." United States v.

Joyner, 492 F.2d 655, 656 (D.C. Cir. 1974). In that case, we

held that even if Florida police had wrongly arrested the

defendant for an out-of-state crime, the arrest (and therefore

the use of evidence obtained incident thereto) was lawful

because they had probable cause to arrest him for violations

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8 As the Court further held in Belton, a search incident to arrest

" 'is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth

Amendment, but is also a "reasonable" search under that Amendment.' " 453 U.S. at 459 (quoting United States v. Robinson, 414

U.S. 218, 235 (1973)).

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of Florida law. Id. In so holding, we cited a case of even

earlier vintage, Bell v. United States, in which we had held

that "[t]he question is not what name the officer attached to

his action; it is whether, in the situation in which he found

himself, he had reasonable ground to believe a felony had

been committed and that the [defendants] had committed it."

254 F.2d 82, 86 (D.C. Cir. 1958). In Bell, we ruled that

despite the fact that the offense for which the defendants had

been arrested, "investigation of housebreaking," was not a

crime, the fact that probable cause existed to arrest the

defendants for a felony was sufficient to render the arrest

lawful. Id. at 86-87.9

Other circuits have similarly concluded that, even if probable cause does not support arrest for the offense charged by

the arresting officer, an arrest (and search incident thereto) is

nonetheless valid if the same officer had probable cause to

arrest the defendant for another offense.10 This result is

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9 At oral argument, Bookhardt sought to distinguish between an

arrest like his own, where the crime charged was not actually a

crime, and an arrest in which the charged offense was a crime but

the officer lacked probable cause to believe it had been committed.

We see no reason why such a distinction should be important, since

an arrest in either circumstance is equally invalid and the only

question under our precedents is whether another, valid ground for

arrest exists. Moreover, the above recitation of the facts in Bell,

which involved a charged offense that was not an offense at all,

makes clear that the distinction the defendant seeks to draw would

not assist him in distinguishing this circuit's precedents.

10 See, e.g., Barna v. City of Perth Amboy, 42 F.3d 809, 819 (3d

Cir. 1994) (holding that "[p]robable cause need only exist as to any

offense that could be charged under the circumstances"); United

States v. Kalter, 5 F.3d 1166, 1168 (8th Cir. 1993) (upholding arrest

because, although the police lacked probable cause to arrest the

defendant for violation of the concealed-weapon statute that was the

actual reason for the arrest, they had probable cause to arrest him

for violating a separate ordinance requiring that a gun be carried in

a locked container); United States v. Atkinson, 450 F.2d 835, 838

(5th Cir. 1971) (declining to decide whether an arrest for false

pretenses was legal because the officer had probable cause to arrest

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consistent with the Supreme Court's holding, in Whren v.

United States, that the existence of probable cause must be

determined objectively from the facts and circumstances

known to the officers at the time of the arrest without regard

to the "actual motivations" or "[s]ubjective intentions" of the

officers involved. 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996). In Whren, police

officers purportedly stopped a car for a traffic violation,

subsequently arresting the occupants on narcotics charges

after observing a bag of drugs. The defendants alleged that

the traffic violation was merely a pretext, and suggested that

the officers' real motivation for the stop was to search for

drugs. The Supreme Court held that even if the traffic stop

was a pretext for the search, the officers' subjective intent

was irrelevant; under the Fourth Amendment, the stop was

lawful because there was probable cause to believe the driver

had committed a traffic violation. Id. at 812-13, 819.11 So

too, here. Notwithstanding Casiano's subjective intent to

arrest Bookhardt for driving with an expired license, the

arrest was lawful if Casiano had probable cause to believe the

defendant guilty of reckless driving.

Bookhardt argues that Whren is inapplicable to this case

because he does not contend that Detective Casiano arrested

him on a pretext, but rather out of the detective's ignorance

__________

the defendant for operating a vehicle with an invalid license tag);

Klingler v. United States, 409 F.2d 299, 303-06 (8th Cir. 1969)

(upholding arrest because, although the police lacked probable

cause to arrest the defendant for vagrancy, the charged offense,

they had probable cause to believe that he had committed robbery);

see also Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure s 1.4(d) (3d ed.

1996) (collecting cases); cf. United States v. Dhinsa, 171 F.3d 721,

725 (2d Cir. 1998) (upholding traffic stop on the basis of an observed

traffic violation, notwithstanding detectives' reliance on a different

ground).

11 In Arkansas v. Sullivan, the Court made clear that Whren

applies not only to civil traffic stops, but to criminal traffic arrests

as well. 121 S. Ct. 1876, 1878 (2001) (reversing suppression of

drug-related evidence and holding that it is irrelevant whether a

traffic-violation arrest was a pretext for a drug search, as long as

there was probable cause for the traffic arrest).

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of the relevant D.C. Code provision. We fail to see, however,

why the police should be in a better position if they prevaricate about the reason for arresting a defendant than if they

make an honest mistake of law. As long as Casiano had an

objectively valid ground upon which to arrest Bookhardt, the

fact that he articulated an invalid one does not render the

arrest unlawful. Cf. United States v. Dhinsa, 171 F.3d 721,

725 (2d Cir. 1998) ("A fair reading of Whren ... leads to the

conclusion that an observed traffic violation legitimates a stop

even if the detectives do not rely on the traffic violation.").

Indeed, were we to hold otherwise, we would do no more than

create an incentive for the police "to routinely charge every

citizen taken into custody with every offense" they can think

of, "in order to increase the chances that at least one charge

would survive"--yielding no additional protection of civil liberties while adding considerably to the burden placed upon

both defendants and police. United States v. Atkinson, 450

F.2d 835, 838 (5th Cir. 1971) (quoted with approval in Wayne

R. LaFave, Search and Seizure s 1.4(d), at 111 n.29 (3d ed.

1996)).12

Although the district court agreed that Detective Casiano

had probable cause to arrest Bookhardt for reckless driving,

it declined to rely on that ground to validate the search,

holding that Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113 (1998), rather

than Whren, was the applicable Supreme Court precedent.

In Knowles, the Court held that an officer may not conduct a

search incident to arrest when, although the officer has

probable cause to make an arrest, he issues a citation instead

of arresting the defendant. Knowles found that neither of

the two historical justifications for the search-incident-to-

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12 Bookhardt also argues that even if Whren does apply, it still

requires the government to show that there was probable cause to

believe he was "driving with an expired licence," albeit based upon

objective circumstances rather than the officer's subjective belief.

Appellee's Br. at 14. This formulation, however, misapprehends

Whren because, contrary to the rule in that case, it focuses on the

officer's subjective motivation for making the arrest--that is, his

belief that Bookhardt had violated the prohibition on driving with

an expired license.

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arrest exception--the need to disarm the subject in order to

take him into custody and the need to preserve evidence for

later use at trial--applies when a defendant is not actually

arrested and taken into custody. Id. at 116-19. The key

point in Knowles, therefore, was not that the officer had a

lawful ground for arrest upon which he did not rely, but that

he did not arrest the defendant at all. When an officer does

take a defendant into custody, the historical justifications for

the search-incident-to-arrest exception apply regardless of

whether the officer articulates the wrong reason for making

the arrest.13 Accordingly, because Casiano did take Bookhardt into custody, Knowles is without application to this

case,14 and the car search must be upheld if the detective had

probable cause to arrest the defendant.

IV

Bookhardt argues that even if a lawful arrest for violating

the reckless driving statute would have rendered the search

of his car valid, his arrest was unlawful because there was no

probable cause to believe he had violated the statute. This

argument is readily dismissed.

The D.C. Code makes reckless driving a criminal offense,

D.C. Code s 40-712(c), and provides that:

Any person who drives any vehicle upon a highway

carelessly and heedlessly in willful or wanton disregard

__________

13 In United States v. Robinson--a case in which the defendant,

much like Bookhardt, was arrested for the offense of driving while

his license was revoked--the Court also made clear that the applicability of these historical justifications need not be litigated on a

case-by-case basis. "The authority to search the person incident to

a lawful custodial arrest," the Court held, "does not depend on what

a court may later decide was the probability in a particular arrest

situation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found upon the

person of the suspect." 414 U.S. at 235; accord Belton, 453 U.S. at

461.

14 Accord United States v. McLaughlin, 170 F.3d 889, 891 & n.2

(9th Cir. 1999) (holding Knowles inapplicable to cases in which

defendants are arrested).

of the rights or safety of others, or without due caution

and circumspection and at a speed or in a manner so as

to endanger or be likely to endanger any person or

property, shall be guilty of reckless driving.

Id. s 40-712(b).15 Detective Casiano's testimony, credited by

the district court, established that Bookhardt drove at a high

rate of speed, greater than that of the surrounding traffic,

that he wove in and out of lanes without signaling, and that

he forced Casiano's vehicle off the road, nearly causing a

collision. Whether or not the defendant actually exceeded

the speed limit, Bookhardt's misconduct was serious and

more than sufficient to establish both that he drove "carelessly and heedlessly in willful ... disregard of the ... safety of

others," and that he drove "without due caution and circumspection ... in a manner so as to endanger ... any person."

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See Swailes v. District of Columbia, 219 A.2d 100, 102 (D.C.

1966) (holding that "it is possible to drive well within the

prescribed speed limit and still be a menace to the safety of

others" under an earlier but identical version of the reckless

driving statute). Hence, there is no doubt that Casiano had

probable cause to arrest Bookhardt for the crime of reckless

driving.

V

We conclude that, notwithstanding the government's failure

to file its s 3731 certificate contemporaneously with its notice

of appeal, this case is properly before us. We further hold

that if a police officer arrests a defendant on a ground that

ultimately proves invalid, the arrest is nonetheless lawful if

the same officer had probable cause to arrest the defendant

for a different criminal offense. Finally, we find that the

officer who arrested defendant Bookhardt had probable cause

to do so for the offense of reckless driving. Because Bookhardt's arrest was therefore lawful, the search incident to

that arrest was lawful as well, and the evidence obtained as a

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15 Recodified in 2001 as D.C. Code s 50-2201.04(b) & (c).

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result of the search is admissible at defendant's trial. Accordingly, the order of the district court suppressing that

evidence is

Reversed.

USCA Case #00-3107 Document #654342 Filed: 01/29/2002 Page 15 of 15