Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-04-03038/USCOURTS-caDC-04-03038-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
James W. Edwards
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 8, 2005 Decided September 30, 2005

No. 04-3038

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

JAMES W. EDWARDS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 03cr00234-01)

Walter S. Booth, appointed by the court, argued the cause

and filed the briefs for appellant. 

Patricia A. Heffernan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, and John R. Fisher and Roy W.

McLeese, III, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: SENTELLE, RANDOLPH and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM: James Edwards appeals the judgment of

conviction for unlawful possession of PCP with intent to

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distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a), 841(b)(1)(C)

(2000). He makes two claims: First, he argues the District

Court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained

by a police search of his car. Second, he argues the District

Court erred when it sentenced Edwards under a mandatory

Guidelines scheme.

Having considered Edwards’s arguments, we conclude that

the District Court properly denied his motion to suppress. We

do, however, remand the record in this case in light of United

States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005), for the limited purpose

described in United States v. Coles, 403 F.3d 764, 771 (D.C. Cir.

2005) (per curiam).

I. Background

Responding to neighborhood complaints, police drove to a

parking lot on Pomeroy Road to investigate an area known for

drug trafficking. Edwards and a friend sat in a parked car in the

lot. As the police entered, Edwards drove his car quickly toward

the exit, nearly colliding with the police car. The officer exited

his car, approached Edwards, and ordered him to stop. Although

the police were driving unmarked cars and were not in uniform,

the officer who exited the car was wearing a blue vest with an

orange police department emblem on it and a badge. Peering

into the car, the officer noticed an open bottle of cognac and a

clear cup containing a dark liquid. Edwards defied the order and

slowly backed his car while reaching furtively under his seat.

The officer again ordered Edwards to stop. As the officer

approached the car, he saw Edwards pushing two guns under his

seat. The officer alerted his fellow officers to the guns and

seized them. The police then searched Edwards’s person and

found three vials of PCP.

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Prior to trial, Edwards moved to suppress the guns and

drugs. He claimed that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion

to stop and search him and therefore violated his Fourth

Amendment rights. The District Court denied his motion.

Edwards was indicted on three counts: (1) possession of a

handgun and ammunition by a felon; (2) unlawful possession

with intent to distribute a controlled substance; and (3) unlawful

possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking offense. A jury

convicted Edwards on count two but acquitted him of count

three. The District Court declared a mistrial on the first count.

In the pre-Booker sentencing regime, Edwards’s conviction

resulted in a base sentencing level of 20 under the United States

Sentencing Guidelines. Despite the acquittal on count three, the

District Court found by a preponderance of the evidence that

Edwards had possessed a firearm during the drug offense. That

finding bumped the sentencing level to 22, which, along with

Edwards’s criminal history category of 5, resulted in a

sentencing range of 77 to 96 months. The court sentenced

Edwards to 79 months incarceration. Edwards did not challenge

the constitutionality of his sentence at the time.

On appeal, Edwards challenges both his conviction and his

sentence. First, he contends that the District Court erred by

denying his pretrial motion to suppress. Second, citing the

Supreme Court’s decision in Booker, he contends that the

District Court erred in applying the Guidelines as mandatory.

II. Motion to Suppress

A. Standard of Review

We review a District Court’s findings of fact for clear error.

United States v. Brown, 334 F.3d 1161, 1164 (D.C. Cir. 2003).

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We review de novo whether those factual findings constitute

reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Id.

B. Analysis

In determining whether police had reasonable suspicion to

stop a suspect under the Fourth Amendment, see Terry v. Ohio,

392 U.S. 1 (1968), the inquiring court must go beyond discrete

facts and consider “the totality of the circumstances as the

officer on the scene experienced them.” United States v.

Edmonds, 240 F.3d 55, 59 (D.C. Cir. 2001). This Court has

made clear “that ‘furtive’ gestures in response to” police

presence are relevant to the reasonable suspicion inquiry. See

id. at 61. The area’s high-crime character also serves as relevant

context, though it may not provide the sole grounds for a stop.

See Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000). 

This case remarkably resembles Edmonds. See 240 F.3d at

57. In both cases, police approached a parked car in an area

known for crime. In addition, suspects in both cases made

furtive movements in response to identifiable police presence.

In Edmonds, those facts sufficed for reasonable suspicion to

conduct a stop, id. at 60, and they therefore suffice here.

The “totality of the circumstances” in this case includes

additional facts that support reasonable suspicion. Not only did

Edwards act furtively, but he did so while backing his car away

from the officer. In addition, before Edwards actually stopped

his car, the officer discovered an open bottle of alcohol and two

weapons in plain view. The stop and its resulting seizures were

therefore constitutional, and the District Court correctly denied

Edwards’s motion to suppress. See Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 121.

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III. Sentencing

The District Court sentenced Edwards under the preBooker, mandatory Guidelines scheme. This Court decided the

appropriate procedures for addressing “plain error” Booker

appeals in United States v. Coles, 403 F.3d 764 (D.C. Cir. 2005)

(per curiam). Accordingly, we remand the record to the District

Court “for the limited purpose of allowing it to determine

whether it would have imposed a different sentence, materially

more favorable to the defendant, had it been fully aware of the

post-Booker sentencing regime.” Id. at 771.

Edwards makes an additional Sixth Amendment

claim—that the District Court denied his right to a trial by jury

when it sentenced him based on conduct for which he was

acquitted. As Booker states, “[a]ny fact . . . which is necessary

to support a sentence exceeding the maximum authorized by the

facts established by a plea of guilty or a jury verdict must be

admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a

reasonable doubt.” 125 S. Ct. at 756. Edwards argues that,

under Booker’s holding, his acquittal on the gun possession

charge precludes the District Court from finding that fact by a

preponderance of the evidence and then using it to raise his

sentence. The Supreme Court has upheld this practice against

a Fifth Amendment double jeopardy challenge. See United

States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148, 157 (1997). The Court has not,

however, determined whether the practice violates the Sixth

Amendment. Cf. Booker, 125 S. Ct. at 754 (stating Sixth

Amendment issue was not presented in Watts). Although

Edwards raises a potentially important question, we need not

address it because we have already determined to remand the

record according to Coles. 

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IV. Conclusion

For the above reasons, we affirm the denial of Edwards’s

motion to suppress, and we remand the record to the District

Court pursuant to Coles, 403 F.3d at 771.

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