[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 15-10947

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 8:14-cr-00210-CEH-MAP-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

 versus

JOSEPH PAUL VLADEFF, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

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(November 4, 2015)

Before WILSON, JORDAN, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

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Joseph Vladeff appeals the denial of his motion to suppress evidence 

obtained during a warrantless search of a truck he was driving in Pasco County, 

Florida. 

Briefly stated, Vladeff was approached by Pasco County Sheriff Sgt. Henry 

Gardner while he was filling a truck with gas at a gas station, after Sgt. Gardner 

had previously observed Vladeff driving the truck 15 miles over the speed limit. 

Vladeff had no driver’s license (it had previously been suspended), nor was he able 

to produce proof of registration or insurance. Vladeff did not own the truck and 

was unable to identify its owner, saying that he had borrowed the truck but was not 

sure who owned it. Concerned that the truck had been stolen, Sgt. Gardner ran a 

computer check on the truck’s vehicle identification number, which confirmed that 

the truck was unregistered, uninsured, and that the license plate was not assigned to 

the truck. Although Sgt. Gardner identified the name of the truck’s last owner, he 

was unable to locate the owner, so he decided to impound the truck. After an 

inventory search, a short-barrel shotgun was found on the floorboard beneath the 

driver and passenger seats, which Vladeff confessed that he owned. 

Vladeff was later indicted on two counts of knowingly possessing an 

unregistered short-barrel shotgun in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(b) and 5871, 

and knowingly possessing a firearm in and affecting interstate commerce after 

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having been convicted of multiple crimes punishable by imprisonment for a term 

exceeding one year, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2).

Vladeff moved to suppress the short-barrel shotgun and his confession. On 

this appeal, he only challenges the district court’s refusal to suppress the gun,

arguing that the officer lacked the authority to impound the truck because it was on 

private property rather than a public road, and because the Pasco County Sheriff’s 

Office (PCSO) standard procedures for impounding vehicles were not followed. 

On a motion to suppress, we review the district court’s factual findings for 

clear error, and we review de novo the district court’s application of the law to the 

facts. United States v. Lindsey, 482 F.3d 1285, 1290 (11th Cir. 2007). In 

reviewing the district court’s ruling we must construe the facts in the light most 

favorable to the party prevailing below. Id. [W]e may affirm the denial of a 

motion to suppress on any ground supported by the record. United States v. 

Caraballo, 595 F.3d 1214, 1222 (11th Cir. 2010). 

Upon review of the record, and upon consideration of the briefs of the 

parties, we find no error in denying Vladeff’s motion to suppress. The district 

court concluded that the warrantless search did not violate the Fourth Amendment 

because it fell within the “inventory search” exception. See Colorado v. Bertine,

479 U.S. 367, 371-72, 107 S. Ct. 738, 741 (1987). In order to utilize this exception 

to the warrant requirement, the government has the burden to show first that the 

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police possessed the authority to impound the vehicle, and then that the officers 

followed the procedures outlined in the departmental policy in conducting the 

search. United States v. Williams, 936 F.2d 1243, 1248 (11th Cir. 1991). A police 

officer’s decision to impound a car may involve discretion, but it must be made 

according to standard criteria and on the basis of something other than suspicion of 

evidence of criminal activity. Bertine, 479 U.S. at 375, 107 S. Ct. at 743; see 

United States v. Roberson, 897 F.2d 1092, 1096–97 (11th Cir. 1990) (concluding 

that the impoundment and inventory of a vehicle on private property in accordance 

with standard police procedures was not unreasonable under the Fourth 

Amendment). But that “standard criteria need not be detailed criteria.” United 

States v. Johnson, 777 F.3d 1270, 1277 (11th Cir. 2015), petition for cert. filed 

(U.S. July 7, 2015) (No. 15-5059). In Williams, for example, we upheld an 

inventory search against plain-error attack where the district court had “indicate[d] 

that the policy of the [police department] permitted impoundment under [the] 

circumstances” and “[t]he defendant ha[d] not countered this assertion.” 936 F.2d 

at 1248. “[T]he critical question . . . is not whether the police needed to impound 

the vehicle in some absolute sense, or could have effected an impoundment more 

solicitously, but whether the decision to impound and the method chosen for

implementing that decision were, under all the circumstances, within the realm of 

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reason.” Sammons v. Taylor, 967 F.2d 1533, 1543 (11th Cir. 1992) (quoting 

persuasive authority with approval).

An officer may impound a vehicle because it jeopardizes public safety or 

impedes the efficient movement of vehicular traffic. See South Dakota v. 

Opperman, 428 U.S. at 369, 96 S. Ct. at 3092, 3097 (1976). Further, 

impoundments may occur while police officers attempt to determine whether a 

vehicle has been stolen. See id.; Williams, 936 F.2d at 1248–49. Moreover, even a 

lawfully parked car that presents no hazard to public safety may be impounded 

when the circumstances present an “appreciable risk of vandalism or theft.” 

United States v. Staller, 616 F.2d 1284, 1290 (5th Cir. 1980); see Opperman, 428 

U.S. at 369, 96 S. Ct. at 3097 (“The practice [of securing and inventorying an

automobiles’ contents] has been viewed as essential to respond to incidents of theft 

or vandalism.”). 

Vladeff argues that the district court incorrectly assumed that the truck 

rested on “public property” rather than “private property” in assessing whether 

PCSO departmental policy for impoundment was followed, and that therefore, a 

remand is appropriate to re-determine whether his Fourth Amendment right was 

violated. However, viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the 

government, Sgt. Gardner had authority to impound the truck even if it was 

abandoned on private property because it was used in the commission of multiple 

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traffic crimes. The PCSO General Order plainly envisioned that police officers 

would impound vehicles when the driver is unable to operate it due to a suspended 

license; if necessary for the vehicle’s safety and security to prevent vandalism or

theft; if operation of the unregistered and uninsured vehicle on the road threatens 

the safety of others; or the vehicle is used in the commission of crimes (i.e., driving 

with a suspended driver’s license, driving an unregistered vehicle, and driving 

without proof of insurance). (Pasco County Sheriff’s Office General Order §§

I.A.1, 7, 8 and V.A.1.) 

The record supports the exercise of Sgt. Gardner’s discretion to impound the 

truck as made “according to standard criteria and on the basis of something other 

than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity.” Bertine, 479 U.S. at 375, 107 S. 

Ct. at 743. Vladeff had driven the truck on the public road before he stopped at the

gas station. It is reasonable to assume that he intended to resume driving the 

vehicle on the public road immediately after he finished pumping gas and 

receiving his traffic citations. It was not unreasonable for Sgt. Gardner to impound 

the truck before Vladeff resumed driving it without a license, registration, and 

insurance. Nor would it have been a reasonable exercise of Sgt. Gardner’s 

discretion to simply leave the truck at the gas station for its owner to deal with it or 

have it turned over to someone not the owner. It presented a hazard to public 

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safety and a risk of vandalism or theft even if lawfully parked because it was 

parked at a gas station, not at a private residence or parking lot.

Therefore, we conclude that the district court correctly denied Vladeff’s 

motion to suppress on the ground that the shotgun was properly seized pursuant to 

an authorized inventory search.

AFFIRMED.

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