UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-4411

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ROBERT LEON LECRAFT,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Greenville. Louise W. Flanagan, 

District Judge. (4:10-cr-00021-FL-1)

Submitted: March 30, 2016 Decided: April 14, 2016

Before GREGORY and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior 

Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Richard Croutharmel, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. 

Thomas G. Walker, United States Attorney, Jennifer P. MayParker, Phillip A. Rubin, Assistant United States Attorneys, 

Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
2

PER CURIAM:

Following a jury trial, Robert Leon LeCraft was convicted 

of possession of a firearm by a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 922(g)(1), 924 (2012).1 The district court sentenced LeCraft 

to 180 months’ imprisonment. LeCraft appeals his conviction, 

claiming that the district court erred by denying his motion to 

suppress evidence seized following a traffic stop. For the 

reasons that follow, we affirm. 

“When considering a district court’s denial of a motion to 

suppress, we review the [trial] court’s factual findings for 

clear error and all legal conclusions de novo.” United States 

v. Stover, 808 F.3d 991, 994 (4th Cir. 2015). Because the 

Government prevailed on the suppression issue below, we construe 

 1 LeCraft initially pled guilty to the charge, pursuant to a 

plea agreement under which he reserved his right to appeal the 

district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. However, by 

failing to file objections, LeCraft had waived appellate review 

of the district court’s order adopting the magistrate judge’s

recommendation to deny the motion to suppress. Because the 

parties and the district court had mistakenly assumed that 

LeCraft could appeal the suppression decision, LeCraft’s plea 

could not be treated as a knowing and voluntary unconditional 

guilty plea. Accordingly, this court vacated LeCraft’s original 

criminal judgment and remanded for further proceedings, noting 

that LeCraft “may be able to renew the suppression issue if he 

proceeds to trial.” United States v. LeCraft, 544 F. App’x 185 

(4th Cir. 2013). Upon remand, LeCraft once again moved to 

suppress the evidence and, after an evidentiary hearing, the 

district court denied the motion. LeCraft proceeded to trial

and was ultimately convicted.
3

“the evidence presented in the light most favorable to the 

[G]overnment.” Id. 

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable 

searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV. Warrantless 

searches are per se unreasonable, but “‘there are a few 

specifically established and well-delineated exceptions to that 

general rule.’” United States v. Davis, 690 F.3d 226, 241-42 

(4th Cir. 2012) (quoting City of Ontario v. Quon, 560 U.S. 746, 

760 (2010) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). 

One such exception to the warrant requirement is the voluntary 

consent given by an individual possessing the authority to do 

so. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 181 (1990); United 

States v. Lattimore, 87 F.3d 647, 650 (4th Cir. 1996) (en banc). 

In this case, the district court found that the search was 

consensual. 

“The [G]overnment has the burden of proving consent,” and 

“[w]e review for clear error a district court’s determination 

that a search [was] consensual . . . [and] apply a subjective 

test to analyze whether consent was given, looking to the 

totality of the circumstances.” United States v. Robertson, 736 

F.3d 677, 680 (4th Cir. 2013) (citations omitted). Courts 

examine such factors as the officer’s conduct, the number of 

officers present, the time of the encounter, and the 
4

characteristics of the individual who was searched. Lattimore, 

87 F.3d at 650. 

LeCraft argues that he only consented to a search of his 

vehicle — not his person — and that his consent to the vehicle 

search was invalid because of the manner in which his consent 

was obtained and because he was detained beyond the completion 

of the valid traffic stop. 

The district court observed that LeCraft was in his 60’s

and had extensive experience — both as a defendant and as an 

informant — in the criminal justice system. As to the 

circumstances under which LeCraft gave consent, the record shows 

that Detective Marquie Morrison-Brown stopped LeCraft’s vehicle 

for failing to stop at a stop sign, advised him why she had

stopped him, issued a warning, handed back his driver’s license, 

and briefly engaged in friendly conversation before requesting 

his consent to search. Under the totality of the circumstances, 

the district court did not clearly err in finding LeCraft’s 

consent to be consensual.

Turning to LeCraft’s argument that the initially legal 

detention for the traffic stop was impermissibly prolonged, a

temporary detention of an automobile, even if only for a limited 

time or purpose, constitutes a Fourth Amendment seizure. Whren 

v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 809-10 (1996). Because a 

routine traffic stop is more like an investigative detention 
5

than a custodial arrest, courts evaluate the legality of a 

traffic stop by applying the two-prong test in Terry v. Ohio, 

392 U.S. 1 (1968). United States v. Green, 740 F.3d 275, 279 

(4th Cir. 2014). Under this test, the police officer’s decision 

to stop the vehicle must be both “justified at its inception” 

and sufficiently “limited both in scope and duration.” United 

States v. Digiovanni, 650 F.3d 498, 506-07 (4th Cir. 2011). A 

routine traffic stop involves requesting the driver’s license 

and registration, running a computer check, and issuing a 

citation. Green, 740 F.3d at 280. A traffic stop “become[s] 

unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required 

to complete th[e] mission of issuing a warning ticket.” 

Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct 1609, 1614-15 (2015)

(internal quotation marks omitted; alterations in original). 

Therefore, to lawfully “extend the detention of a motorist 

beyond the time necessary to accomplish a traffic stop’s 

purpose, the authorities must either possess ‘reasonable 

suspicion or receive the driver’s consent.’” United States v. 

Williams, 808 F.3d 238, 245-46 (4th Cir. 2015) (quoting 

Digiovanni, 650 F.3d at 507). 

In this case, as LeCraft concedes, Morrison-Brown was 

justified in stopping him for a traffic violation. However, the 

traffic stop ended when the officer issued the warning citation 

and returned LeCraft’s driver’s license and registration. 
6

Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 333 (2009). Viewing the 

evidence presented in the light most favorable to the 

Government, no more than five minutes transpired between the 

initial stop and LeCraft’s consent to search. Within this brief 

time frame, after the traffic stop ended and before the officer 

asked for permission to search, she and LeCraft engaged in 

friendly conversation. We conclude that the continued 

encounter, culminating in LeCraft’s consent to search, was 

consensual and, therefore, was constitutionally permissible. 

LeCraft also argues that the district court erred in 

finding that he consented to a search of his person. LeCraft 

points to the fact that the written police reports stated only 

that Morrison-Brown requested permission to search LeCraft’s 

vehicle and contends that this contradicts Morrison-Brown’s 

testimony that she requested, and LeCraft gave, permission to 

search both his vehicle and person. However, at the first 

evidentiary hearing, Morrison-Brown explained that she had in 

fact requested to search LeCraft’s person and simply omitted it 

from her notes through an oversight. 

In finding that LeCraft consented to the search, the 

district court credited Morrison-Brown’s testimonial explanation 

for the seeming discrepancy between her written report of the 

traffic stop and her later account at the evidentiary hearing. 

Credibility of witnesses is the sole province of the factfinder. 
7

Cf. United States v. Moye, 454 F.3d 390, 396 (4th Cir. 2006) 

(“[I]t was for the jury, not this court, to decide which version 

of the events - the [G]overnment’s or Moye’s - was more 

credible.”); United States v. Saunders, 886 F.2d 56, 60 (4th 

Cir. 1989) (recognizing that witness credibility is within the 

sole province of the jury and the appellate court will not 

reassess the credibility of testimony). We conclude that the 

district court did not clearly err in finding that LeCraft 

consented to the search of his person.

Even assuming arguendo that LeCraft’s valid consent to 

search extended only to his vehicle and not to his person, upon 

stepping out of his vehicle so that the two officers on the 

scene could perform the consensual search, instead of following 

Morrison-Brown’s instructions to go to the back of his vehicle, 

LeCraft walked past his vehicle at an unusually quick pace. 

Combined with LeCraft’s initial failure to immediately pull over 

when the patrol car’s blue lights were activated and the 

officers’ knowledge of his criminal history, which included 

drugs and weapons, we conclude that the officers had reasonable 

suspicion that criminal activity was afoot and, therefore, were 

legally permitted to search his person. 

Finally, LeCraft appears to challenge the denial of the 

motion to suppress his subsequent in-custody remark to an 

officer that he only possessed the firearm for protection, 
8

arguing that the statement did not “purge the taint” of the 

earlier alleged Fourth Amendment violation. As previously 

stated, we conclude that there was no Fourth Amendment 

violation. Furthermore, we conclude that the district court did 

not clearly err in finding that LeCraft’s incriminating remark 

at the police station was not made in response to law 

enforcement interrogation and therefore did not violate his

Miranda2 rights. Rhodes v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300-31 (1980). 

Accordingly, we affirm LeCraft’s conviction. We dispense 

with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are 

adequately presented in the materials before this court and 

argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

 2 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).