1

The Honorable Dean Whipple, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri, who adopted the report and recommendation submitted by the

Honorable James C. England, Chief Magistrate Judge for the United States District

Court for the Western District of Missouri.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 07-3147

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States 

v. * District Court for the

* Western District of Missouri.

Thomas E. Brooks, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: May 13, 2008

Filed: September 2, 2008

___________

Before WOLLMAN, MURPHY, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Thomas Brooks entered a conditional guilty plea to the charge of conspiracy to

distribute fifty grams or more of a substance containing a detectable amount of

methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B)(viii) and 846,

reserving his right to appeal the district court’s1

 denial of his motion to suppress. We

affirm.
-2-

I. Background

On the morning of June 23, 2005, a confidential informant who had previously

provided reliable information contacted Officer David Holmes of the Republic,

Missouri, police department and informed him that a man named “Ray” was coming

that day to sell him methamphetamine at the Express Lane gas station in Republic.

Among other things, the informant told Officer Holmes that Ray had an outstanding

warrant for parole violations and described the vehicle that Ray would be driving.

Holmes told the informant that surveillance would be established at the Express Lane

and that the informant should arrange to travel with Ray to another location to

complete the transaction. Officer Holmes then confirmed that an outstanding warrant

existed for Raymond Schaffer’s arrest.

Officer Michael Shook set up surveillance at the Express Lane station. At

approximately 2:00 p.m., he observed a Toyota Camry (which was not the vehicle

described by the informant) with three occupants park next to the informant’s vehicle.

One individual, later identified as Schaffer, approached the informant’s vehicle while

the other two, a man and a woman later identified as Brooks and Vonnie Young,

looked around nervously as if performing counter-surveillance and proceeded to a

nearby park. Schaffer spent approximately two minutes in the informant’s vehicle,

then walked over to Brooks and Young and conversed with them for about thirty

seconds, then returned to speak with the informant for another thirty seconds. The

three returned to the Camry and followed the informant’s vehicle out of the parking

lot. The informant called Holmes on his cell phone and told him that Schaffer was in

the back seat of the Camry with four baggies of methamphetamine. Holmes and

Shook followed the vehicles as they left the parking lot. After observing that it was

following informant’s vehicle too closely, Shook pulled the Camry over. Brooks was

driving, Young was in the front passenger seat, and Schaffer was in the back. Shook

approached the driver’s side and Holmes the passenger side.
-3-

In response to Holmes’s request for identification, Schaffer replied that he had

none. When prompted, he said that his name was Raymond. At that point, Holmes

observed what appeared to be a sword in a scabbard in the back seat and asked

Schaffer to exit the vehicle. During a pat-down search, Officer Holmes saw a baggie

of white crystalline powder sticking out of Schaffer’s pants pocket. After pulling out

three more baggies of powder, Holmes placed Schaffer under arrest.

As Officer Shook asked Brooks for his license and registration, he observed that

Brooks appeared to be very nervous, with a shaky voice and trembling hands. Shook

then saw a pocket knife in the center console of the Camry and asked Brooks and

Young to exit the vehicle and be seated on the curb. After Young exited the Camry,

the officers observed a baggie of white crystalline powder fall from her pant leg.

Young was arrested, and a search of her person yielded sixteen baggies of

methamphetamine and a pocket knife. A subsequent search of Brooks’s person

yielded two wallets, one of which contained approximately $1,500 in cash; a search

of the Camry incident to arrest yielded, among other things, a .40 caliber firearm in

the glove compartment, a sword on the floor of the back seat, and a pocket knife in the

console. Brooks was detained for fifteen minutes or less prior to his arrest.

II. Analysis

We review the district court’s factual findings in support of its denial of a

motion to suppress for clear error and its legal determinations de novo. United States

v. Peralez, 526 F.3d 1115, 1119 (8th Cir. 2008).

Brooks argues that the officers lacked the requisite suspicion of criminal

activity to stop his vehicle, contending that the officers’ reason for the stop was

pretextual. A vehicle stop constitutes a seizure and is thus subject to the

reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Wright, 512

F.3d 466, 471 (8th Cir. 2008) (citing Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653 (1979)
-4-

and Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810 (1996)). Officers are authorized to

stop a vehicle containing a person for whom probable cause for arrest exists. United

States v. Cardenas-Celestino, 510 F.3d 830, 833 (8th Cir. 2008) (citing United States

v. Sherrill, 27 F.3d 344, 346-47 (8th Cir. 1994)). Likewise, it is reasonable for

officers to stop a vehicle where they have probable cause to believe that a traffic

violation has occurred. Whren, 517 U.S. at 810 (citing Prouse, 440 U.S. at 659 and

Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 109 (1977) (per curiam)). Additionally, an

officer may briefly detain an individual for investigative purposes if the officer has a

reasonable suspicion, supported by articulable facts, that the individual is involved in

criminal activity. United States v. Saenz, 474 F.3d 1132, 1136 (8th Cir. 2007) (citing

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)). “In determining whether reasonable suspicion

exists, we consider the totality of the circumstances in light of the officers’ experience

and specialized training.” United States v. Davis, 457 F.3d 817, 822 (8th Cir. 2006);

see Terry, 392 U.S. at 30. We may also “rely on information provided by other

officers as well as any information known to the team of officers conducting the

investigation.” United States v. Navarrete-Barron, 192 F.3d 786, 790 (8th Cir. 1999).

The constitutional reasonableness of a traffic stop does not depend on the actual

motivations of the officers involved. Whren, 517 U.S. at 813.

The district court credited the officers’ testimony that the vehicle Brooks was

driving was following the vehicle in front of it too closely in violation of Missouri

law. See United States v. Lyton, 161 F.3d 1168, 1170 (8th Cir. 1998); United States

v. Johnson, 58 F.3d 356, 357 (8th Cir. 1995). In addition to the traffic violation

justification for the stop, the officers had corroborated information from a reliable

confidential informant that Schaffer, a passenger, was in possession of

methamphetamine. Officer Holmes had confirmed that there was an outstanding

warrant for Schaffer’s arrest. The officers’ observation of the interaction between the

informant and Schaffer, Young, and Brooks was consistent with Officer Holmes’s and

informant’s prearranged plan and, with the exception of the type of vehicle involved,

corroborated the informant’s information from earlier in the day. These facts, taken
-5-

together, establish that the officers had, at minimum, reasonable suspicion that at least

one occupant of Brooks’s vehicle was involved in criminal activity, and thus the stop

of Brooks’s vehicle was dually justified.

Brooks argues that the scope of the officers’ investigation was unjustifiably

expanded beyond what was necessary to complete the traffic violation stop. During

a Terry stop, “an officer ‘must . . . employ the least intrusive means of detention and

investigation, in terms of scope and duration, that are reasonably necessary to achieve

the purpose’ of the stop.” United States v. Gill, 513 F.3d 836, 845 (8th Cir. 2008)

(quoting Navarrete-Barron, 192 F.3d at 790); see Terry, 392 U.S. at 20 (detention

must be “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the

interference in the first place”). Officers can “check for weapons and may take any

additional steps that are ‘reasonably necessary to protect their personal safety and to

maintain the status quo during the course of the stop.’” Navarrete-Barron, 192 F.3d

at 790 (quoting United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 235 (1985)). In so doing,

they may order the driver and passengers out of a vehicle and frisk them if there is a

reasonable belief, supported by articulable facts, that they are armed and dangerous.

Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 415 (1997); Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032,

1047-48 (1983) (citing Mimms, 434 U.S. 106).

The scope of a traffic stop may be expanded if an officer develops a reasonable,

articulable suspicion that further criminal activity is afoot. Peralez, 526 F.3d at 1120

(citing United States v. Sanchez, 417 F.3d 971, 975 (8th Cir. 2005)). At the time the

Camry was stopped, the officers had at least reasonable suspicion that its occupants

were currently involved in a drug transaction and that Schaffer possessed

methamphetamine. Thus, they were justified in expanding the stop beyond the traffic

violation to investigate those suspicions.

“The touchstone of our analysis under the Fourth Amendment is always ‘the

reasonableness in all the circumstances of the particular governmental invasion of a
-6-

citizen’s personal security,’” which “depends ‘on a balance between the public interest

and the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law

officers.’” Mimms, 434 U.S. at 108-09 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 19 and United

States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878 (1975)). “[M]inimally intrusive weapons

searches” are likely to be reasonable because of the “inherent danger” of traffic stops

and the diminished expectation of privacy in a vehicle. United States v. Shranklen,

315 F.3d 959, 962 (8th Cir. 2003) (internal quotations omitted). In this case, the

officers observed a pocket knife and a sword scabbard in plain view inside the vehicle.

Furthermore, the officers had at least reasonable suspicion that the Camry’s occupants

were involved in a drug transaction, and such transactions often involve weapons and

violence. See Navarrete-Barron, 192 F.3d at 791; United States v. Brown, 913 F.2d

570, 572 (8th Cir. 1990). Thus, we conclude that the officers were justified in asking

all of the Camry’s occupants to exit the vehicle, in performing pat-down searches of

all the occupants for weapons, and in maintaining the status quo by asking Brooks to

remain seated on the curb while they completed their brief investigation.

The search of Brooks’s person was justified as a search incident to a lawful

arrest, which is valid “even if it is conducted before the actual arrest, provided that (1)

the arrest and the search are substantially contemporaneous, and (2) probable cause

to arrest existed before the search.” United States v. Ilazi, 730 F.2d 1120, 1226 (8th

Cir. 1984) (citing Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 111 (1980)). By the time

Brooks’s person was searched, the officers had probable cause to believe that both

Schaffer and Young possessed large quantities of methamphetamine and were

involved in a drug transaction, and weapons had been seen in plain view in the

vehicle, which was under Brooks’s control. The officers also had probable cause to

believe that Brooks, as the driver of a vehicle whose other occupants were currently

involved in a drug transaction, was conspiring to distribute methamphetamine. See

Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 373 (2003) (“‘[A] car passenger . . . will often be

engaged in a common enterprise with the driver . . . .’ [D]rug dealing [is] an

enterprise to which a dealer would be unlikely to admit an innocent person with the
-7-

potential to furnish evidence against him.” (quoting Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S.

295, 304-05 (1999)). Although the informant had identified only Schaffer as the

seller, Brooks’s earlier nervous counter-surveillance behavior, extreme nervousness

when the Camry was pulled over, and Young’s apparent involvement sufficiently

dispelled any notion that Schaffer was acting alone.

The judgment is affirmed.

______________________________