UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.  No. 01-4179

ANTHONY DARRELL NELSON,

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Durham.

N. Carlton Tilley, Jr., Chief District Judge.

(CR-00-301)

Submitted: September 28, 2001

Decided: October 15, 2001

Before WIDENER, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

COUNSEL

Anne R. Littlejohn, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Benjamin H. White, Jr., United States Attorney, Lisa B. Boggs, Assistant

United States Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See

Local Rule 36(c). 
OPINION

PER CURIAM: 

On January 11, 2000, Lieutenant Kelly Hiatt of the Mount Airy

Police Department responded to a call of a suspicious vehicle at a

Four Brothers Amoco gas station in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Concerned individuals at the gas station reported that a silver Nissan

had pulled into the parking lot and remained stationary for approximately thirty minutes. When Hiatt arrived, he observed a silver Nissan on the road near the gas station facing the opposite direction of

his vehicle. 

Hiatt approached the vehicle and informed the driver that he had

received a complaint about the driver’s presence in the parking lot.

The driver responded that he was having car problems. Hiatt asked

the driver what his name was and the driver said "Anthony Darrell

Nelson." That name immediately alerted Hiatt to possible criminal

activities. At a recent police briefing, Hiatt had heard that an Anthony

Darrell Nelson was a suspect in a violent armed robbery that had

occurred several nights earlier at another Four Brothers Amoco gas

station in Mount Airy. 

Hiatt asked Nelson to step out of his car and patted down his upper

body and torso, frisking him for weapons. Hiatt then asked for and

received consent to search the Nissan.* Before conducting the search

of the vehicle, Hiatt patted down Nelson again, this time concentrating on Nelson’s lower body area and legs. At the suppression hearing,

Hiatt explained his reasons for the second pat down:

I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to pay as much attention to him as I had been because I would be searching the

car, and I knew there was another officer on the way, but I

didn’t want to leave him with another officer not knowing

for sure that I had patted him down completely. 

*Although Nelson vigorously disputed the question of consent at the

motion to suppress, he expressly declines to raise this issue on appeal.

See Appellant’s Br. at 6. 

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J.A. 35. During the second pat down, Nelson informed Hiatt that he

had a knife in his boot. Hiatt discovered and removed a concealed

sheath knife, with a blade over four inches long. Hiatt then had Nelson stand in front of Hyatt’s patrol car with his hands on the car. At

about that time, the backup officer, Sergeant Lowe, arrived. Hiatt’s

subsequent search of Nelson’s vehicle uncovered three guns, a .25

caliber Lorcin semiautomatic handgun in the front console between

the seats, and a 12 gauge shotgun and an SKS rifle hidden in the back

seat. 

Nelson moved to suppress the seized evidence. Following a hearing, the district court denied the defendant’s motion to suppress. Nelson then pled guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon,

in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), but conditioned his guilty plea on

the right to appeal the denial of the suppression motion. Nelson filed

a timely notice of appeal. 

We review the factual findings of the district court for clear error

and the legal conclusion that reasonable suspicion existed de novo.

See United States v. Rusher, 966 F.2d 868, 873 (4th Cir. 1992). Nelson contends on appeal that Lieutenant Hiatt performed a Terry stop

unsupported by reasonable suspicion when Hiatt ordered Nelson out

of the vehicle. In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the Supreme

Court held that an officer can perform an investigative detention if he

has a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a person has committed or is about to commit a crime. See id. at 21-22. The Terry Court

defined reasonable suspicion as more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch.’" Id. at 27. 

"Reasonable suspicion is a commonsensical proposition." United

States v. Lender, 985 F.2d 151, 154 (4th Cir. 1993). In this case, Lieutenant Hiatt possessed two specific and articulable facts that constituted reasonable suspicion. First, Nelson was parked for an unusually

long time at a Mount Airy Four Brothers Amoco station. Second, Nelson identified himself by his full name: first, middle, and last. That

full name matched the full name of a suspect in a recent violent armed

robbery of another Mount Airy Four Brothers Amoco station. This

suggested to Hiatt a strong likelihood that Nelson was the suspect in

the prior armed robbery. 

UNITED STATES v. NELSON 3
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are

adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument

would not aid the decisional process. 

AFFIRMED

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