UN PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19
- 4611

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , Plaintiff

- Appellee ,

v. JAY JAMES FIELDS , Defendant

- Appellant

.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia , at Charleston

. David A. Faber , Senior District Judge. ( 2:18

- cr
- 00215

- 1 )

Submitted : November 25, 2020 Decided: December 17, 2020

Before WYNN, FLOYD, and THACKER , Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by un published per curiam opinion

.
Andrew J. Katz, THE KATZ WORKING FAMILIES LAW FIRM, LC, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Michael B. Stuart, United States Attorney, Christopher R. Arthur, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.2 PER CURIAM: Jay James Fields entered a conditional guilty plea to possessing a firearm as a felon , in violation of 18 U.S.C. § § 922(g), 924(a)(2). On appeal, Fields challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress a firearm discovered by police. We affirm. “When reviewing a district court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, we r eview factual findings for clear error and legal determinations de novo.” United States v. Lull , 824 F.3d 109, 114 (4th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[W]e must construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party an d give due weight to inferences drawn from those facts by resident judges and law enforcement officers.” Id. at
114

- 15 (internal quotation marks omitted). “When reviewing factual findings for clear error, we particularly defer to a district court’s credi bility determinations, for it is the role of the district court to observe witnesses and weigh their credibility during a pre

- trial motion to suppress.” United States v. Palmer , 820 F.3d 640, 653 (4th Cir. 2016) (brackets and internal quotation marks omit ted). Fields argues that the district court erred in ruling that the interaction between the
officer and him began as a brief, casual encounter rather than a Terry 1 stop

. “Although brief encounters between police and citizens require no objective justification, a brief investigatory stop is impermissible unless the officer’s action is supported by a reasonable and articulable suspicion that criminal activity may be afoot.” United States v. Foster , 824 F.3d 84, 88 (4th Cir. 2016) (alterations, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted).

1 Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1(1968).3 An individual is seized when an officer by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained [ the individual’s ] liberty. To determine whether a seizure has occurred, [ we ] ask whether, under the totality of the circumstances surrounding the encounter, a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would have felt free to decline the officer [’s] requests or otherwis e terminate the encounter. United States v. Bowman , 884 F.3d 200, 211 (4th Cir. 2018) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see United States v. Mendenhall , 446 U.S. 544, 553

- 54 (1980) ; Santos v.
Frederick C n ty. Bd. of Comm’rs , 725 F.3d 451, 461 (4th Cir. 2013) ( discussing factors
relevant to whether seizure occurred ). “A police officer may make a seizure by a show of authority and without the use of physical force, but there is no seizure without actual submission; otherwise, there is a t most an attempted seizure, so far as the Fourth
Amendment is concerned.” Brendlin v. California , 551 U.S. 249, 254 (2007). Our review
of the record leads us to conclude that the district court properly found the interaction
between Fields and the offic er amounted to nothing more than a brief encounter and was not a seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes

. 2 Accordingly, we conclude that the district court properly denied Fields’ motion to suppress, and we affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispens e 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 Because we conclude that no seizure occurred, we need not address Fields’ remaining arguments.