Opinion ID: 780224
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Scope of the Protective Frisk

Text: 26 Finally, Defendant argues that, even if Officer Allen was justified in stopping and frisking him, the scope of the frisk exceeded permissible limits. The evidence introduced at the suppression hearing and the trial indicates that after Officer Allen ordered Defendant to assume the protective frisk position, Defendant began refusing to separate his left and right feet. Given this, Officer Allen began patting down Defendant's left leg, where he felt a hard object, approximately three inches wide by four to five inches long, in the inner part of Defendant's left cowboy boot. Thinking that the object might be a gun, Officer Allen lifted up Defendant's pant leg and saw a tightly wrapped Saran Wrap package in the boot. Still unsure of what the object was, Officer Allen reached inside Defendant's boot to retrieve it, at which point Defendant kicked Officer Allen in the shoulder and started to run. Officer Allen was left holding the Saran Wrap package, which was later found to contain cocaine base. 27 Defendant contends that Officer Allen exceeded the permissible scope of his search of Defendant by reaching into Defendant's boot and pulling out the Saran Wrap package of cocaine base. We disagree. As noted, Terry permits a law enforcement officer to conduct a frisk of a suspect's outer clothing that is reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs, or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer. 392 U.S. at 29, 88 S.Ct. 1868. If the officer discovers what he believes to be a weapon, he may reach inside the suspect's clothing and remove it. See, e.g., Adams, 407 U.S. at 148, 92 S.Ct. 1921 (holding that officer properly seized loaded gun he felt in suspect's waistband). 28 Here, Officer Allen testified that when he felt the bulge in Defendant's left cowboy boot, he thought the object might be a gun. Given this, Officer Allen had the right to investigate further by lifting up Defendant's pantleg so that he could reach inside the boot. Defendant argues, however, that once Officer Allen lifted up the pantleg and saw the Saran Wrap inside the boot, he should have concluded that the object was not a gun and abandoned his search. The difficulty with Defendant's argument is that Officer Allen testified that even after he lifted Defendant's pantleg, he was still not sure exactly what the object was; Officer Allen never testified that he ruled out that the object was a weapon. Even if, in retrospect, it would have been more reasonable to think the hard object was drugs rather than a gun, that does not mean he would have been unreasonable to conclude that it was a gun and not drugs. United States v. Brown, 188 F.3d 860, 866 (7th Cir.1999) (holding the scope of an officer's Terry search reasonable even though the hard object somewhat smaller than a ping-pong ball that the officer believed was a gun butt turned out to be a package of crack cocaine). Accordingly, we conclude that Officer Allen's act of reaching inside Defendant's boot to retrieve what turned out to be a package of cocaine base did not exceed the scope permitted by Terry. 29 Although we note Defendant's reliance on Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 113 S.Ct. 2130, 124 L.Ed.2d 334 (1993) to support his argument that Officer Allen's search exceeded permissible limits, we believe that case to be inapposite. In Dickerson, the Court held that if in the process of lawfully patting down a suspect's outer clothing, the police officer feels an object whose contour or mass makes its identity immediately apparent ...; if the object is contraband, its warrantless seizure would be justified by the same practical considerations that inhere in the plain-view context. 508 U.S. at 375-76, 113 S.Ct. 2130. Defendant argues that because the identity of the bulge in his cowboy boot was not immediately apparent to Officer Allen, Officer Allen was not justified under Dickerson in reaching inside the boot and confiscating the cocaine base. What Defendant appears to misunderstand is that the plainfeel exception of Dickerson was never invoked in this case; so long as Officer Allen had a reasonable belief that the object he felt might be a gun, he continued to have a right under Terry to reach into Defendant's boot to investigate further. 30 As a final matter, we recognize the Government's argument that Officer Allen also had probable cause to stop and search Defendant once he smelled the odor of burnt marijuana emanating from Defendant. However, given our determination that the district court properly denied Defendant's motion to suppress under Terry, we need not reach the issue of probable cause. 31 For all of the reasons stated above, we conclude that the district court properly denied Defendant's motion to suppress.