Opinion ID: 57923
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Suppression of the Keys

Text: McCoy next argues that the keys to Apartment 9 must be suppressed 7 because the officers discovered them during a pat-down incident to an unlawful arrest. “[A] law enforcement officer’s reasonable suspicion that a person may be involved in criminal activity permits the officer to stop the person for a brief time and take additional steps to investigate further.” Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt County, 542 U.S. 177, 185, 188, 124 S. Ct. 2451, 2458, 159 L. Ed. 2d 292 (2004). “Once an officer has legitimately stopped an individual, the officer can frisk the individual so long as ‘a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.’” United States v. Hunter, 291 F.3d 1302, 1306 (11th Cir. 2002) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1883, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968)). Whether an officer has reasonable suspicion is a question of law that we review de novo. Evans v. Stephens, 407 F.3d 1272, 1280 (11th Cir. 2005) (en banc). We consider the question in light of the totality of the circumstances from the perspective of a reasonable officer. Hicks v. Moore, 422 F.3d 1246, 1252 (11th Cir. 2005). “While ‘reasonable suspicion’ is a less demanding standard than probable cause and requires a showing considerably less than preponderance of the evidence, the Fourth Amendment requires at least a minimal level of objective justification for making the stop.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123, 120 S. 8 Ct. 673, 675-76, 145 L. Ed. 2d 570 (2000). The officer must “be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant [the] intrusion.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S. Ct. at 1880. Reasonable suspicion does not, however, “require officers to catch the suspect in a crime.” Acosta, 363 F.3d at 1145. Because the officers knew that McCoy was a convicted felon, specific and articulable facts supported their reasonable belief upon seeing the firearm in the apartment that McCoy had committed or was committing the crime of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Accordingly, the officers had the requisite suspicion of criminal activity when they detained McCoy and conducted the patdown. The district court did not err, therefore, by denying McCoy’s motion to suppress the keys.