Opinion ID: 2649557
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alton Coles

Text: Coles raises two issues on appeal. First, he contends that the District Court erred when it denied his motion to suppress a firearm that was discovered on his person during a frisk. Second, he argues that the District Court committed plain error by imposing multiple consecutive sentences for possessing firearms in furtherance of a drugtrafficking crime that were based on the same predicate conspiracy offense.
On March 27, 2004, Coles was stopped by Officers Williams and Younger of the Philadelphia police who found him sitting in his car, blocking traffic. He did not respond when the officers sounded their regular car horn, but “took off” when they sounded their air horn. Coles App. 16. The officers turned on their lights and sirens and followed him to cite him for a traffic violation. The officers approached the car and spoke with Coles. According to Officer Younger’s testimony at the suppression hearing, Coles was “very agitated” during the stop, challenging the stop, refusing to provide identification, and making “a lot of hand movement” while keeping his right hand close to his right waistband. Supp. App. 8-9. Officer Younger observed that Coles leaned away from 23 Officer Williams and that when Coles put his hands in the air, he kept his left hand higher than his right, which indicated to Officer Younger that Coles “was holding or concealing something to the right side of his body.” Supp. App. 9. Based on this suspicion, Officer Williams frisked Coles while he remained in the car and felt what he believed was a gun near Coles’s right hip. Officer Younger drew his gun and Officer Williams reached into the car and removed the firearm from Coles’s waistband. They then took Coles into custody. As explained above, we review a district court’s order denying a motion to suppress for clear error as to its factual findings and exercise plenary review of its application of the law to those facts. Perez, 280 F.3d at 336. Here, Coles does not challenge the District Court’s factual findings. He only contends that the frisk violated the Fourth Amendment. Under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), an officer may conduct a brief investigatory stop of a person when the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person is connected with criminal activity. Id. at 20. The officer may then conduct a pat-down search for weapons if he has a reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and dangerous, id. at 24, meaning that “a reasonably prudent [person] in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his [or her] safety or that of others was in danger,” id. at 27. The determination is based on the totality of the circumstances, including the officers’ “own experience and specialized training . . . .” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002). The totality of the circumstances here warranted the pat-down. In United States v. Moorefield, 111 F.3d 10 (3d Cir. 1997), we held that a pat-down during a traffic stop was 24 appropriate where the defendant had not obeyed officers’ orders and had made furtive movements, “rais[ing] and lower[ing] his hands several times.” Id. at 14. Here, Coles similarly did not comply with officers’ orders to provide his identification and suspiciously kept his right hand close to his right side, leaned away from Officer Williams, and did not fully raise his right hand in a way that suggested he was concealing something. Thus, Officer Younger identified a specific and articulable basis to believe that Coles may have been armed, warranting a pat-down search. The District Court did not err when it declined to suppress the firearm that the pat-down revealed.22
Coles next argues, and the Government concedes, that his convictions on Counts 70 and 72 for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime should be vacated because they are based on the same predicate crime, conspiracy to distribute drugs, which was the basis for the conviction on Count 68. After Coles was tried, we decided United States v. Diaz, 592 F.3d 467 (3d Cir. 2010), in which we held that multiple convictions for violating 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) based on the same predicate offense violated the Double Jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment. Diaz, 592 F.3d at 475. Under Diaz, therefore, Coles’s convictions for violating § 924(c) in Counts 70 and 72 cannot stand because they both depend on the same predicate drug trafficking offense as the § 924(c) conviction in Count 68. Accordingly, we will vacate the convictions on Counts 70 and 72 and remand to the District Court for entry of an amended judgment. 22 Coles attempts to distinguish Moorefield on the ground that his hand motions were objectively less suspicious than the defendant in that case. We defer to the District Court’s fact findings on a motion to suppress, United States v. Perez, 280 F.3d 318, 336 (3d Cir. 2002), and are satisfied that those facts support a reasonable suspicion that justified a Terry pat-down. 25