Opinion ID: 6334236
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reasonable Suspicion Supported Each Pat-Down

Text: On appeal, Smith concedes that the traffic stop itself was lawful and that Officer Holden had reasonable suspicion to conduct the initial pat-down. By contrast, he contends that the second and third pat-downs lacked reasonable suspicion and were based on no more than a hunch that Smith was hiding something. We have explained that “it is not necessarily unreasonable for police to frisk a person more than once,” and “[t]here are No. 21-1266 7 many cases where a first frisk misses a hidden weapon, sometimes with consequences that are serious or worse.” Howard, 729 F.3d at 662. “The propriety of the second frisk turns on whether [the officer] had reasonable suspicion to believe that [a person], at the moment [the officer] frisked him, was a threat to officer safety.” Id. In other words, what happened between each frisk is crucial to the analysis.
After the initial pat-down, Officer Holden asked Smith and Naylor to walk over to the police car so he could see them while running their names through a law-enforcement database. In the process, Officer Holden observed Smith’s unusual side-to-side walk and saw Smith resting his pelvis on the front of the police car. When Officer Holden completed the database search, he asked Smith to walk with him back to Naylor’s car. Smith continued to brush off Officer Holden’s questions about what he was hiding. That’s when Officer Holden performed the second pat-down. On these facts, the second pat-down was reasonable. Officer Holden had seen Smith walk twice between the cars, repeatedly rest his pelvis against the cars as if to prop something up, and continue to appear unusually nervous. An officer in those circumstances could reasonably infer that Smith was hiding a weapon in his pants. Cf. United States v. Weaver, 9 F.4th 129, 147 (2d Cir. 2021) (en banc) (holding that reasonable suspicion supported frisk where defendant repeatedly made “suspicious movements concentrated around his waist and pelvis, where a firearm might easily be concealed,” including pressing his pelvis against the vehicle). The second pat-down was also tailored to the situation and minimally invasive: Officer Holden’s body-cam video shows that he 8 No. 21-1266 simply shook Smith’s pant legs to see if something would fall out. Smith protests that Officer Holden could not have actually believed he was hiding a weapon because, before the second pat-down, Officer Holden offered to uncuff one of Smith’s hands so he could retrieve whatever was in his pants. In Smith’s view, no reasonable officer would uncuff a person who the officer believed was armed and dangerous. Although this argument has some force, we reject it for two reasons. First, Officer Holden need not have been certain that Smith was hiding a weapon as opposed to drugs or other contraband before conducting the second pat-down. See Ford, 872 F.3d at 414–15; United States v. Brown, 188 F.3d 860, 866 (7th Cir. 1999). What matters is whether a reasonable officer would fear for his safety at that moment in time. Second, even if Officer Holden suspected that Smith was merely hiding drugs, an officer’s subjective beliefs are irrelevant to the reasonable suspicion inquiry; courts ask whether, in light of the facts available to the officer at the time, a reasonable officer would have believed that the person was armed and dangerous. See United States v. Patton, 705 F.3d 734, 738 (7th Cir. 2013) (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 27). As explained above, the answer to that question is yes.
The final pat-down occurred after Officer Holden asked Smith to walk from Naylor’s car to the police car yet again. This time, Officer Holden asked if Smith was injured because he had an exaggerated limp. Smith responded that he had been in a car accident. At that point, Officer Holden conducted a more thorough pat-down of Smith’s groin area and No. 21-1266 9 felt a hard metal object, which turned out to be a loaded handgun. Smith argues that a reasonable officer should have accepted his story about injuring his leg in a car accident and left it at that. But we cannot say that the district court’s credibility finding in favor of Officer Holden’s testimony was clearly erroneous. See Richmond, 924 F.3d at 410–11. Based on the body-camera footage, it is difficult for this court to determine whether Smith’s walk was indicative of an injury or something else. We defer to the district court’s finding that Smith’s behavior prior to the final pat-down elevated Officer Holden’s suspicions. In light of the totality of the circumstances—a nighttime traffic stop of an individual who appeared very nervous, walked strangely, and repeatedly rested his pelvis against cars as if to prop something up—we conclude that reasonable suspicion supported the final pat-down. As the district court observed, a contrary result would encourage more invasive initial pat-downs than the one that occurred here. Officer Holden’s first pat-down focused on “hot spots” like Smith’s waistband and pockets, the second pat-down consisted of shaking his pant legs, and only the third pat-down examined his groin area. Nonetheless, we caution that our holding turns on the particular facts of this case. Multiple pat-downs during a traffic stop are not the norm, and reasonable suspicion must support each pat-down as the stop unfolds.