Opinion ID: 662420
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Prior Offer to Sell

Text: 30 The government also claims on appeal that when stopping Lawson, the officers recognized him as the person who had, one week prior to the stop, aborted a proposed sale of drugs to the officers upon realizing their true identity. While Officers Nassar and Croson did testify about such a prior offer to sell, neither the trial court, nor the government, relied in any way on this alleged prior undercover transaction as a factor establishing articulable suspicion to stop appellant. 31 After the Court's own questioning elicited Officer Nassar's first testimony about the prior offer to sell, the following colloquy ensued: 32 Ms. Marshall (Defense): Your Honor, for the record, that is the first time I had ever heard of that at all. 33 The Court: Heard of what? 34 Ms. Marshall: What that Officer testified, what the Court elicited, and I take it the government is not going to try to elicit that in any fashion in this case, [be]cause it's not in any of the paperwork or anything. I had never heard of it. 35 Mr. Molock (Prosecution): To respond to that, that is correct, we certainly do not intend to offer that, your Honor, just things dealing with this case. 36 The Court: All right. 37 [T.31-32.] While government counsel might be read only to be declaring his intention not to elicit testimony about the prior undercover investigation at the upcoming trial, the exchange can also be read plausibly as declaring the government's intention not to rely on the undercover operation at the suppression hearing itself to buttress the legality of the stop. The colloquy is truly cloudy. It was the court--never the government--who elicited the testimony concerning this prior undercover operation; the government in its summation at the suppression hearing did not mention the undercover operation; and the court itself subsequently did not mention the undercover incident either in its oral ruling or its written memorandum. 38 While the Court did make a general statement that it credited the officers' testimony in its memorandum opinion, it did so only in the context of the conflicting testimony as to the voluntariness of the consent to search, not in relation to the circumstances of the stop itself. And there was conflicting testimony as to the events leading to the stop. For instance, Officer Nassar testified that at the time he originally received the anonymous tip (after he had already witnessed Lawson and Erky Berk together) he did not know the tipster was referring to Lawson in particular[,] I knew it was the guy in the wheelchair with Erky Berk, that's about all I knew. [T.28.] This testimony could be viewed as not entirely consistent with Officer Nassar's claim that he recognized appellant just a few minutes later as the person who had previously offered to sell him drugs. 39 Probably because evidence about the prior drug sale was not purposefully elicited by the government in the course of its case nor ever mentioned by the court in its opinion, the record in its present state does not focus on the occurrence of any prior offer to sell with the certainty necessary for us, on appeal, to rely on it as a factor justifying the search. See United States v. Garrett, 720 F.2d 705, 710 (D.C.Cir.1983) (where the correctness of the district court's decision depends upon a determination of fact which only a [fact-finder] could make but which has not been made, the appellate court cannot take the place of the [fact-finder] (quoting SEC v. Chenery, 318 U.S. 80, 88 (1943)), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1037 (1984). 40 If the district court on remand were to find that Officer Nassar or Officer Croson recognized Lawson as the person who they reasonably believed had previously offered to sell them drugs, it could conclude that (in light of the tip and Lawson's presence in a neighborhood known for drug sales) the officers had the requisite articulable suspicion to justify stopping Lawson. Cf. Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925) (probable cause found to stop and search automobile of defendants who had on prior occasion aborted illegal sale of liquor to undercover officers and were subsequently seen together underway to and from a center for bootlegging). Therefore, we remand the record to the trial court to determine whether the Officers reasonably believed Lawson to have attempted to sell illegal drugs to Officers Nassar and Croson prior to the time of the stop. Because we believe that defense counsel may have been as confused as we are about the government's intention to rely on the prior offer to sell drugs as buttressing the legality of the stop, the district court shall hold additional hearings to determine whether reliance on any prior offer to sell as a basis to stop Lawson was justified, and reconsider the suppression motion in light of his new findings.