Opinion ID: 1546060
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pleasant-Bey's Challenge To The Terry Stop.

Text: Pleasant-Bey's first argument on appeal is that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence gathered at the traffic stop as a result of which he was arrested. We hold that the trial court correctly denied Pleasant-Bey's motion. The Fourth Amendment protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Herring v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 129 S.Ct. 695, 699, 172 L.Ed.2d 496 (2009) (quotation marks omitted). It is settled that the protections [of the Fourth Amendment] extend to brief investigatory stops of persons or vehicles that fall short of traditional arrest. United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)); see also Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 255, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007). In these so-called Terry stops, the balance between the public interest and the individual's right to personal security tilts in favor of a standard less than probable cause. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744 (quotation marks and citation omitted). Accordingly, in such cases, the Fourth Amendment is satisfied by reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity may be afoot. Id. (quotation marks omitted). To justify a Terry stop, the likelihood of criminal activity need not rise to the level required for probable cause, and it falls considerably short of satisfying a preponderance of the evidence standard. Id. at 274, 122 S.Ct. 744; see also Umanzor v. United States, 803 A.2d 983, 992 (D.C.2002). The Supreme Court has repeatedly taught that when making reasonable-suspicion determinations, reviewing courts must look at the `totality of the circumstances' of each case to see whether the detaining officer has a `particularized and objective basis' for suspecting legal wrongdoing. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744 (quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981)). Terry, in other words, precludes [a] divide-and-conquer analysis, Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 274, 122 S.Ct. 744, because `the whole may sometimes be more than the sum of its parts.' Umanzor, 803 A.2d at 993 (quoting Mayes v. United States, 653 A.2d 856, 864 (D.C. 1995)). An officer's inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch of criminal activity is insufficient to justify a stop. Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123-24, 120 S.Ct. 673, 145 L.Ed.2d 570 (2000) (quotation marks omitted); accord Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 274, 122 S.Ct. 744; Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868. That said, police officers [can] draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that `might well elude an untrained person.' Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744 (quoting Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418, 101 S.Ct. 690); see also Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 700, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996) (a police officer may draw inferences based on his own experience in deciding whether probable cause exists). Further, [a] determination that reasonable suspicion exists ... need not rule out the possibility of innocent conduct. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 277, 122 S.Ct. 744. In the end, the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is `reasonableness.' Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006), and an assessment of reasonableness should be informed by `(i) the public interest served by the seizure, (ii) the nature and scope of the intrusion, and (iii) the objective facts upon which the law enforcement officer relied in light of his knowledge and expertise.' Umanzor, 803 A.2d at 992 (quoting United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 561, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring)). In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress physical evidence, we defer to the trial court's factual findings unless clearly erroneous, and make an independent legal assessment as to whether there was reasonable suspicion for the stop. Umanzor, 803 A.2d at 991; accord Green v. United States, 974 A.2d 248, 255 (D.C. 2009). Reviewed under these standards, this is a straightforward case: the trial court correctly held that Officer Hall had objective justification to initiate the stop that led to Pleasant-Bey's arrest. The Cadillac initially caught Hall's attention because it had 54 series tagstags that Hall on several previous occasions knew to have been expired and this alone arguably gave Hall justification to investigate further. See United States v. Pina-Aboite, 109 Fed. Appx. 227, 229, 231 (10th Cir.2004) (officer had reasonable articulable suspicion to pull over car where police officer believed that car's license plate may have been expired based on number of license plate, even though license plate in fact was not expired); see also United States v. Jennings, 280 Fed.Appx. 836, 840 (11th Cir.2008) (decision to stop [vehicle] was reasonable where officer believed that the out-of-state temporary tag was expired and potentially had been altered). Hall's observations after he first noticed the Cadillac gave him additional justification to make the stop. First, the trial court credited Hall's testimony that the Cadillac accelerated after Hall made a U-turn to follow it. Hall's objectively reasonable belief that the Cadillac may have been attempting to flee him because he had noticed the expired tags gave him reason to suspect that criminal activity may have been afoot. See Wilson v. United States, 802 A.2d 367, 370 (D.C.2002) (`nervous, evasive behavior is a pertinent factor in determining reasonable suspicion') (quoting Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124, 120 S.Ct. 673). Second, after seeing the Cadillac arguably attempting to evade him, Hall observed it driving at an unreasonable speed through a parking lot fairly full of pedestrians. On these facts, Hall's decision to initiate the limited intrusion of a stop long enough to resolve the ambiguity in Pleasant-Bey's actions was eminently reasonable. Wilson, 802 A.2d at 370 (quotation marks omitted). Pleasant-Bey's arguments to the contrary rely on a hypertechnical view of the Fourth Amendment that finds no support in the law. Pleasant-Bey argues, for instance, that Hall unreasonably suspected that the Cadillac had expired tags because an official from the DMV testified that the 54-series tags were not recalled or expired as a general matter. But to make a Terry stop, the police do not have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that a defendant has committed or is about to commit a crime. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 274, 122 S.Ct. 744. In this case, it is undisputed that Hall previously had stopped cars that had expired 54-series tags that were expired. That not all 54-series tags were expired made Hall's suspicion of criminal activity no less reasonable than the officer's suspicion in Terry itself, where the suspects were merely pacing in front of and looking into a storean activity that, as a general matter, is non-culpable. Terry, 392 U.S. at 6, 88 S.Ct. 1868. Further, the fact that Hall's premise may have been not entirely accurate does not necessarily make his decision to investigate unreasonable. See, e.g., Duckett v. United States, 886 A.2d 548, 552 (D.C.2005). [2] At any rate, even if it was unreasonable for Officer Hall to suspect that the Cadillac had expired tags, that would not alter the result because Pleasant-Bey's speeding away from Hall and Pleasant-Bey's driving at an unreasonable rate of speed through the parking lot gave Hall ample reason to initiate a Terry stop. [3] Pleasant-Bey also arguesfor the first time on appealthat [t]ravelling at an `unreasonable speed' in the parking lot of a privately owned store does not violate any law of the District of Columbia. According to Pleasant-Bey, the District's speed restrictions apply only to publicly maintained ways, not to private grocery store parking lots, such as the lot in front of the Giant store where Pleasant-Bey was arrested. And if speeding in front of the Giant store is not a crime, the argument goes, then Officer Hall's suspicion that criminal activity was afoot was unreasonable and the seizure was invalid. We are not persuaded. For one thing, Pleasant-Bey's able trial counsel did not argue that the stop was unreasonable because it took place in the Giant parking lot, so this claim arguably should be reviewed for plain error alone. In any event, we conclude that the seizure was reasonable even if the District's traffic laws say nothing about treating the parking lot of a supermarket as though it were an Interstate highway. The government argues that under the community caretaking doctrine that the Supreme Court articulated in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973), Hall acted reasonably in response to Pleasant-Bey's driving in the parking lot. [4] It is not clear to us that Dombrowski applies in this context. That case involved a warrantless search of a car following an accident, not a Terry seizure, id. at 434-38, 93 S.Ct. 2523, and besides, [w]hat community caretaking involves and what boundaries upon it exist have simply not been explained to an extent that would permit us to comfortably apply that doctrine in this case. Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 554 (4th Cir.2009). Yet the government's basic point is undeniable. Officer Hall saw Pleasant-Bey driving in a parking lot fairly full of pedestrians at an unreasonable speed. The notion that the Fourth Amendment required Hall in these circumstances to shrug his shoulders, Umanzor, 803 A.2d at 995 (quotation marks omitted), is fanciful at best. The role of a peace officer includes preventing violence and restoring order, not simply rendering first aid to casualties. See Stuart, 547 U.S. at 406, 126 S.Ct. 1943 (upholding a warrantless entry into a home, an intrusion of far greater constitutional magnitude than a Terry stop, where officers responded to report of disturbance in a home). Pleasant-Bey cites no case holding a Terry stop invalid on facts comparable to those presented in this case, or suggesting that a Terry stop is reasonable only if the officer at the time of the seizure can identify with precision the title and section of the criminal code that the suspect is violating or threatens to violate. Pleasant-Bey's failure to cite such a case is unsurprising, for  Terry accepts the risk that officers may stop innocent people. Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 126, 120 S.Ct. 673. We also find meritless Pleasant-Bey's claim that Hall's testimony about the Cadillac's speeding through the parking lot was too conclusory to permit a Terry stop. To be sure, in order to make an independent assessment of the sufficiency of the basis for [a] stop ... [a] judge must be apprised of sufficient facts to enable him or her to evaluate the nature and reliability of that information. Milline v. United States, 856 A.2d 616, 619 (D.C. 2004) (quotation marks omitted). This standard, however, was easily satisfied in this case. Officer Hall personally observed the actions that led to the Terry stop, which is enough to distinguish this case from Milline and Ellis v. United States, 941 A.2d 1042 (D.C.2008), the cases that Pleasant-Bey says command a different result here. [5] Pleasant-Bey complains that the government presented no evidence regarding the approximate speed of the car, whether other cars or pedestrians were in or near the path of the Cadillac, or special conditions or hazards in the parking lot. That argument reflects a misunderstanding of the government's burden under Terry; the Fourth Amendment permits a police officer to conduct a Terry stop even if he cannot prove that the suspected crime has actually occurred, and a police officer may effect a limited seizure even if the harm threatened by a suspect has not taken place. In short, even taking the 54-series tags out of the equation, the stop here was a classic valid Terry seizure, and our decision follows a fortiori from Terry itself. In Terry, the officer who seized the suspects had not seen the suspects engage in any unlawful activity; all that the officer saw was measured pacing, peering and conferring on the part of the suspects acts that on their face are susceptible of an innocent explanation, but that the officer, using his experience, found suspicious in context. Terry, 392 U.S. at 6, 88 S.Ct. 1868; see also id. at 22-23, 88 S.Ct. 1868. In this case, Officer Hall saw a Cadillac driving at an unreasonable speed in a parking lot fairly full of pedestrians, an act that would raise the suspicion not only of a trained officer, but of anyone observing the situation. If the seizure in Terry was permissible, the seizure in this case was constitutional as well.