Opinion ID: 2751496
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Investigatory Stop of Palmer

Text: Under the Fourth Amendment, a police officer may stop and briefly detain an individual for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person was or is involved in criminal activity. United States v. Lewis, 674 F.3d 1298, 1303 (11th Cir. 2012) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19-20, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1878 (1968)). We determine whether an investigatory stop is lawful under the Fourth Amendment by considering (1) “whether the stop was justified at its inception,” and (2) “whether the stop was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the stop in the first place.” United States v. Griffin, 1 In reviewing motions to suppress, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and the district court’s application of the law to the facts de novo. United States v. Bervaldi, 226 F.3d 1256, 1262 (11th Cir. 2000). We construe the facts in the light most favorable to the party prevailing below. Id. 4 Case: 14-11784 Date Filed: 11/14/2014 Page: 5 of 8 696 F.3d 1354, 1358 (11th Cir. 2012), cert. denied, 571 U.S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 956 (2014). Further, “[w]hen the police have probable cause to arrest one party, and when they reasonably mistake a second party for the first party, then the arrest of the second party is a valid arrest.” Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 802, 91 S. Ct. 1106, 1110 (1971) (quotation marks omitted) (explaining that the officers’ reasonable, good-faith belief that Miller was Hill, coupled with probable cause to arrest Hill, satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement); see also United States v. Gonzalez, 969 F.3d 999, 1004-06 (11th Cir. 1992) (explaining that an officer’s objectively reasonable, good-faith misidentification while conducting surveillance may support probable cause to arrest). Here, it is undisputed that the officers had a warrant to arrest Kyle Williams for aggravated assault. Based on the information they received about Williams’s whereabouts and the photograph and physical description of Williams, the officers reasonably suspected that the man they saw standing with a group of people at the Stafford Avenue residence was Williams. 2 Nothing suggests that the officers’ belief that the man was Williams was anything other than a reasonable mistake. 2 The officers did not improperly rely on the tip about Williams’s purported location. The officers’ independent observations of a man matching Williams’ description standing with a group of people in front of the Stafford Avenue home sufficiently corroborated the tip. 5 Case: 14-11784 Date Filed: 11/14/2014 Page: 6 of 8 And, the mere fact that the man turned out not to be Williams does not make his brief detention unreasonable. Cf. Hill, 401 U.S. at 802-04, 91 S. Ct. at 1110-11. At a minimum, the officers were warranted in briefly detaining Palmer to investigate whether he in fact was Williams. The officers quickly determined— within several minutes—that Palmer was not Williams and released him. In short, the officers’ brief detention of Palmer to confirm whether he was Williams was justified at its inception and reasonably related in scope to the purpose of the stop, which was to arrest Williams.