Court Opinion

ID: 9397262
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-24 21:00:29.119065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:22.756397
License: Public Domain

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                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 22-4154

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff - Appellee,

                     v.

        RASHAN FRANKLIN,

                            Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at
        Danville. Michael F. Urbanski, Chief District Judge. (4:20-cr-00019-MFU-1)

        Submitted: May 3, 2023                                            Decided: May 23, 2023

        Before HARRIS and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge.

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Juval O. Scott, Federal Public Defender, Charlottesville, Virginia, Monica D.
        Cliatt, First Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC
        DEFENDER, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellant. Christopher R. Kavanaugh, United States
        Attorney, Roanoke, Virginia, S. Cagle Juhan, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE
        OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Rashan Franklin entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of a firearm by a

        felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C §§ 922(g)(1), reserving, in his plea agreement, the right to

        appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. On appeal, Franklin argues that

        the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the firearm, which was seized

        from the kitchen cabinet of an apartment in which Franklin was a guest. We affirm.

               We review de novo a district court’s legal conclusions in denying a motion to

        suppress and review its factual findings for clear error, viewing the evidence in the light

        most favorable to the Government. United States v. Pulley, 987 F.3d 370, 376 (4th Cir.

        2021). We will find clear error only when we are “left with the definite and firm conviction

        that a mistake has been committed.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). “The Fourth

        Amendment protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,

        and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” United States v. Small, 944 F.3d

        490, 501 (4th Cir. 2019) (cleaned up).

               Franklin first contends that the officers exceeded the scope of the apartment tenant’s

        consent to enter the apartment. “Consent to a search or for entry into one’s home must be

        knowing and voluntary.” United States v. Ojedokun, 16 F.4th 1091, 1113 (4th Cir. 2021)

        (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 2780 (2022). “The question of

        whether consent to a search is voluntary—as distinct from being the product of duress or

        coercion, express or implied—is one of fact to be determined from the totality of all the

        circumstances.” Id. at 1113-14 (internal quotation marks omitted). “When there is no

        question that consent was voluntary, the scope of that consent is assessed by considering

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        what the typical reasonable person would have understood by the exchange between the

        officer and the suspect.” Id. (cleaned up). Upon review, we discern no clear error in the

        district court’s finding that the tenant validly consented for officers to enter the apartment

        and that the officers did not exceed the scope of that consent.

               Next, Franklin argues that the officers’ presence in the apartment amounted to a

        seizure, and that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to seize him. Assuming, as the

        district court did, that the encounter changed in character from consensual to a seizure at

        some point, we conclude that, under the totality of the circumstances, the officers had

        reasonable suspicion to seize Franklin both before and after they found the gun. Consistent

        with the Fourth Amendment, “[a]n officer may stop and briefly detain a person when the

        officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be

        engaged in criminal activity.” United States v. Montieth, 662 F.3d 660, 665 (4th Cir. 2011)

        (internal quotation marks omitted). To justify the particular intrusion, “the police officer

        must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational

        inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1,

        21 (1968). “Thus, a court must look to the totality of the circumstances in determining

        whether the officer had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting criminal

        activity.” United States v. Foster, 634 F.3d 243, 246 (4th Cir. 2011). Here, several specific

        and articulable facts existed that reasonably warranted a brief seizure of Franklin. A 911

        caller reported that the tenant and Franklin had repeatedly attempted to break into a unit

        she believed to be vacant in her apartment building. Next, one officer had relayed that the

        tenant and Franklin were smoking marijuana—an activity that was illegal at the time.

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        Another officer, who was viewing the tenant and Franklin from outside the apartment,

        through a first-floor window, observed Franklin quickly place something into the kitchen

        cabinet when Franklin realized that police had arrived at the apartment door. These

        circumstances provided a particularized and objective basis for the officers to briefly seize

        Franklin.

               Finally, Franklin asserts that the officers’ search of the kitchen cabinet was

        unlawful. Franklin contends that because the officers threatened Franklin that they would

        obtain a warrant to search the cabinet, their coercive language rendered involuntary the

        tenant’s subsequent consent to search the cabinet. Upon review, we conclude that the

        district court did not clearly err in determining that the tenant’s consent was voluntary.

               Accordingly, we affirm the criminal judgment. We dispense with oral argument

        because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this

        court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

                                                                                        AFFIRMED

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