Court Opinion

ID: 9492765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:50:10.943275+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:29.208518
License: Public Domain

LAY, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent.
There is little doubt that this is an illegal search violating the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Consequently, the seizure of the weapon from the defendant should have been suppressed. When considering the totality of the record, it is clear that Officer Veliz’s actions in this case rested solely upon a police officer’s racial-drug profiling which guided him throughout the circumstances involved. This is made clear in the four-page written report filed by Officer Veliz shortly after the incident took place.4 Veliz testified that his particularized report stated “I approached the two defendants and asked them if I could talk to them. The defendants agreed. Because I have recovered narcotics and guns in the past, I did a pat search of the defendant’s outer garments.” Tr. 36-37. (emphasis added). Significantly, the report does not record any suspicious or furtive acts by either Blount or Davis that would support Veliz’s decision to frisk either of the two men. Based on Officer Veliz’s initial report, there can be little question that the frisk and “search” of both men was conducted solely because of Officer Veliz’s appraisal of the racial and narcotic profile of the two men.
Further, it is significant to me that omitted from the majority opinion is any reference to the fact that the government conceded at oral argument on appeal that there was no articulable, reasonable grounds or suspicion for the officer to pat down Blount and that the search of Blount was unconstitutional. I deem such an admission significant. Although the majority opinion chooses to treat the parties separately, it is clear from police reports and the record that both parties were treated alike by Officer Veliz. Officer Veliz testified, as he also set forth in his report, that the search of both men was performed simply because he had recovered narcotics and guns at that apartment building on prior occasions.
There is perhaps no other area of constitutional law in which there exists more conflicting judicial opinions than in the field of search and seizure. The Supreme Court, in its explication of this often misunderstood doctrine of constitutional law, has attempted to direct lower courts to balance the protection of individual privacy with officer safety, while affording a necessary tool for law enforcement. For appellate courts to effect a fair balance, however, it is imperative that they stay within the boundaries of the factual record and consider the totality of the sequential facts. I respectfully submit this has not been done here.
There is no question Officer Veliz observed two black men, the defendant, Clayton Davis and his uncle, Quinton Blount, coming from the rear of a twenty-six-unit apartment building near downtown Minneapolis one afternoon. The record reflects that Davis and Blount walked to the front door of the building, at which time the officer approached the two men. The officer asked if he could talk to them. As the majority sets forth, the two men consented and, in fact, Blount immediately handed Officer Veliz his driver’s license and stated he was visiting his aunt in the apartment building. Without seeking permission from either Blount or Davis, Officer Veliz immediately conducted a pat-down search of both men because, as Officer Veliz testified, he had been involved in a prior narcotic and weapon arrest at that apartment building.
Aso omitted from the majority opinion is the factual scenario that Officer Veliz’s written report remained intact until shortly before trial when he prepared a one-page supplement to the report. Athough the record does not specifically identify the *1065date of the first written supplement, Officer Veliz testified that officers prepare written supplements when called to court to “refresh” their recollection of the events that took place, and to prevent officer embarrassment by defense attorneys. In his first written supplement and in his testimony given at the suppression hearing some four months after the incident, Veliz, for the first time, raises additional facts not included in the first detailed report. He wrote: “When I looked at [Davis] he appeared nervous and put his hand inside one of his jacket pockets. Because I recovered narcotics and guns in the past and for officer safety, I did a pat search of AP2, Blount.” These facts, however, express nothing more than an inchoate suspicion or hunch by Officer Veliz leading to the search of Davis and his uncle.
Officer Veliz subsequently filed a second supplementary report. Again, it is unclear when this report was written in relation to the writing of the main report. It is reasonable, however, to assume this supplementary report was written near the time of Veliz’s testimony at the suppression hearing. This time, Veliz amended his report to indicate that while he was searching Blount, Davis positioned himself behind the officer and “had a hand in his pocket.”
Thus, even before the suppression hearing, Veliz had changed his original report on two occasions. He then changed his rendition of the facts for a third time at the suppression hearing. On cross-examination, Officer Veliz testified to the following: “He was — he positioned himself behind me while I was searching Blount. And then when I looked at him that’s when he began leaning back and he was moving his jacket.” The record before us reveals that none of these details are in the written reports.
There is no question Veliz’s vacillating, contradictory reports make his credibility difficult to accept; however, even assuming the final version of his testimony is true, there is no legal basis to accept his explanation as constitutionally sufficient to justify a search. The majority finds from the innocuous facts of Davis putting his hand in his coat pocket, leaning back and moving his jacket, that there is some reasonable objective grounds to believe that the officer had a sufficient basis to conduct a protective search. In my judgment, this is a complete non sequitur. Such testimony in no way supports a reasonable belief that the officer’s life was in fact placed in danger.
The majority holding is directly contrary to the United States Supreme Court opinion in Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 64, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968), in which the Court observed: “In the case of the self-protective search for weapons, [the officer] must be able to point to particular facts from which [the officer] reasonably inferred that the individual was armed and dangerous.” In Sibron, the Supreme Court felt that the defendant’s act of putting his hands in his pocket did not give rise to a reasonable fear for the police officer’s safety. There is no basis to suggest that Veliz’s belief stands on a different footing. Where an officer conducts a protective frisk based only on a hunch or ungrounded suspicion that an individual might be carrying a weapon, such speculative suspicion cannot serve as a constitutionally reasonable ground for a Terry-type frisk. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).
Constrained by Officer Veliz’s admission that Davis and Blount were doing nothing that aroused his suspicion of criminal activity, the majority asserts that this case falls outside the context of an investigative stop which requires a reasonable articula-ble suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. In such a consensual encounter, however, the admitted absence of the requisite suspicion of criminal activity is all the more reason to hold that a reasonable person would not possess sufficient objective facts to say that the behavior of Davis or Blount provided reasonable grounds for the officer to believe that his safety was threatened. Id. at 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (pro*1066tective frisk reasonable under Fourth Amendment where “officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous”) (emphasis added).
It should be kept in mind that this incident took place on February 10, 1998, and although the temperature is not recorded, this court should take judicial notice that it would not be unusual for a person standing outdoors in a Minnesota winter to place his hands in his jacket pockets. Whether Davis had his hands inside the pockets, or whether he later put them there, this behavior certainly does not, in itself, establish reasonable grounds to believe that the officer’s safety was in danger. This is particularly true, as previously stated, because the defendant and his uncle were in fact cooperative and voluntarily discussed this entire matter with the officer without any force or coercion. The fact that one has “moved” his jacket, without more, does not serve as additional reasonable grounds for an officer to believe the defendant was carrying a weapon, see United States v. Davis, 94 F.3d 1465, 1469 (10th Cir.1996) (no particularized basis for suspecting defendant was armed where defendant had his hands in his coat pockets on a winter night in Oklahoma), nor does the fact that a defendant may have appeared to an officer to be “nervous” provide sufficient constitutional basis to believe a putative defendant may be carrying a gun. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 506, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); United States v. O’Neal, 17 F.3d 239, 241-42 (8th Cir.1994) (“ ‘becoming nervous when one is confronted by officers of the law is not an uncommon reaction’ ”) (quoting United States v. White, 890 F.2d 1413, 1418 (8th Cir.1989)).
When one reflects on the entire factual record, it is difficult to say that the ensuing search of Davis should be upheld. I would reverse.

. Officer Veliz testified at the suppression hearing that he attempted to make the report as detailed and "accurate as possible” because he knew that "people rely upon these reports” and that these reports are necessary to decide whether to charge an individual.