Court Opinion

ID: 9692718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:01:42.988133+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:06.571269
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12031    Document: 29-1     Date Filed: 08/25/2023   Page: 1 of 9

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-12031
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiff-Appellee,
       versus
       LEE RODGER LARSON,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cr-00026-AW-GRJ-1
                          ____________________
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       2                           Opinion of the Court                        22-12031

       Before BRANCH, GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Lee Larson conditionally pleaded guilty to two charges
       relating to the unlawful possession of a short-barreled shotgun. As
       part of his plea, he reserved his right to challenge the district court’s
       denial of his motion to suppress evidence. He now exercises that
       right, appealing that denial to this Court. Because Larson was not
       detained until after the arresting officer had reasonable suspicion
       that he was in possession of stolen property, we affirm.
                                               I.
              At about 10:30 p.m. on May 31, 2021, Lieutenant Rebecca
       Butscher saw Larson sitting next to a wheelchair and multiple bags
       on the side of West Newberry Road in Gainesville, Florida. Larson
       was eating food from a free food pantry that a church kept nearby.
       Butscher pulled over and turned on her vehicle’s spotlight and
       emergency lights. She and Larson talked, and she asked him for
       identification. When Larson opened his bag to look for his
       identification, Butscher shone her flashlight into his bag and saw a
       sheathed knife.1 Larson was unable to find his identification.

       1 Larson testified that he had already disclosed the existence of this knife before

       opening his bag—a detail that, if true, Butscher omitted from her testimony.
       The district court did not decide whether this disclosure occurred.
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       22-12031                   Opinion of the Court                        3

             Butscher was not particularly concerned about the knife, but
       she did ask Larson to move in front of her car while she ran his
       name and birthdate through the teletype. She discovered that he
       had an outstanding, non-extraditable Minnesota warrant for
       having received stolen property.
              Two or three more officers arrived on the scene, and they
       also pulled over and turned on their emergency lights. One of their
       vehicles had a dashcam video that Larson introduced into the
       record. Butscher and Larson continued talking about Larson’s
       homelessness, his recent arrival in Gainesville, and his criminal
       history including convictions for burglary and dealing in stolen
       property.
              Butscher then noticed that Larson had a stack of twenty-to-
       thirty vinyl records with him, which she suspected were stolen. 2
       She proceeded to pat him down, and he told her that he had a
       pocketknife, marijuana, and marijuana paraphernalia. He also
       volunteered that he had a sawed-off shotgun in one of his bags.
       Butscher immediately arrested Larson.
              Larson was indicted on two charges, possession of a firearm
       and ammunition as a felon and possession of an unregistered short-
       barreled shotgun. He pleaded not guilty and moved to suppress
       the evidence seized during the stop, arguing that he had been
       detained unconstitutionally from the beginning of his interaction

       2 Butscher later verified that the vinyl albums were not stolen.
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                 22-12031

       with Butscher and, in the alternative, that he was detained
       unconstitutionally at some later point. He specifically disclaimed
       any challenge to the search of his bag. The United States argued
       that the encounter was consensual until some point after Butscher
       developed reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause sufficient to
       justify any detention that occurred.
              After a hearing at which both Larson and Butscher testified,
       the court denied Larson’s motion to suppress. It reasoned that the
       encounter was consensual at least until Butscher saw the knife and
       that, at all points after that, she had reasonable suspicion to detain
       Larson—first due to the possession of the knife, and then due to
       the possibility that the vinyl records were stolen. Larson then
       changed his plea to a conditional guilty plea, and he now appeals
       the denial of the motion to suppress.
                                         II.
              “In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we uphold
       the district court’s findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous
       and review its application of law to those facts de novo.” United
       States v. Woodson, 30 F.4th 1295, 1302 (11th Cir. 2022). “We may
       affirm on any ground supported by the record.” Waldman v.
       Conway, 871 F.3d 1283, 1289 (11th Cir. 2017).
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       22-12031               Opinion of the Court                       5

                                       III.
                                       A.
              Larson first argues that he was unlawfully detained—either
       because he was detained without reasonable suspicion or because
       his detention was unlawfully prolonged.
               The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable
       searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV. Consistent with the
       Fourth Amendment, an officer may perform a limited
       investigatory detention of someone whom she reasonably suspects
       has committed criminal activity. United States v. Bruce, 977 F.3d
       1112, 1116 (11th Cir. 2020) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30
       (1968)). Such stops may last only as long as is necessary to achieve
       their limited investigatory purpose. See United States v. Campbell,
       26 F.4th 860, 882 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc). Additionally, with or
       without reasonable suspicion, an officer may approach an
       individual and ask him questions, so long as a “reasonable person
       would feel free to terminate the encounter.” United States v.
       Jordan, 635 F.3d 1181, 1186 (11th Cir. 2011) (quotation omitted).
               Working backward from the moment of Larson’s arrest, we
       first have no difficulty in determining that Butscher had reasonable
       suspicion to detain Larson from the moment she learned about the
       vinyl records until the moment she arrested him. Butscher knew
       that Larson had an outstanding warrant and prior conviction for
       dealing in stolen property. It is out-of-the-ordinary for a homeless
       man to be traveling with twenty-to-thirty antique vinyl records and
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                22-12031

       no record player or apparent reason for possessing the records.
       And the duration of any investigatory detention after Butscher
       became aware of the records was no longer than necessary for its
       investigatory purpose; after Butscher learned about the records,
       she asked to pat Larson down, and then he quickly admitted to
       possessing marijuana and the shotgun, giving Butscher probable
       cause to arrest him.
              Before Butscher learned about the vinyl records, we
       conclude that Larson had not been detained, because a reasonable
       person would have felt free to terminate the encounter. See
       Jordan, 635 F.3d at 1186. To determine whether an individual has
       been detained, we consider the following factors as part of a
       holistic, totality of the circumstances analysis: (1) “whether a
       citizen’s path is blocked or impeded”; (2) “whether identification is
       retained”; (3) “the suspect’s age, education and intelligence”; (4)
       “the length of the suspect’s detention and questioning”; (5) “the
       number of police officers present”; (6) “the display of weapons”; (7)
       “any physical touching of the suspect”; and (8) “the language and
       tone of voice of the police.” Id. (quotations omitted). Our
       consideration of the factors is not rigid, because the “ultimate
       inquiry remains whether a person’s freedom of movement was
       restrained by physical force or by submission to a show of
       authority.” Id.
              In this case, we consider factors (6), (7), and (8) to be
       particularly instructive. During the entire conversation with
       Larson before Butscher became aware of the vinyl records, no
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       22-12031                  Opinion of the Court                               7

       officer used any coercive means to indicate that Larson was not
       free to leave. As the district court specifically found, no weapon
       was drawn. No one touched Larson.3 And the interaction
       remained cordial; Larson and Butscher joked with each other, and
       Butscher did not curse, yell, threaten Larson, or otherwise engage
       in coercive speech.
              “There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a
       policeman from addressing questions to anyone on the streets.”
       Jordan, 635 F.3d at 1186 (quotation omitted). “Even when law
       enforcement officers have no basis for suspecting a particular
       individual, they may pose questions, ask for identification, and
       request consent to search luggage—provided they do not induce
       cooperation by coercive means.” United States v. Drayton, 536
       U.S. 194, 201 (2002). That is all that occurred here. Butscher, and
       then other officers, pulled over and asked Larson questions. But,
       at least prior to the patdown, they did not obtain Larson’s
       cooperation through any coercive force. Accordingly, Larson’s
       movement was not “restrained by physical force or by submission
       to a show of authority.” See Jordan, 635 F.3d at 1186.
             Larson counters by arguing that he was detained from the
       moment that Butscher asked for his identification on a deserted
       road late at night when he had no means to leave the situation

       3 Larson testified it was possible one of the officers besides Butscher touched

       his arm, but he was uncertain, and Larson was not touched in any extensive
       capacity prior to the pat down.
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       8                         Opinion of the Court                     22-12031

       other than by walking away. And he claims he subjectively did not
       believe he was free to leave. But when an officer asks for
       identification, that alone does not turn an encounter into a
       detention. Drayton, 536 U.S. at 201. Nor does Larson’s subjective
       sense of whether he was free to leave affect what is an objective
       inquiry. United States v. Knights, 989 F.3d 1281, 1286 (11th Cir.
       2021). The fact remains that, up until his patdown, the officers
       asked Larson questions without any display of coercive power.
       Such questions simply do not, on their own, amount to a detention
       under the Fourth Amendment.
             At all times prior to his arrest, Larson either was not
       detained or any detention was supported by reasonable suspicion.
       The district court therefore correctly denied Larson’s motion to
       suppress on this ground.
                                            B.
              Larson also argues that an illegal search occurred when
       Butscher shone her flashlight into his bag. But before the district
       court, he specifically disclaimed any challenge to the search of the
       bag. We therefore review the challenge to the search of the bag
       only for plain error.4

       4 Larson seeks to avoid plain error review by arguing that, once he raised a

       federal claim below, he may make any and all arguments in support of that
       claim on appeal. See Lebron v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 513 U.S. 374, 379
       (1995); Yee v. City of Escondido, 503 U.S. 519, 534–35 (1992). And he claims
       that his federal “claim” is that the evidence was obtained in violation of the
       Fourth Amendment. If we allowed Larson to define his claim at this high of a
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       22-12031                   Opinion of the Court                               9

               “When the explicit language of a statute or rule does not
       specifically resolve an issue, there can be no plain error where there
       is no precedent from the Supreme Court or this Court directly
       resolving it.” United States v. Kushmaul, 984 F.3d 1359, 1363 (11th
       Cir. 2021) (quotation omitted). Larson points to no precedent of
       this Court or the Supreme Court that establishes that shining a
       flashlight into an unzippered backpack constitutes a “search,” nor
       does the plain text of the Fourth Amendment resolve the question.
       This challenge thus fails plain error review.
                                          *       *       *
              Larson’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated, and
       the district court therefore correctly denied his motion to suppress
       evidence. We AFFIRM.

       level of generality, we would be making a mockery of our forfeiture caselaw.
       Because Larson did not challenge the search of the bag, the district court never
       analyzed the discrete issues posed by that search. That is why a defendant
       must specifically articulate an objection and the legal theory supporting it to
       preserve an issue for this Court’s review. United States v. Corbett, 921 F.3d
       1032, 1043 (11th Cir. 2019).