Court Opinion

ID: 9960508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-16 15:01:18.235107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:19:32.800440
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
         FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 19, 2023             Decided April 16, 2024

                        No. 22-3024

                UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                        APPELLEE

                              v.

   DEANGELO EVANS, ALSO KNOWN AS DEANGELO EVENS,
                     APPELLANT

        Appeal from the United States District Court
                for the District of Columbia
                   (No. 1:19-cr-00328-1)

    Stuart A. Berman, appointed by the court, argued the cause
and filed the briefs for appellant.

    Chimnomnso N. Kalu, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the
cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Chrisellen R.
Kolb and John P. Mannarino, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

    Before: MILLETT and RAO, Circuit Judges, and GINSBURG,
Senior Circuit Judge.

    Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge
GINSBURG.
                                2
   GINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge:

                        I.   Introduction

    Deangelo Evans was a passenger in a car pulled over by
United States Park Police officers after they observed several
traffic violations. During the traffic stop, a protective pat-down
search of Evans revealed a firearm in his waistband. Evans was
arrested and subsequently charged with being a felon in pos-
session of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

    At trial, Evans moved to suppress physical evidence,
namely the firearm, and related statements he had allegedly
made during his arrest. The district court denied Evans’s mo-
tion, holding the protective pat-down search was justified.
Evans was convicted following a stipulated trial that preserved
his right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to
suppress.

    Evans has now exercised that right. Because the district
court did not commit any error of law or clear error of fact in
ruling on the motion to suppress, we affirm the judgment of the
district court.

                       II.   Background

    On September 24, 2019, Park Police Officers David Payne
and Lawrence Sinacore were on patrol in an unmarked car in
the District of Columbia. While in a residential neighborhood
with a posted speed limit of 25 miles per hour, the officers ob-
served a car drive past them at a high rate of speed. The officers
followed the car and saw it run two stop signs, after which they
turned on their flashing lights and pulled the car over.
                               3
    Officer Payne approached the driver, Aniya Derrington,
and asked her for her driver’s license. When she said that she
did not have one, Officer Payne asked her to step out of the car
and to allow him to search the car, which she did. Meanwhile,
Officer Sinacore asked the passenger, Deangelo Evans, to get
out of the car. Officer Payne testified that Evans stepped out
with a “strange motion,” by turning his back to Officer
Sinacore instead of facing him. Officer Sinacore testified that
Evans “instantly put his waistband area towards the actual ve-
hicle, so you would only see his back.”

    After Evans stepped out of the car, Officer Sinacore asked
for his consent to do a pat-down search, which Evans refused.
One of the officers then asked Evans to step to the sidewalk.
Around this time the officers noticed that Evans, who was
wearing tight black jeans and a black shirt, had a bulge in his
waistband and a “large bulge going down his pant leg.” Soon
after moving to the sidewalk, Evans asked to sit down, which
the officers permitted as long as Evans kept his hands away
from his waistband.

    Shortly thereafter, Officer Payne called for backup. Mean-
while, Officer Sinacore conducted a cursory search of the ve-
hicle, but testified that he was “uncomfortable” doing so be-
cause he “believed [he] had [his] back turned to an armed
man.” A minute or so later, when additional Park Police offic-
ers arrived on the scene, Officer Payne told them he believed
Evans probably had a gun. Officers Sinacore and Payne then
asked Evans to stand up, restrained him, conducted a pat-down
search, and discovered the firearm in his waistband. After a
struggle, the officers handcuffed Evans and recovered a hand-
gun with a 30-round extended magazine. They arrested Evans,
and a grand jury subsequently returned a charge of being a
felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1).
                                4

     At trial, Evans moved to suppress the physical evidence
(the firearm) and related statements, arguing they were the
product of an unlawful stop, search, and arrest. Although
Evans acknowledged that, under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1
(1968), police officers may temporarily detain a person in an
investigatory stop, he argued that the officers who searched and
arrested him lacked reasonable, articulable suspicion that he
was armed or dangerous. Evans claims the traffic stop and the
subsequent pat-down search were pretextual. He conceded
that, had the officers noticed a bulge that appeared to be a fire-
arm, the officers would have had sufficient justification to con-
duct a protective pat-down. He maintained, however, that the
officers did not actually see a bulge and that their conduct was
not consistent with their claim of having seen one. In support,
Evans flagged several unusual details about the stop and some
discrepancies in the officers’ testimony.

     The district court denied the motion to suppress. The court
concluded, “In light of all of that testimony, and all of the evi-
dence . . . the Government[’]s [e]xhibits, and some of the de-
fense exhibits . . . the protective pat down for weapons was
fully justified by the bulge in the defendant’s pants.” The court
found the officers’ testimony credible, noting that the fitted
clothing Evans wore, Evans’s slim build, and the size of the
gun and magazine were consistent with the officers’ testimony,
notwithstanding the idiosyncrasies Evans had highlighted.

     After Evans’s motion to suppress was denied, he agreed to
a stipulated bench trial while reserving his right to appeal the
denial of his motion to suppress. Evans was then found guilty
of violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and now appeals.
                                5
                  III.   Standard of Review

    Evans argues again on appeal that the firearm and his re-
lated statements should have been suppressed as the product of
a search and seizure made in violation of the Fourth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We re-
view the district court’s findings of fact only for clear error.
United States v. Broadie, 452 F.3d 875, 879 (D.C. Cir. 2006).

                         IV.    Analysis

    Because Evans has conceded the officers would have had
sufficient justification to conduct a protective pat-down had
they in fact seen a bulge in his pants, the sole issue on appeal
is whether the district court clearly erred when it credited the
police officers’ testimony that they initiated a Terry frisk only
after they saw a bulge in Mr. Evans’s pants that they believed
might be a gun. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 30 (“where a police
officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably
to conclude . . . the persons with whom he is dealing may be
armed and presently dangerous, . . . he is entitled for the pro-
tection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully
limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an at-
tempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault
him”).

    Credibility determinations “are entitled to the greatest def-
erence from this court on appeal.” Broadie, 452 F.3d at 880;
see also United States v. Anderson, 881 F.2d 1128, 1142
(D.C. Cir. 1989) (“credibility determinations . . . are not for us
to second guess”). To attempt to overcome this high bar, Evans
argues that, owing to numerous inconsistencies, the officers’
testimony is “so internally inconsistent or implausible on its
face that a reasonable factfinder would not credit it.” Anderson
v. City of Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 575 (1985).
                                6
Evans notes, among other details, Officer Sinacore’s decision
to turn his back to Evans while searching the car; the decision
to let Evans sit on the sidewalk rather than pat him down im-
mediately upon noticing the bulge; inconsistencies between the
two officers’ descriptions of the nature of Evans’s movement
when he was stepping out of the car; the officers’ failure to note
anything about vehicle speed in their initial report; and the in-
consistency between Officer Payne’s testimony before the
grand jury and in the suppression hearing regarding when the
officers called for backup.

    Although “we reverse when a district court credits exceed-
ingly improbable testimony,” the inconsistencies Evans identi-
fies do not meet that standard. United States v. Tucker, 12 F.4th
804, 813 (2021). Here, the officers’ testimony is consistent
with the undisputed size and position of the gun and its 30-
round magazine, as well as the photographic evidence depict-
ing Evans’s attire and the gun as the officers found it in Evan’s
waistband. The inconsistencies that Evans identifies, as in
Broadie, “may have been the result of faulty memories” or a
“lack of precision in the police reports,” but the “inconsisten-
cies were not so glaring that the police officers’ testimony must
be a fabrication.” 452 F.3d at 880 (cleaned up). Therefore, the
district court’s decision to credit the officers’ testimony,
though not inevitable, is not clearly erroneous.

                        V.    Conclusion

    For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district
court is
                                         Affirmed.