Court Opinion

ID: 9387207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-16 15:00:21.126851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:12.081298
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10306         Document: 00516712693             Page: 1      Date Filed: 04/14/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit
                                      ____________
                                                                               United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                        Fifth Circuit
                                       No. 22-10306
                                     Summary Calendar                                 FILED
                                     ____________                                 April 14, 2023
                                                                                 Lyle W. Cayce
   United States of America,                                                          Clerk

                                                                      Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Austin Carl Thomas Riggins,

                                               Defendant—Appellant.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 4:21-CR-273-1
                      ______________________________

   Before Stewart, Duncan, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          Austin Carl Thomas Riggins appeals his conditional guilty plea
   conviction for possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of
   methamphetamine. He argues that the district court erred by denying his
   motion to suppress evidence from a warrantless search triggered by a police
   officer’s plain-view sighting of a syringe in his jacket pocket.

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-10306      Document: 00516712693           Page: 2     Date Filed: 04/14/2023

                                     No. 22-10306

          In an appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress, we review the
   district court’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual determinations for
   clear error. United States v. Garcia-Lopez, 809 F.3d 834, 838 (5th Cir. 2016).
   “A factual finding is not clearly erroneous as long as it is plausible in light of
   the record as a whole.” United States v. Gomez, 623 F.3d 265, 268 (5th Cir.
   2010) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Evidence is viewed in
   the light most favorable to the prevailing party, and “the clearly erroneous
   standard is particularly strong” where, as here, the district court’s ruling is
   based on live oral testimony. United States v. Gibbs, 421 F.3d 352, 357 (5th
   Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Specifically, the
   district court relied on the testimony of an officer and an emergency medical
   technician on the scene, both of whom the court deemed credible, as well as
   a body camera recording of Riggins’s encounter with police that was narrated
   by these witnesses.
          Riggins argues that the body camera recording of his encounter with
   police in fact contradicts the officer’s testimony that the syringe in Riggins’s
   jacket pocket was in plain view. He cites our prior holding that “[f]indings
   that are in plain contradiction of the videotape evidence constitute clear
   error.” United States v. Wallen, 388 F.3d 161, 164 (5th Cir. 2004). Even if
   the body camera recording does not clearly show that the syringe was visible
   inside Riggins’s pocket, we see nothing in the recording that plainly
   contradicts the district court’s finding that the officer saw the syringe in plain
   view. In light of our deferential standard of review, we conclude that the
   district court did not clearly err in finding that the syringe was in plain view
   before the challenged warrantless search. See Gomez, 623 F.3d at 268; Gibbs,
   421 F.3d at 357. The district court did not err in denying the motion to
   suppress.
          AFFIRMED.

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