Court Opinion

ID: 9494346
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:36:03.247868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:22.087607
License: Public Domain

PAUL KELLY, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in Judge Ebel’s opinion in its entirety, but write separately to emphasize my dissent from Part II of Judge Briscoe’s opinion in light of the en banc court’s disposition of the officer safety issue. Having decided that an officer may ask a stopped motorist whether there is a loaded firearm in the car even in the absence of particularized suspicion, it is totally unnecessary for the en banc court to decide whether Terry stops are constrained only in terms of duration, and not in terms of scope. See United States v. Shabazz, 993 F.2d 431, 436-37 (5th Cir.1993). Because the case must be remanded for additional analysis under the officer safety rationale, it is at best premature to decide the outer limits of permissible questioning in these circumstances, and at worst completely advisory and inappropriate. There is nothing in the record, other than about the firearm, to support the far-ranging implications contained in Part II.
Moreover, no facts yet establish that Officer Tucker’s questioning unrelated to officer safety resulted in the statements or evidence sought to be suppressed. While it is true that Officer Tucker asked about Holt’s drug history, the questions were posed after the questioning about the loaded firearm and in response to Holt’s volunteering that he did not use drugs anymore. Aplt.App. at 42-43. Thereafter, Holt gave consent to search.1 Id. at 43. Nothing in this record suggests that Holt’s providing information about his previous drug use had anything to do with his consent. Officer Tucker went to the loaded pistol behind the passenger seat, id. at 45, and a local officer went to the camper, looked in and found a white powdery substance. Id. at 47. Cases must be decided (and read) against their facts. Here, we are announcing a Fourth Amendment rule in search of facts.

. Although Holt testified that he never told Officer Tucker that he had a loaded firearm in the car and that he did not consent to a search, the district court rejected this testimony as incredible.