Court Opinion

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Date Created: 2024-04-18 14:04:16.901897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:20:28.118006
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             DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

                                  No. 22-CF-0520

                          DARON K. BROWN, APPELLANT,

                                         V.

                            UNITED STATES, APPELLEE.

                          Appeal from the Superior Court
                           of the District of Columbia
                               (2021-CF2-003214)

                        (Hon. Lynn Leibovitz, Trial Judge)

(Argued November 30, 2023                                  Decided April 18, 2024)

      Robin M. Earnest for appellant.

     David B. Goodhand, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Matthew
M. Graves, United States Attorney, and Chrisellen R. Kolb, John P. Mannarino, and
Anna C. Forgie, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

      Before MCLEESE, DEAHL, and HOWARD, Associate Judges.

      DEAHL, Associate Judge: Daron Brown appeals his convictions for carrying a

pistol without a license and the unlawful possession of a firearm. He argues that he
                                          2

was unlawfully searched in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights so that the trial

court erred in failing to suppress the firearm that police found on him.

      The basic facts are that four police officers stopped Brown because he

matched the description of an armed robber who was reported to be at his specific

location. Officers handcuffed Brown and patted him down for weapons, but initially

found none. The officers then asked Brown for identification, and when Brown (still

handcuffed) attempted to reach into his pocket, they instructed him not to do so and

asked if they could retrieve the identification for him instead. Brown then asked if

one officer in particular—Jeremy Jones—could be the one to retrieve his

identification, and Officer Jones agreed to do so. While reaching into Brown’s

pocket, Officer Jones felt what he believed to be the slide of a gun in Brown’s groin

area. Officer Jones then stepped back and took a moment before conducting a

second pat-down and confirming that Brown had a gun in that area.

      Brown moved to suppress the gun and the trial court denied the suppression

motion, concluding (1) that officers had reasonable articulable suspicion to pat him

down in the first instance, (2) that they had adequate justification for handcuffing

him before frisking him, and (3) that the initial suspicion endured throughout the

interaction and justified the second pat-down.
                                          3

       The parties now agree on two critical points that narrow the questions before

us considerably.     First, Brown concedes that officers initially had reasonable

articulable suspicion to stop and frisk him, though he argues that by handcuffing him

they exceeded the scope of a permissible Terry stop and frisk. See Terry v. Ohio,

392 U.S. 1 (1968). We disagree with Brown on that point and conclude that the first

pat-down and the handcuffing that accompanied it were justified and did not violate

his Fourth Amendment rights.

       Second, the government now generally agrees that the legality of the second

pat-down depends on whether Brown freely and voluntarily consented to Officer

Jones’s search of his pocket (contrary to the trial court’s ruling, and subject to one

caveat discussed below regarding the “independent source” doctrine). If Brown

consented to the search of his pocket, then the fact that Officer Jones felt a gun in

Brown’s groin area in the course of that consented-to search unquestionably

provided justification for the second pat-down. But if Brown did not consent, then

that search of his pocket was illegal and the recovery of the gun was a fruit of that

illegality and should have been suppressed. Because the trial court did not rule on

the dispositive and fact-intensive question of whether Brown consented to Officer

Jones’s search of his pocket, we remand for the trial court to consider that question

in the first instance.
                                          4

                              I. Factual Background

      Brown was stopped by four police officers because he fit the description of a

suspect in multiple armed robberies of the same individual. The officers had come

directly from the home of a victim of those robberies, who told the officers that three

intruders had broken into his home five days earlier and robbed him. One of the

robbers was armed with a gun. Three days after that robbery the victim came across

that same assailant again in an alley behind his apartment building and the robber

put a gun to his head and robbed him again, then told him to start “running before

he kill[ed]” him. When officers asked the victim if he had seen that man since that

second robbery, he told them that he had just seen him about forty minutes earlier in

front of a nearby McDonald’s, where he would frequently hang out. He described

the robber as being dark-skinned, 5’9” or 5’10”, with thick, shoulder-length black

dreadlocks, no face or neck tattoos, wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt, and

bearing a resemblance to the NBA player Montrezl Harrell, whose photograph he

showed to the police.

      The officers went to the McDonald’s and saw Brown. Brown matched the

description given: dark-skinned with shoulder-length dreadlocks, medium height,

wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt. The trial court found that Brown “more than

kind of resembled the photo of Montrezl Harrell [that the victim had shown officers]
                                             5

in facial shape, complexion, facial hair and hairstyle,” and Brown does not contest

that finding on appeal. Four officers approached Brown and the interaction that

followed took about two minutes, though it is helpful to divide it into three distinct

parts.

         We will call the first part of the interaction “the first pat-down,” during which

three officers handcuffed and restrained Brown while patting him down. During this

first pat-down, two officers handcuffed Brown and held his arms behind his back,

while one of those officers patted down the right side of Brown’s body including his

right pants pocket, and a third officer—Brian Madison—patted Brown down more

thoroughly. Officer Madison patted Brown down along his sides, his pants pockets,

around his belt, down his legs, and down his back. The officers apparently felt

nothing of interest and then stepped away. After the first pat-down was completed,

a fourth officer—Officer Jones—asked Brown if he had any identification on him.

Brown said he had it in his right pants pocket and he attempted to reach for it, which

the officers told him not to do.

         That brings us to the second part of the interaction, “the pocket search.” After

instructing Brown not to reach into his pocket to retrieve his identification, Officer

Madison asked if he could go into Brown’s pocket to retrieve it. Brown turned to

Officer Jones, who had not participated in the first pat-down, and asked him whether
                                          6

he would get the identification from Brown’s pocket instead of Officer Madison.

Officer Jones said “I got you, baby,” then reached into Brown’s pocket and retrieved

the identification and handed it to Madison, all while Brown said “go ahead” several

times. As Jones retrieved the identification from Brown’s pocket, he felt what he

thought was the slide of a gun in Brown’s groin area.

       Now comes the third part of the interaction, or “the second pat-down.” After

Officer Jones handed Brown’s identification to Madison, he stepped back, visually

inspected Brown, and then went back toward Brown to pat him down in the

particular area where he thought he had felt the gun. After again feeling what

seemed to be a gun in Brown’s groin area, Officer Jones said “What’s that?” and as

the trial court put it, Officer Jones’s “reaction on video is worth a thousand words.”

Officer Jones smiled wryly and said “Is that what I think it is? Man to man.” When

Brown said “nah,” Officer Jones replied: “Yes it is. It’s me now. It’s me now,” and

alerted his fellow officers that he found a weapon. Brown appeared despondent,

repeating that “this shit is over with” and asking if he could sit down. Shortly

thereafter, the officers removed a handgun from Brown’s groin area and arrested

him.

       Brown moved to suppress the gun on the grounds that the officers violated his

Fourth Amendment rights when they stopped and searched him. The government
                                          7

countered (1) that officers had reasonable articulable suspicion for their initial stop

and pat-down of Brown, (2) that Brown then consented to the search of his pocket,

and (3) that officers had reasonable articulable suspicion for the second pat-down

that confirmed he had a firearm. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing on the

motion to suppress and the government introduced body-worn camera footage that

captured the interaction between Brown and the officers, as described above. Officer

Jones also testified for the government and his credited testimony generally aligned

with the body worn camera footage, with the notable addition that Jones said he saw

a “bulge” in Brown’s “thigh area,” though he never specified if that was before or

after the pocket search, saying only that he did not see the bulge when he “first

approached” Brown. Brown testified for the defense and said that he did not consent

to any search nor did he feel at liberty to leave when the officers approached him.

      The trial court denied Brown’s motion to suppress. In the court’s view: (1) the

officers had reasonable articulable suspicion to stop and frisk Brown, given that he

matched the description of an armed robber in the area; (2) handcuffing was

reasonable under the circumstances, where there was reason to think Brown was

armed and dangerous; and (3) “[t]he fact that the officers missed the gun on the first
                                          8

pat-down did not mean they could not” pat him down again. 1 The court did not

opine on whether the pocket search was justified, but when Brown argued that it was

not consented to, the court responded that it was “not basing any decision . . . on

consent” and that “consent doesn’t need to be a concern of yours. I’m not going to

be finding that [Brown] consented for Fourth Amendment purposes.”

      A jury then convicted Brown of two counts of unlawful possession of a

firearm—one because he was a felon, and another because the gun was

unregistered—and one count of carrying a pistol without a license. Brown now

appeals his convictions, exclusively challenging the trial court’s denial of his

suppression motion.

                                    II. Analysis

      In reviewing a suppression motion, “we accept the trial court’s findings of fact

unless they are clearly erroneous.” Hooks v. United States, 208 A.3d 741, 745 (D.C.

2019). But “whether the police violated a defendant’s rights under the Fourth

      1
          The trial court took this point as conceded because defense counsel, while
arguing that officers lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to stop and frisk Brown
altogether, seemed to agree that if officers had reasonable articulable suspicion for
the first pat-down then they likewise had reasonable articulable suspicion to conduct
the second pat-down.
                                           9

Amendment is a legal question that we review de novo.” Bingman v. United States,

267 A.3d 1084, 1087 (D.C. 2022).

      The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure . . .

against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Consistent

with the Fourth Amendment, “[a]n officer may conduct a brief stop,” often referred

to as a Terry stop, “‘for investigatory purposes’ when he has ‘reasonable suspicion

supported by specific and articulable facts that the individual is involved in criminal

activity.’” Funderburk v. United States, 260 A.3d 652, 656 (D.C. 2021) (quoting

Pridgen v. United States, 134 A.3d 297, 301 (D.C. 2016)). “During the stop, the

officer may also conduct a ‘protective frisk for weapons,’” similarly known as a

Terry frisk, “if he has a ‘reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person detained is

armed and dangerous.’” Id. (quoting Pridgen, 134 A.3d at 301).

      In analyzing suppression claims, we consider whether there was sufficient

justification at the time of each particular Fourth Amendment intrusion. See United

States v. Scott, 987 A.2d 1180, 1195 (D.C. 2010) (“Courts must consider the scope

of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, [and] the

justification for initiating it.” (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979))

(emphasis added)); see also United States v. Kendall, 14 F.4th 1116, 1125 (10th Cir.

2021) (examining two close-in-time searches “individually, because the justification
                                         10

for each depends upon the particular circumstances underlying each search”); United

States v. Soto-Cervantes, 138 F.3d 1319, 1322 (10th Cir. 1998) (“[R]easonable

suspicion must exist at all stages of the detention, although it need not be based on

the same facts throughout.”).

      To pass Fourth Amendment muster, a Terry stop and frisk must be justified at

its inception and also must remain within the scope of its justification. See Ellison

v. United States, 238 A.3d 944, 952 (D.C. 2020) (“[W]e look to ‘whether the

officer’s action was justified at its inception, and whether it was reasonably related

in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.’”

(quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 19-20)); see also United States v. Lee, 73 F.3d 1034,

1038 (10th Cir. 1996) (“We review Terry stop encounters in a step-by-step manner

. . . examin[ing] each stage of the encounter to ensure that the government had the

required amount of reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or consent to support the

search.”). In this case, because we conclude that there were really three relevant

intrusions that raise distinct Fourth Amendment issues, we examine those three

intrusions in turn: the first pat-down, the pocket search, and the second pat-down.
                                          11

                  A. The First Pat-Down and the Handcuffing.

      Brown does not dispute that the officers had reasonable articulable suspicion

to stop and frisk him for weapons. That is a wise concession. Brown matched the

description of a serial armed robber and was exactly where the apparent victim

claimed to have seen his assailant shortly before police arrived on the scene. We

thus think it is beyond doubt that officers had reasonable articulable suspicion to

seize Brown and to pat him down for weapons.

      While Brown concedes that core point, he maintains that the officers exceeded

the scope of a permissible Terry search by handcuffing him and thereby transforming

his detention into an unlawful arrest unsupported by probable cause. We disagree.

Officers may handcuff a suspect during a Terry stop if “some specific fact or

circumstance . . . support[s] a reasonable belief that the use of handcuffs [i]s

necessary.” Katz v. District of Columbia, 285 A.3d 1289, 1303 (D.C. 2022) (quoting

United States v. Mohamed, 630 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2010)). The two most common

justifications for handcuffing a suspect in the midst of a Terry stop are (1) that they

pose “an objective safety concern,” or (2) that there is some “objective reason to

believe” the suspect poses a distinct “flight risk.” Id. at 1306; see also In re M.E.B.,

638 A.2d 1123, 1128 (D.C. 1993) (“[C]ourts have generally upheld the use of
                                           12

handcuffs in the context of a Terry stop where it was reasonably necessary to protect

the officers’ safety or to thwart a suspect’s attempt to flee.”).

      The officers here had plenty of reason to believe that Brown posed an

objective safety concern, putting aside any potential for flight, so that handcuffing

him was reasonable. Not only did Brown match the description of a serial armed

robber, but the victim described how one of those robberies was a chance encounter

just two days earlier during which the robber put a gun to the victim’s head and

threatened to kill him, suggesting that the person officers were looking for was both

habitually armed and willing to use his gun impetuously. That is justification enough

for officers to handcuff Brown during the course of a Terry stop. See Womack v.

United States, 673 A.2d 603, 609-10 (D.C. 1996) (“[T]he use of handcuffs was

justified where, as here, the crime of which the defendant was suspected was a

violent one and the defendant was reported to have been armed.”).

      Brown counters that this court recently opined, in the context of a civil suit

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, that “it is the rare case in which common sense and ordinary

human experience convince us that an officer believed reasonably that an

investigative stop could be effectuated safely” only via handcuffing. Katz, 285 A.3d

at 1303 (quoting Mwangangi v. Nielsen, 48 F.4th 816, 827 (7th Cir. 2022)). Maybe

that is true, but Katz concerned the very different situation where “nothing in the
                                         13

record . . . provide[d] a reasonable basis to think that Mr. Katz was armed.” Id. at

1305. So however rare the situation may be, officers are permitted to handcuff

suspects who pose “an objective safety concern,” id. at 1306, such as when they are

suspected of a violent armed offense and there is reason to believe they are presently

armed. See, e.g., Womack, 673 A.2d at 610; In re M.E.B., 638 A.2d at 1128. That

was the case here. We thus conclude that the first pat-down, along with handcuffing

Brown, was reasonable and did not violate Brown’s Fourth Amendment rights.

                              B. The Pocket Search

      Even a search that is valid at its inception can exceed its permissible scope

and thereby violate a suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights. Terry, 392 U.S. at 19-20

(“[O]ur inquiry is a dual one—whether the officer’s action was justified at its

inception, and whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which

justified the interference in the first place.”). So we next examine the justification

for the search into Brown’s pocket.

      While the first pat-down was supported by reasonable articulable suspicion,

the government has never argued that such suspicion permitted Officer Jones to

reach into Brown’s pocket—which had already been patted down and seemingly

cleared by other officers—to retrieve his identification. See United States v. Adell,
                                         14

676 A.2d 446, 448 (D.C. 1996) (officer violated suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights

by reaching into his pocket after Terry pat-down revealed that pocket did not contain

weapon); 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 9.6(b) (6th ed. 2020) (“[O]nce

[a] pat-down has determined that the suspect is not armed, the police may not . . .

once again search the suspect” absent some renewed cause to do so.); but see Lewis

v. United States, 399 A.2d 559, 562-63 (D.C. 1979) (second Terry frisk was justified

where first pat-down was “preliminar[y]” and “did not eliminate the possibility” that

the suspect was armed (quoting Commonwealth v. Ellsworth, 218 A.2d 249, 256 (Pa.

1966)).

      The trial court did not engage with the only basis the government ever

advanced as a justification for the pocket search: that Brown consented to it. See

Brown v. United States, 983 A.2d 1023, 1026 (D.C. 2009) (“[E]vidence obtained

pursuant to a consent search may be admitted under a well-recognized exception to

the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule.”). Brown argued that he did not consent,

and the trial court bypassed the question after apparently concluding that it was

irrelevant because the same suspicion that justified the first pat-down likewise

justified the second pat-down, irrespective of the pocket search. In our view, that

was a mistake.
                                           15

      We cannot simply bypass the legality of the pocket search because it appears

to be a step in the causal chain that led to Brown’s gun being discovered. It was

during the pocket search that Officer Jones felt a gun in Brown’s groin area, which

led immediately to the second pat-down in the precise area where Officer Jones had

felt a gun. As the trial court put it, “[i]t was not until officers went into the

defendant’s pocket for his ID that Officer Jones felt the slide of the gun,” and “[t]he

second pat-down was directly in the location where the gun had been felt.” So

Brown has at least made a “prima facie showing” that the pocket search had a “causal

connection to the alleged fruit,” i.e., the gun, and if Brown indeed did not consent to

that search then it was unconstitutional and “the burden of producing evidence that

will bring the case within [an] exception[] to the exclusionary rule . . . rests squarely

upon the prosecution.” 2 Crews v. United States, 389 A.2d 277, 289 (D.C. 1978) (en

banc), rev’d on other grounds, 445 U.S. 463 (1980).

      The government did not make any argument before the trial court or in its

appellate briefing that any exception to the exclusionary rule applied on these facts

      2
         The government initially resisted that conclusion in its brief, arguing that
“the propriety of the second pat-down does not depend on the fact that Officer Jones
felt a gun while retrieving Brown’s identification.” But when pressed at oral
argument, the government abandoned that position and acknowledged that the
legality of the pocket search impacts the legality of the second pat-down search.
                                        16

if the pocket search was unconsented to. At oral argument, the government argued

it should be permitted to make such an argument if we remand on the question of

consent, suggesting that the record could support a finding that the gun was

admissible under the “independent source” exception to the exclusionary rule. See

Utah v. Strieff, 579 U.S. 232, 238 (2016) (“[T]he independent source doctrine allows

trial courts to admit evidence obtained in an unlawful search if officers

independently acquired it from a separate, independent source.”). It is unclear what

evidence the government believes could support a finding that Officer Jones would

have conducted the second pat-down had he not felt the gun during the pocket search,

or put another way, what evidence could support a ruling that the gun was “obtained

independently from activities untainted by the initial illegality.” Murray v. United

States, 487 U.S. 533, 537 (1988).

      That uncertainty aside, the government “had a full opportunity” to advance

this argument at the suppression hearing but failed to do so, so we see no reason it

should be given a “second bite at the apple” to press it on remand. Evans v. United

States, 122 A.3d 876, 885 (D.C. 2015) (declining to remand for consideration of

“independent source” argument that the government raised “for the first time at [the

appellate] oral argument”).    Whether the independent source doctrine applies

depends on factual questions that the parties had no reason to create a record on at
                                           17

the suppression hearing given that the government was not pressing an independent

source argument at the time. So to remand on that issue would either create

procedural unfairness to the defense—which previously had no reason to develop a

record on the independent source question—or would require reopening the

suppression record for further factual development, which we are generally reticent

to direct and the government does not actually request. Id. If the pocket search was

illegal then the government has simply not carried its “burden to show that the initial

illegality” of that pocket search “did not taint its subsequent discoveries” during the

second pat-down, Smith v. United States, 283 A.3d 88, 98 (D.C. 2022), and we see

no cause to remand on that question.

      For his part, Brown argues that we should not remand on the question of

consent but instead should reverse his convictions outright because (1) the

government did not argue before the trial court that Brown consented to the pocket

search, and (2) the trial court already rejected the argument that Brown consented to

that search. We disagree on both fronts.

      First, the government clearly argued in its written opposition to the

suppression motion that Brown consented to the pocket search. It is true, as Brown

points out, that the government did not “argue consent in the suppression hearing”

itself, but preservation does not require parties “to press their positions until blue in
                                            18

the face.” Evans v. United States, 304 A.3d 211, 222 (D.C. 2023). Rather, “issues

are preserved so long as the trial court was ‘on notice that [the party’s] position on

the correct rule of law differed from the court’s.’” Id. (quoting Wilson-Bey v. United

States, 903 A.2d 818, 828 (D.C. 2006) (en banc)). The government had already

clearly argued in its written pleadings that Brown consented to the pocket search,

and what’s more, the trial court demonstrated that it was aware of that argument

when it indicated that it was not going to rely on any purported consent in its

suppression ruling. The government therefore adequately preserved its argument

that Brown consented to the pocket search.

      Second, Brown argues that the trial court already ruled that he did not consent

to the pocket search, but that overstates the matter. What the trial court said was that

it was “not going to be finding that [Brown] consented for Fourth Amendment

purposes” and was “not basing any decision . . . on consent.” We do not understand

that to be a finding that Brown did not consent to the pocket search, but instead as

the trial court reserving judgment on that question, based on its reasoning that it did

not matter to the ultimate question of suppression.

       While we disagree with that reasoning and conclude that whether Brown

consented to the pocket search is pivotal to resolving the suppression question before

us, the question of consent is best left to the trial court in the first instance. See Maye
                                         19

v. United States, 260 A.3d 638, 650-51 (D.C. 2021) (remanding for further factual

findings regarding whether defendant freely and voluntarily consented to search).

That is because “the voluntariness of a consent to search is ‘a question of fact to be

determined from all the circumstances,’” In re J.M., 619 A.2d 497, 500 (D.C. 1992)

(en banc) (quoting Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 248-49 (1973)), and

such factual determinations are much more in the trial court’s wheelhouse than in

ours. We thus remand to the trial court to determine whether Brown consented to

the pocket search.

                            C. The Second Pat-Down

      As we have explained above, the legality of the second pat-down depends on

whether Brown consented to the pocket search. If he gave his “free and voluntary

consent” to the pocket search, then it was constitutional. Ford v. United States, 245

A.3d 977, 983 (D.C. 2021). And because Officer Jones’s credited testimony was

that he felt what appeared to be a gun during that search, that provided (at least)

reasonable articulable suspicion to pat Brown down a second time. That is true even

if we assume that reasonable articulable suspicion to search had dissipated by virtue

of the first pat-down, because just as suspicion can dissipate, it can also be renewed

by the discovery of new information, like feeling a gun. United States v. Watts, 7

F.3d 122, 126 (8th Cir. 1993) (“[T]he mere fact that the officers’ original ground for
                                         20

stopping [the suspects] dissipated does not prevent them from continuing their

investigative stop based on new facts creating a reasonable articulable suspicion of

criminal activity.”).

      But if Brown did not freely and voluntarily consent to the pocket search, then

the discovery of the gun during the second pat-down was a fruit of the illegal pocket

search so it must be suppressed. 3 See generally Wilson v. United States, 102 A.3d

751, 753 (D.C. 2014) (suppression required where “the evidence in question ‘has

been come at by exploitation of the primary illegality [rather than] by means

sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.’” (quoting Wong Sun

v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488 (1963) (cleaned up))). That is true even if we

conversely assume that reasonable articulable suspicion to search had not dissipated

after the first pat-down, because the government did not show that the intervening

      3
         As indicated in footnote 1, the trial court quite reasonably understood Brown
to have conceded the point that if officers had reasonable articulable suspicion for
the first pat-down, they likewise had reasonable articulable suspicion for the second
pat-down. But assuming that point has been conceded, it does not obviate Brown’s
distinct argument that the second pat-down search was tainted by the illegal and
unconsented to pocket search so that the gun should be viewed as a fruit of that
search. We therefore do not think any concession as to the existence of reasonable
articulable suspicion at the time of the second pat-down is material to the proper
disposition of the suppression motion.
                                          21

taint of the illegal pocket search had been purged under any exception to the

exclusionary rule. See supra Part II.B.

                                 III. Conclusion

      For the reasons above, we remand to the Superior Court to determine whether

Brown freely and voluntarily consented to the pocket search. If the trial court

determines that he consented to the pocket search, then it was ultimately correct to

deny the suppression motion and the court should leave Brown’s convictions

undisturbed. But if Brown did not consent to the search of his pocket, then his

suppression motion should be granted and his convictions should be vacated.

                                                          So ordered.