United States v. Silcott
United States v. Silcott
Opinion of the Court
This matter comes before the court on Defendant's motion to suppress evidence. (Doc. 17.) The motion is fully briefed. (Docs. 20, 21, 22.) The court held an evidentiary hearing on March 18, 2019, and took the motion under advisement. The court is now prepared to rule. For the reasons set forth herein, the motion is DENIED.
I. Facts
The court finds the following facts from the evidence presented at the hearing. Sgt. Maurice Mitchell of the Wichita Police Department (WPD) was on duty in the early morning hours of May 27, 2018. Mitchell was on patrol in a marked police car near the intersection of 21st and Ridge Road at about 3:30 a.m. Minutes before, police received notice of an alarm going off at a business named Crescent Oil near 21st and West streets, a couple of miles east of Mitchell's location. Mitchell heard a radio dispatch stating that officers at the business reported it was a "good alarm," meaning it was valid. The officers reported a possible entry into the business and that there were yellow tow straps in the parking lot. Mitchell was familiar with some recent burglaries to small businesses in which burglars had used yellow tow straps to forcibly extract automated teller machines (ATMs) from the businesses. Mitchell was aware that in at least one of the prior burglaries, a pickup truck was used to haul away an ATM.
Within a few minutes of receiving this information, Mitchell was southbound on Ridge Road, stopped at the traffic light at 21st street, when he saw a pickup truck travel through the intersection heading west on 21st street. As it passed by, he noticed objects partially sticking up above the side wall and tailgate of the pickup bed. He could not tell what the parts were, but he suspected they might be parts from an ATM. Mitchell radioed that he saw a pickup with some debris in it and was going to follow it. He requested that an officer assist him. Mitchell turned west on 21st street and followed the pickup at a distance, staying back because he was waiting for another officer to arrive and because he could not blend into traffic, as the pickup was the only other car on the street at that late hour. The pickup turned left (south) on Tyler Road (about one mile west of Ridge Road), and Mitchell followed it southbound on Tyler. Sgt. Cory of the WPD reported via radio that he was approaching Mitchell from behind. Mitchell advised Cory that he was going to stop the pickup because he suspected it was involved in the burglary. Mitchell activated his overheard emergency lights near the 800 block of north Tyler. The truck pulled over to the curb and stopped. There was nothing unusual about the way the pickup stopped. Mitchell testified he suspected the truck of involvement in the apparent burglary because of the debris sticking out of the pickup bed, which he thought might be parts of an ATM, although at that point he could not tell what the parts were.
Mitchell stayed in his car for a brief time after the pickup stopped, as he entered *1276the truck's license plate number into his computer and spoke with the police dispatcher. Sgt. Cory pulled in behind Mitchell with his emergency lights flashing. Approximately one minute after the initial stop, Mitchell opened his door and started to put his foot on the ground, at which time the pickup truck suddenly took off at a high rate of speed. Mitchell closed his door and pursued the truck. At some point the truck left the roadway, drove through a residential yard, over some railroad ties, crossed the street, went down in a ditch and crashed into a wrought iron fence. Mitchell got out of his car and was yelling verbal commands as he approached the truck. The truck was centered over a ditch and Mitchell could see and hear the driver, a white male, attempting to restart the truck, which had stalled out. Mitchell approached and opened the driver's door, at which point the driver immediately jumped out. Mitchell fell in the ditch as the driver - later identified as Defendant - went running past him. As Mitchell got up, he noticed a handgun on the floor of the truck cab by the driver's open door.
Officers photographed and seized the handgun by the driver's door. A subsequent search of the truck disclosed a sawed-off shotgun on the back seat. The objects in the bed of the pickup were found to be auto parts, including a large piece of plastic molding and what appears to be the folded seat of a car with an attached headrest. Defendant was apprehended some time after the above-described incident, although the evidence did not show when or how that occurred.
II. Discussion
Defendant contends the stop of the pickup truck constituted a seizure under the Fourth Amendment and that it was unlawful because it was not supported by reasonable suspicion. He further contends the firearms found in the truck were the product of the unlawful seizure, such that they must be suppressed as "fruit of the poisonous tree."
A. Fourth Amendment seizures. The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. The defendant bears the burden of proving whether and when the Fourth Amendment was implicated. If the defendant meets his burden of showing a warrantless seizure, the burden then shifts to the government to show that the seizure was reasonable. See United States v. Shrum,
The existence of a seizure is a question of law. In determining whether a seizure occurred, the court first applies an objective test to consider whether a reasonable person would have felt free to leave or terminate the encounter with the officer. United States v. Gaines,
*1277California v. Hodari D. ,
Thus, "[w]hen an officer does not apply physical force to restrain a subject, a Fourth Amendment seizure occurs only if (a) the officer shows his authority; and (b) the citizen 'submit[s] to the assertion of authority.' " United States v. Salazar,
The Tenth Circuit has addressed the "submission to authority" component on numerous occasions, including most recently in Gaines,
Morgan appears to represent the outer limits of submitting or yielding to a show of authority. Other courts have declined to adopt Morgan's reasoning, and the Tenth *1278Circuit itself has indicated it is limited to its facts. See United States v. Baldwin ,
The Supreme Court pointed out in Brendlin that "what may amount to submission depends on what a person was doing before the show of authority: a fleeing man is not seized until he is physically overpowered, but one sitting in a chair may submit to authority by not getting up to run away." Brendlin,
When a driver heeds a police order to stop only to drive away as the police approach, has the driver been seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment? We hold that a seizure requires submission to police authority, and conclude that the driver's initial fleeting stop does not amount to such submission.
Baldwin ,
The reasoning of Baldwin and similar cases is persuasive. In the specific context of a traffic stop, the brief stop of a car in response to emergency lights, followed by the flight of the vehicle before an officer is able to approach and talk to the driver, does not objectively demonstrate submission to the officer's show of authority. It is more accurately viewed as an attempted seizure thwarted by the flight of the vehicle *1279before the officer can speak to the driver. See Brendlin ,
Indeed, as Officer Mitchell testified at the hearing, a reasonable officer is likely to have considerable doubts about whether a driver in a typical traffic stop has truly submitted to his a show of authority until the officer approaches the vehicle, makes contact with the driver, and determines that the driver is in fact going to respond to questions and requests for identification, vehicle registration, etc., and that the driver is not merely engaged in some ruse or subterfuge to escape or otherwise thwart the attempted seizure. While there is no guarantee that the driver or a passenger might not feign submission beyond the initial contact with the officer, the reasoning of the various courts of appeal that submission requires the driver to not only stop his vehicle but remain stopped at least until the driver begins complying with the officer's commands or responding to the officer's questions provides a much more objective basis to determine that a Fourth Amendment seizure has occurred. Were the rule otherwise, a driver who stops his car and lies in wait with a gun as the officer approaches would be considered seized under the Fourth Amendment, even though it is clear in retrospect that the driver never had any intention of submitting to the show of authority.
The court recognizes that in this case Defendant may be viewed as having stopped his vehicle for more than just a "moment." The evidence indicated that he stopped it for about one minute while the officer entered the license plate in a computer. But considering the totality of the circumstances, Defendant never manifested submission to the implied directive to speak to the officer, and he was thus never effectively seized. Cf. Baldwin ,
B. Reasonable suspicion. The finding that no seizure occurred arguably makes it unnecessary to determine whether Sgt. Mitchell had reasonable suspicion to justify the initial stop of Defendant's vehicle. Nevertheless, given the absence of any Tenth Circuit case directly on point with regard to the seizure question, the court will address the government's additional *1280argument concerning reasonable suspicion.
In Terry v. Ohio ,
Whether reasonable suspicion exists does not depend on any one factor, but on the totality of the circumstances. United States v. Martinez ,
Based on the totality of the circumstances, the court concludes Sgt. Mitchell had a particularized and objective basis to suspect that the occupants of the pickup truck were involved in criminal activity, such that a brief investigative detention was warranted. Mitchell was aware of an apparent burglary having occurred only a short time and distance away from the point at which he first saw the pickup truck. The evidence showed there was little or no traffic on the street at that hour (around 3:30 a.m.) Officers at the scene of the alarm informed Mitchell of the presence of yellow tow straps, which Mitchell knew from his experience had been used in another recent burglary to remove an ATM machine, which was then carried away in a pickup truck. A map of the area (Def. Exh. 1) shows that if a person intended to drive west from Crescent Oil, they likely would have done so by taking 21st street, where Mitchell first saw Defendant's pickup. The presence of the plastic or metal debris in the pickup, which Mitchell could not identify while the truck was moving, provided additional factual support for Mitchell's suspicion that the truck may have been involved in a burglary at Crescent Oil. Photos of the debris from the truck (Exhibits SH1, SH2, and SH3) support a finding that when Sgt. Mitchell caught a glimpse of the items as the truck passed by, he could have reasonably, even if mistakenly, believed they were the remnants of an ATM that had been ripped out of a business. Taking all of the circumstances together, the officer had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting that the occupants of the truck were involved in criminal activity. The facts known to the officer were obviously not enough to prove the commission of an offense, but they were clearly more than a *1281mere hunch, and the totality of circumstances justified a brief investigative detention. Cf. Arvizu,
C. Abandonment. Defendant's argument concerning abandonment is premised on his contention that the initial stop of the vehicle was unlawful because it was done without reasonable suspicion. (See Doc. 21 at 7) ("because the initial stop of Mr. Silcott was done without reasonable suspicion ... the abandonment doctrine is inapplicable.") As indicated above, the court finds there was reasonable suspicion to support the stop. Defendant's argument concerning abandonment therefore lacks merit.
The Tenth Circuit recently summarized the doctrine of abandonment as follows:
The Fourth Amendment is not implicated when police search property that has been abandoned. See United States v. Juszczyk ,844 F.3d 1213 , 1213 (10th Cir. 2017). Abandonment occurs if either (1) the owner subjectively intended to relinquish ownership of the property or (2) the owner lacks an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the property. Seeid. at 1214 ; United States v. Garzon ,119 F.3d 1446 , 1449 (10th Cir. 1997). The owner's abandonment must be voluntary, and abandonment cannot be voluntary when it results from a violation of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Ojeda-Ramos ,455 F.3d 1178 , 1187 (10th Cir. 2006).
United States v. Easley ,
Even if the abandonment doctrine did not apply, however, the search of the vehicle and the seizure of the weapons therein were reasonable based on legitimate safety concerns. The officers could plainly see through the open door of the vehicle that one firearm was left unsecured in an area accessible to the public. This knowledge and the circumstances under which Defendant fled from the vehicle *1282gave officers reasonable grounds to search the car and to seize the plainly visible firearm, as well as any other firearms found therein, for the purpose of protecting the safety of both the officers on the scene and the public at large. See United States v. Otero , No. 16-2675-JTM,
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED this 27th day of March, 2019, that Defendant's motion to suppress evidence (Doc. 17) is DENIED.
Defendant is charged with one count of unlawful possession of a short-barreled shotgun that was not registered to him, in violation of
The court indicated to counsel before the hearing that application of the abandonment doctrine appeared doubtful. After hearing the evidence, however, the court concludes the doctrine applies for the reasons stated above. If either party contends that some evidence relevant to abandonment was not presented at the hearing due to the court's comment prior to the hearing, the party may file a motion for reconsideration within ten days of this order.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- United States v. Jacob E. SILCOTT
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published