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[DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-10660 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus DARRYL LEE CHANDLER,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama D.C. Docket No. 7:22-cr-00272-ACA-NAD-1 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 24-10660 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 01/14/2025 Page: 2 of 9

Before BRASHER, ABUDU, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: Darryl Lee Chandler pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He preserved a chal- lenge to his conviction based on the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence of the firearm, which an officer found on him after the officer asked him to exit his vehicle during a traffic stop. The officer’s actions were based on reasonable safety con- cerns and were supported by a reasonable suspicion of ongoing criminal activity. The district court did not err in denying Chan- dler’s motion to suppress. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND On January 12, 2022, Officer Jason Seibert was patrolling without a partner in a marked police vehicle in Tuscaloosa, Ala- bama, when he came up behind a red Toyota Camry.1 As Officer Seibert followed behind the car, the driver did not use the car’s turn signal when he turned right at a stop sign. The officer then noticed the car’s occupants glancing in the car’s mirrors or turning around to look at him. He also perceived that they were arguing with each

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24-10660 Opinion of the Court 3 other. He ran the car’s tag and found that it was a “switched tag,” meaning the tag was registered to a different vehicle.

After following the car as it made a couple of turns and de- termining that its driving was “not typical,” Seibert turned on his police lights and stopped the car. He later testified that the “basis” for stopping the car was the driver’s failure to signal and the switched tag.

Officer Seibert approached the car and began to explain the reason for the stop. But Chandler, the car’s driver, cut him off and asked what he had done wrong. According to Officer Seibert, Chandler seemed nervous and defensive. In Officer Seibert’s words, Chandler’s “hands were shaking and his breathing was quick, his speech was more rapid than normal . . . [and] when I . . . asked him if he was intentionally dodging me [i.e., evading my (Seibert’s) questions], he said he was because he doesn’t like the police.” Chandler also mentioned that he had “just got out” of prison. Officer Seibert did not recognize Chandler but he recog- nized the other two passengers in the car as having been involved in “criminal activity” before.

Officer Seibert told Chandler that the car had a switched tag, and that the owner of the tag had an outstanding arrest warrant.

Chandler responded that the vehicle was not his. Seibert then asked Chandler for his license and insurance, which Chandler pro- vided. Before Seibert checked the license or insurance, he asked Chandler if there were any firearms or knives in the car, and Chan- dler replied that he could not have a firearm because he was a felon.

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At that point, as Officer Seibert later testified, he was con- cerned that both the car and the phone might have been stolen, and he asked Chandler to step out of the car. According to Officer Seibert, he suspected that the car might have been stolen because a switched tag is typical on stolen vehicles, even though at the time that Seibert asked Chandler to step out of the car, Seibert had not received a report of a stolen red Camry, checked Chandler’s li- cense, or asked Chandler if the car was stolen. Nor had Officer Seibert run the car’s vehicle identification number, because, ac- cording to him, he normally did that only after asking an occupant to step out of a potentially stolen car. Officer Seibert did not see a firearm in the car before asking Chandler to exit it.

Chandler complied with Officer Seibert’s request and got out of the car. Once outside of the car, Chandler asked if he could get a cigarette to smoke from his pocket and Officer Seibert re- sponded that he could. But Seibert told Chandler that he “was go- ing to get everything out of [Chandler’s] pockets” before Chandler placed his hands there. The purpose of that request was to cover concerns over “officer safety” before Chandler “reach[ed] in his pockets.” Chandler then confessed that he actually did have a gun in his possession, removed it from his waistband, and handed it to Officer Seibert. After that, Officer Seibert arrested Chandler.

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24-10660 Opinion of the Court 5 A federal grand jury indicted Chandler for one count of be- ing a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Chandler moved to suppress the firearm that Officer Seibert found on him after he exited the car, arguing that Seibert violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizures when Officer Seibert asked him to get out of the car. He contended that Officer Seibert unreasonably prolonged the traffic stop without reasonable suspicion that an independent crime had been committed other than the alleged crimes that formed the basis for the stop.

A magistrate judge recommended that Chandler’s motion to suppress be denied. Chandler objected to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, challenging the magistrate judge’s reasoning that Officer Seibert did not violate Chandler’s Fourth Amendment rights when he instructed Chandler to exit the car based on: (1) Seibert’s legitimate safety concerns; or (2) Seibert’s reasonable suspicion of other criminal activity, including that the car was stolen.

The district court accepted the magistrate judge’s recom- mendation to deny the motion to suppress. It found that Seibert did not unlawfully prolong the traffic stop when he instructed Chandler to get out of the car because Seibert had legitimate safety concerns and had reasonable suspicion that the car was stolen. It therefore denied Chandler’s motion to suppress.

After accepting his guilty plea and entering judgment, the district court sentenced Chandler to 79 months in prison followed USCA11 Case: 24-10660 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 01/14/2025 Page: 6 of 9

II. DISCUSSION “We review a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence as a mixed question of law and fact, with rulings of law reviewed de novo and findings of fact reviewed for clear error, in the light most favorable to the prevailing party in district court.”

United States v. Lindsey, 482 F.3d 1285, 1290 (11th Cir. 2007).

The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects[] against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “[T]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasona- bleness.’” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006). As a sort of seizure, a traffic stop requires the police to have a reasonable suspicion that the occupants have violated a law. 2 See Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54, 60 (2014); United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 880 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc). An officer who has “reasonable

2 Reasonable suspicion requires “considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence” and less than probable cause. Pruitt, 174 F.3d at 1219 (quotation marks omitted). Instead, under a reasonable suspicion standard, a reviewing court must determine whether the officer had a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdo- ing” based on the totality of the circumstances. United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (quotation marks omitted). We give “due weight to the of- ficer’s experience” when “examining the totality of the circumstances.” United States v. Braddy, 11 F.4th 1298, 1311 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotations marks omit- ted).

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24-10660 Opinion of the Court 7 suspicion to make a traffic stop” may not “detain a person indefi- nitely.” Campbell, 26 F.4th at 881.

The lawful duration of a valid traffic stop is initially deter- mined by the stop’s “mission,” which is to address the traffic viola- tion that warranted the stop and attend to related safety concerns.

Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 354 (2015). And “officers conducting a traffic stop may take such steps as are reasonably nec- essary to protect their personal safety.” United States v. Purcell, 236 F.3d 1274, 1277 (11th Cir. 2001) (quotation marks omitted and al- teration accepted). Ensuring officer safety “stems from the mission of the stop itself.” Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 356.

Chandler does not challenge the lawfulness of the initial traffic stop. Instead, he contends only that the lawful stop was un- lawfully extended when the officer asked him to get out of his ve- hicle. And he argues that the gun found on him as a result of the unlawfully prolonged traffic stop should have been suppressed. 3 Ordering the occupant of a stopped car to step outside of the vehicle is within the scope of an officer’s tasks incident to a traf- fic stop. In Rodriguez the Supreme Court recognized that “an of- ficer may need to take certain negligibly burdensome precautions” to safely complete his mission, which can include “requiring a driver, already lawfully stopped, to exit the vehicle.” See 575 U.S. at Chandler does not contend that Officer Seibert committed any inde- pendent Fourth Amendment violation by asking him to empty his pockets, other than that, by requesting him to empty them, it also added time to the traffic stop.

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Additionally, the totality of the circumstances supports the officer’s decision to ask Chandler to get out of his car. See Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273. We give “due weight” to Officer Seibert’s experi- ence when “examining the totality of the circumstances.” See Braddy, 11 F.4th at 1311. Before the stop he noticed the car’s switched tag, Chandler’s atypical driving, and the car’s occupants appearing to argue with one another and continually turning around or looking through the mirrors to look at the officer’s pa- trol car. During the stop he witnessed Chandler’s defensive behav- ior, his admission to having just been released from prison, and the presence of two passengers whom Officer Seibert knew had previ- ously been involved in criminal activity. Not only did Officer Seibert have personal knowledge that Chandler had violated multi- ple traffic laws but, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the government, see Stancil, 4 F.4th at 1195 n.1, we conclude that the district court correctly found that the officer had reasonable suspicion to believe that the car Chandler was driving had been USCA11 Case: 24-10660 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 01/14/2025 Page: 9 of 9

24-10660 Opinion of the Court 9 stolen, see Pruitt, 174 F.3d at 1220. Given the strong indications of ongoing criminal activity, it was reasonable for Officer Seibert to continue the investigation that started with a traffic stop by asking Chandler to step outside the car. See Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273 (“[R]eviewing courts should make reasonable-suspicion determina- tions . . . [by] look[ing] at the totality of the circumstances of each case to see whether the detaining officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing.”) (quotation marks omitted).

AFFIRMED.