United States v. Tyler , 18 F. App'x 12 ( 2001 )

[NOT FOR PUBLICATION–NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 01-1537
UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
RONALD M. TYLER,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
[Hon. Margaret J. Kravchuk, U.S. Magistrate Judge]
Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Selya and Lipez, Circuit Judges.
Walter F. McKee and Lipman & Katz, P.A. on brief for
appellant.
Paula D. Silsby, United States Attorney, and Margaret D.
McGaughey, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for
appellee.
September 7, 2001
Per curiam. Ronald M. Tyler appeals following entry
of a conditional guilty plea to a one-count indictment charging
use of a false Social Security number in violation of 42 U.S.C.
§ 408(a)(7)(B). Under the plea agreement, the scope of this
appeal is limited solely to the question of whether the district
court erred in denying appellant's motion to suppress the Social
Security card that provided the basis for the charge, based on
the argument that the police officer lacked reasonable suspicion
to stop his vehicle and question him. For the reasons that
follow, we find no merit to appellant's argument.
Appellant was stopped by a police officer in Ellsworth,
Maine on August 1, 2000. The officer had been alerted to
appellant's presence in Maine by a pastor of a local church who
had once before provided information to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation leading to the arrests of two fugitives.
According to the pastor, the appellant, who had been attending
church services, had spoken to the pastor about making the
church his "home church."1 Appellant explained to the pastor
that he had moved from Arkansas shortly after his wife and son
were killed in a car accident. The pastor was concerned by
1 Appellant had been using the alias Mark VanZant.
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appellant's seemingly inconsistent stories about his past, and
the aggregation of the quick proximity between the deaths, his
move to Maine, and his courtship of a vulnerable member of the
pastor's congregation.
Not suspecting appellant of a crime, but wanting to
follow up on the pastor's concerns, the officer drove to the
house where appellant was living. As he arrived, a gold
Oldsmobile Cutlass with Arkansas license plates and a novelty
"Aloha" license plate, which he had seen several times in the
past, was pulling out of the driveway. The officer testified
that he stopped the vehicle on the suspicion that Tyler was its
driver and that he had possessed the vehicle in Maine, without
registering it, for more than thirty days since establishing
residency, a violation of Maine law.2 The officer's suspicion
that appellant had been living in Maine for some time was based
on his recollection of having seen the vehicle as long ago as
March, and the information from the pastor regarding appellant's
intent to remain in Maine. In response to the officer's request
for identification, appellant could produce only a Social
Security card that did not belong to him. The officer issued a
summons for operating without a license and for failure to
2Maine law requires that all motor vehicles be registered
within thirty days of establishing residency. See 29-A M.R.S.A.
§ 514.
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provide proof of insurance. A federal grand jury subsequently
issued an indictment alleging use of a false Social Security
number.
Appellant contends that the district court erred in
denying his motion to suppress because the police officer was
unable to proffer "specific and articulable" facts sufficient to
establish reasonable suspicion to stop his vehicle, and the stop
therefore violated the Fourth Amendment. See Terry v. Ohio, 392
U.S. 1, 21 (1968) ("[T]he police officer must be able to point
to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with
rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant [an]
intrusion."). First, he maintains that the officer had only a
vague recollection of having seen the vehicle as early as March.
Therefore, he argues, the officer could not reasonably have
thought the vehicle had been in Maine for more than thirty days
because his only other recollections of having seen the car had
been during the month of July. Second, appellant argues that
because the officer had never seen the driver of the vehicle, he
could not have reasonably inferred that the driver on August 1,
2000 was the same driver that the officer had seen in the past.
The legal determination of whether appellant's Fourth
Amendment rights were violated is reviewable de novo. See United
States v. Charles, 213 F.3d 10, 18 (1st Cir. 2000). The district
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court's findings of fact, by contrast, are reviewed for clear
error. See id. We are satisfied that the officer had a
sufficient basis for stopping appellant to ascertain his
identity and investigate whether he had violated the state's
motor vehicle registration law. Based on information from the
pastor, he knew that appellant was from Arkansas. He also knew
appellant's address. Upon seeing a vehicle with Arkansas license
plates pull out of the driveway of appellant's home, the officer
reasonably could have assumed that the driver was appellant.
Having some recollection of seeing the vehicle some months
before, along with the pastor's information about appellant's
involvement in the church community, the officer reasonably
could have suspected that appellant had been living in Maine for
more than thirty days. The officer's articulated reasons for
suspicion were particular to appellant, see United States v.
Woodrum, 202 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2000), and relied in part on the
officer's own knowledge of the vehicle's presence in the area.
Taken together, the facts establish that the traffic stop was
permissible and the motion to suppress was properly denied.
The judgment of the district court is therefore
affirmed.
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