United States v. Miles ( 2021 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 20-2031
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
ARTHUR MILES,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Kayatta, Selya, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Heather Clark and Clark Law Office on brief for appellant.
Donald E. Clark, Acting United States Attorney, and Benjamin
M. Block, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.
November 17, 2021
SELYA, Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from the denial
of a motion to suppress evidence recovered during a traffic stop.
Defendant-appellant Arthur Miles argues that the stop flouted the
Fourth Amendment because the officer's stated reason for making
the stop was pretextual and his real reason was based on nothing
more than a hunch. The appellant's argument runs headlong into
Supreme Court precedent holding that the Fourth Amendment calculus
depends on objective reasonableness, not subjective intent. See
Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 812-13 (1996). Accordingly,
we affirm the district court's denial of the appellant's motion to
suppress.
We rehearse the relevant facts, drawing heavily on the
district court's supportable findings following the suppression
hearing. See United States v. Simpkins, 978 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir.
2020). We supplement those facts, as necessary, with uncontested
facts extracted from the record.
On December 12, 2017, a Maine state trooper, Thomas
Pappas, was patrolling the Maine Turnpike. See United States v.
Miles, No. 18-00144, 2019 WL 3220574, at *1 (D. Me. July 17, 2019).
At around 10:30 pm, Trooper Pappas saw a car driven by the
appellant traveling approximately thirty miles per hour in the
southbound right-hand lane. See id. The car moved into the left
lane and — with Trooper Pappas trailing — proceeded in that lane
for approximately two miles without passing any other vehicles.
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See id. Trooper Pappas ran the license plate and learned that the
car was registered to a woman named Wilkerson at a street address
in Dorchester, Massachusetts. See id. The combination of that
name and street rang a bell: as Trooper Pappas later testified,
he recalled participating — a few years earlier — in a drug arrest
of a man named Wilkerson on that particular street.
While Trooper Pappas was following him, the appellant
passed a road sign reading "Keep Right Except to Pass." See id.Even though he did not pass any other vehicles, he nonetheless
continued driving in the left-hand lane. See id. Trooper Pappas
then signaled the appellant to pull over to the side of the road.
See id. The trooper stated in a post-incident report that he
stopped the appellant for operating in the left lane without
passing. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, he added that
he had planned to make the stop even before he saw the highway
sign.
When Trooper Pappas approached the stopped car, he
smelled marijuana and observed a bottle of champagne on the back
seat. See id. Upon requesting the appellant's license, Trooper
Pappas learned that it was suspended. See id. Following further
questioning, Trooper Pappas also learned that the appellant was in
contravention of probation conditions in Massachusetts and was on
bail in Maine. See id. at *1-2. Based on the appellant's bail
conditions and the totality of the circumstances surrounding the
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stop, Trooper Pappas handcuffed him and searched the car. See id.
at *2. The search revealed the presence of contraband. See id.
The appellant's statements, together with physical
evidence recovered by Trooper Pappas, led to federal charges — an
indictment for possession of a controlled substance with the intent
to distribute. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). The appellant
maintained his innocence and, in due course, moved to suppress
both the statements that he had made at the scene and the physical
evidence obtained during the traffic stop. See Miles, 2019 WL
3220574, at *3. He argued (as relevant here) that the stop was
"improper" because it was not based upon reasonable suspicion of
a crime or traffic infraction.1 The district court found the stop
objectively reasonable and denied the appellant's suppression
motion. See id. at *3-4.
The appellant subsequently entered a conditional guilty
plea, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2); see also United States v.
Adams, 971 F.3d 22, 30 (1st Cir. 2020), reserving the right to
appeal the district court's denial of his motion to suppress. The
district court sentenced him to serve a thirty-five-month term of
immurement. This timely appeal followed.
1In the court below, the appellant also objected that his
statements were obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384
U.S. 436, 444-45 (1966), and that the car he was driving was
subjected to an unreasonable search. The district court overruled
these objections, see Miles, 2019 WL 3220574, at *3-4, and the
appellant does not renew them on appeal.
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In this venue, the appellant advances only a single
assignment of error. He argues that the district court erred in
concluding that the trooper had reasonable suspicion to stop his
car. We therefore train the lens of our inquiry on the stop itself
and do not discuss the interactions that followed.
In reviewing a district court's decision on a motion to
suppress, we scrutinize findings of fact for clear error and
conclusions of law de novo. See Simpkins, 978 F.3d at 6. "Absent
an error of law, we will uphold a refusal to suppress evidence as
long as the refusal is supported by some reasonable view of the
record." United States v. Lee, 317 F.3d 26, 29-30 (1st Cir. 2003);
see United States v. Arthur, 764 F.3d 92, 96 (1st Cir. 2021).
Here, however, the government submits that the appellant
has forfeited any entitlement to the traditional standard of
review. In its estimation, appellate review should be limited to
review for plain error because the argument that the appellant
makes on appeal was not made in the court below. See United States
v. Rivera-Morales, 961 F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir. 2020) (holding that
forfeited claims are reviewed only for plain error). We need not
resolve this contretemps because even if we assume, favorably to
the appellant, that the traditional standard of review applies,
his argument nonetheless fails.
It is common ground that the Fourth Amendment's
protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to
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traffic stops. See Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54, 60
(2014); United States v. Chhien, 266 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2001).
Such a stop requires, at a bare minimum, "'reasonable suspicion'
— that is, 'a particularized and objective basis for suspecting
the particular person stopped' of breaking the law." Heien, 574
U.S. at 60 (quoting Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 396
(2014)). The existence vel non of reasonable suspicion "must be
determined case by case." Chhien, 266 F.3d at 6. Such an inquiry
"entails broad-based consideration of all the attendant
circumstances." Id.Before us, the appellant eschews any challenge to the
district court's conclusion that the traffic stop was justified
under the Fourth Amendment by the appellant's disregard of the
"Keep Right Except to Pass" rule.2 See United States v. Rivera,
988 F.3d 579, 582 (1st Cir. 2021) (holding that left-lane violation
supported reasonable suspicion to initiate traffic stop).
Instead, he contends that the trooper's real motivation for
2 In the district court, the appellant disputed the efficacy
of the signage that advised motorists to "Keep Right Except to
Pass." The district court expressed skepticism about the
appellant's position, noting that Maine law requires drivers to
"obey a traffic-control device" — a category that includes road
signs. Miles, 2019 WL 3220574, at *3 n.3 (quoting Me. Rev. Stat.
Ann. tit. 29-A, §§ 2057, 101(84)). To cinch the matter, the court
held that the trooper's stated belief that the appellant was
required to obey the sign was objectively reasonable, even if
mistaken, and that the Fourth Amendment tolerates a "reasonable
mistake of law." Heien, 574 U.S. at 61.
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initiating the traffic stop was a "mere hunch" arising from the
trooper's knowledge that an individual having the same last name
as the registered owner of the car had previously been arrested
for drug activity on the very street where the registered owner
lived. In support, the appellant relies on elements of the
trooper's testimony, such as his affirmation that he "intend[ed]
to stop [the appellant] even though [the appellant] hadn't reached"
the sign that instructed drivers to "Keep Right Except to Pass."
To like effect, the appellant cites the trooper's testimony that
even if the appellant "had pulled back over into the right lane,"
he (the trooper) would have stopped the car for "[t]he same thing."
This contention is untenable. Courts have long
"foreclose[d] any argument that the constitutional reasonableness
of traffic stops depends on the actual motivations of the
individual officers involved." Whren, 517 U.S. at 813; see, e.g.,
United States v. Gates, 709 F.3d 58, 63 (1st Cir. 2013) (applying
Whren); cf. United States v. Ruidíaz, 529 F.3d 25, 29 (1st Cir.
2008) (noting that, in context of brief investigatory stops,
reasonableness "must be judged according to objective criteria; it
is not dependent on an individual officer's subjective motives").
Whren illustrates the point. There, officers asserted
that they pulled over a motor vehicle for suspected traffic
violations before observing drugs in the vehicle and arresting its
occupants. See Whren, 517 U.S. at 808-09. The defendants moved
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to suppress the evidence seized, challenging the legality of the
stop. See id. at 809. They argued that the purported
justification for the stop — traffic violations — "was pretextual."
Id. The Supreme Court rejected the defendants' argument, holding
that the officers' "[s]ubjective intentions play no role in
ordinary . . . Fourth Amendment analysis." Id. at 813.
Whren remains good law, and the Court more recently has
reaffirmed that the appropriate test is "objective." Heien, 574
U.S. at 60 (quoting Navarette, 572 U.S. at 396). As long as a
traffic stop is warranted by objectively reasonable facts, a claim
that the officer making the stop was acting in accordance with
some hidden agenda will not ground a successful Fourth Amendment
challenge.
Applying an objective standard, the result that we must
reach is plain. As in Whren, the appellant was stopped for a
suspected traffic violation — a violation borne out by objective
facts. He nonetheless invites us to suppress evidence due to the
allegedly pretextual nature of the stop. Whren and its progeny
require us to decline the invitation: under Whren, an officer's
subjective motivations for making a traffic stop are ordinarily
beside the point when conducting a Fourth Amendment analysis. See
Whren, 517 U.S. at 813. So it is here.
We need go no further. Objectively viewed, Trooper
Pappas had a reasonable basis to believe that the appellant had
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committed a traffic infraction and, thus, to perform a traffic
stop. Under Whren and its progeny, no more was exigible. The
district court, therefore, did not err in denying the appellant's
motion to suppress.
Affirmed.
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