United States v. Tremayne Bugg , 561 F. App'x 248 ( 2014 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4612
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
TREMAYNE QUINTA BUGG,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Virginia, at Roanoke. Samuel G. Wilson, District
Judge. (7:12-cr-00006-SGW-1)
Argued: October 31, 2013 Decided: March 17, 2014
Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and KING and THACKER, Circuit
Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Joel Christopher Hoppe, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC
DEFENDER, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Kartic
Padmanabhan, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke,
Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Larry W. Shelton, Federal
Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Roanoke,
Virginia, for Appellant. Timothy J. Heaphy, United States
Attorney, Daniel Howell, Third Year Practice Law Student, OFFICE
OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
In May 2012, Tremayne Quinta Bugg conditionally pleaded
guilty in the Western District of Virginia to charges of
possession with intent to distribute cocaine base (“crack
cocaine”), in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and possession
of a firearm by a convicted felon, in contravention of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1). By his plea agreement, Bugg reserved the right to
pursue this appeal, in which he solely contests the district
court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized during
the police encounter that led to the crack cocaine and firearm
charges. See United States v. Bugg, No. 7:12-cr-00006 (W.D. Va.
May 10, 2012), ECF No. 36 (the “Suppression Opinion”). 1 Invoking
the Fourth Amendment, Bugg contends that law enforcement
officers unconstitutionally detained, arrested, and searched
him. As explained below, we disagree and thus affirm the
judgment pronouncing Bugg’s convictions and 151-month sentence.
I.
Following an evidentiary hearing and briefing by the
parties, the district court made detailed findings of fact
pertinent to Bugg’s suppression motion:
1
The unpublished Suppression Opinion is found at J.A. 110-
14. (Citations herein to “J.A. __” refer to the contents of the
Joint Appendix filed by the parties in this appeal.)
2
On December 17, 2011, law enforcement officers
staked out an apartment on Hunt Avenue in Roanoke,
Virginia, in an attempt to arrest an armed-and-
dangerous, six-foot five-inch, 250-pound African
American male fugitive with a violent criminal
history. During the stake-out, officers watched as a
dark-colored sport-utility vehicle approached the
apartment and seemingly noticed the police presence.
The SUV stopped, made a mid-block u-turn, and sped
away from the scene. The officers left their
positions and commenced a search for the SUV. In
short order, the officers found the vehicle parked in
a nearby high-crime neighborhood. The SUV’s driver,
who fit the fugitive’s description (but who, officers
later discovered, was not the fugitive), exited the
vehicle and got into a white sedan. The sedan pulled
away and, after driving a short distance, turned
around and re-approached the SUV. Suspecting that
their fugitive was now in the sedan, one of the
officers activated his car’s emergency lights and
initiated a stop. Two other officers, riding in an
unmarked car behind the SUV, saw Bugg exit the front
passenger-side of the parked SUV and focus his
attention on the now-stopped sedan. One of the
officers in the unmarked car exited his vehicle and
directed Bugg to stop in order to answer some
questions. Bugg responded unintelligibly, turned away
from the officers, and made a movement toward his
waistband. Fearing that Bugg was reaching for a
weapon, both officers raised their own weapons and
ordered Bugg to put his hands up. Bugg complied with
that order and the officers’ subsequent instruction to
place his hands on the SUV’s hood.
Soon after, a third officer arrived and asked
Bugg to identify himself. When Bugg reached for his
wallet to retrieve his identification, he
inadvertently exposed a handgun holster on his right
hip. The officer removed a loaded .32-caliber Smith &
Wesson revolver from the holster. When Bugg then
divulged (without prompting from the officers) that he
was recently released from prison after serving time
for a felony drug charge, the officers handcuffed Bugg
and searched him. The officers found a seven-gram bag
of crack cocaine and a small bag of “a green leafy
substance.” Officers then transported Bugg to another
location and Mirandized him. Bugg admitted that the
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revolver was his and that he was on his way to deliver
the crack cocaine at the time of the stop.
Suppression Opinion 1-2.
Premised on those findings, the district court ruled that,
at the point Bugg was directed to stop and answer questions, the
officers “had reasonable, articulable suspicion to initiate a
Terry stop.” See Suppression Opinion 4; see also Illinois v.
Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000) (“In Terry, we held that an
officer may, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, conduct a
brief, investigatory stop when the officer has a reasonable,
articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” (citing
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968))). The court specified
that “the following suspicious behavior” justified the officers’
stop of Bugg:
[F]irst, the SUV approached their position, seemed to
spot their presence, stopped, abruptly u-turned, and
sped away; second, after locating the SUV in a nearby
high-crime neighborhood, a man fitting the description
of the fugitive they were seeking exited the SUV and
entered a waiting sedan that pulled away, drove a
short distance, turned around, and re-approached the
SUV; and third, when officers stopped the sedan, Bugg
exited the parked SUV and focused his attention on the
traffic stop.
Suppression Opinion 4. According to the court, “an officer
seeing these events unfold sequentially and employing common
sense could be reasonably suspicious that criminal activity was
afoot and that Bugg was somehow involved.” Id. at 5. The court
further determined that “[e]ach event succeeding the stop (Bugg
4
making a movement toward his waistband, officers drawing down on
Bugg, Bugg inadvertently revealing his hip holster and divulging
his felony conviction, and officers arresting and searching
Bugg) lawfully flowed from that moment.” Id. Thus, the court
“f[ound] no constitutional violation requiring suppression.”
Id.
II.
In this appeal, which was timely brought pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 1291, Bugg asserts that the district court erred in
deeming the “reasonable, articulable suspicion” standard of
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), to be satisfied. Where, as
here, we consider the denial of a motion to suppress, we review
a court’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for
clear error. See United States v. Branch, 537 F.3d 328, 337
(4th Cir. 2008). We also construe the evidence in the light
most favorable to the prevailing party, i.e., the government.
Id.
As the district court appreciated and explained in denying
Bugg’s motion, see Suppression Opinion 3-4, the existence of
reasonable suspicion to justify a Terry stop depends on the
totality of the circumstances. See, e.g., United States v.
Glover, 662 F.3d 694, 698 (4th Cir. 2011) (citing United States
v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 8 (1989)). Those circumstances include
5
the facts known by the officers and the inferences flowing
therefrom. See United States v. Hernandez-Mendez, 626 F.3d 203,
207-08 (4th Cir. 2010). Indeed, “officers [may] draw on their
own experience and specialized training to make inferences from
and deductions about the cumulative information available to
them that might well elude an untrained person.” United States
v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (internal quotation marks
omitted); see also United States v. Lender, 985 F.2d 151, 154
(4th Cir. 1993) (“Reasonable suspicion is a commonsensical
proposition. Courts are not remiss in crediting the practical
experience of officers who observe on a daily basis what
transpires on the street.”).
Even wholly lawful conduct may engender a reasonable
suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. See Sokolow, 490
U.S. at 9-10 (observing that “Terry itself involved ‘a series of
acts, each of them perhaps innocent’ if viewed separately, ‘but
which taken together warranted further investigation’” (quoting
Terry, 392 U.S. at 22)). So long as “[t]he articulated factors
together . . . serve to eliminate a substantial portion of
innocent travelers,” the reasonable suspicion standard may be
satisfied. See United States v. Foreman, 369 F.3d 776, 781 (4th
Cir. 2004). Importantly, that “standard is ‘less demanding
. . . than probable cause,’” though it requires “‘more than an
inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch of criminal
6
activity.’” Branch, 537 F.3d at 336 (alteration in original)
(quoting Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123, 124 (2000)).
We agree with the district court that the events preceding
the officers’ stop of Bugg — properly considered in their
totality — were sufficiently suggestive of criminal activity to
demonstrate reasonable suspicion. In the words of the district
court: “By the time they initiated the Terry stop, officers had
good reason to believe that Bugg was connected in some
meaningful way to a suspected dangerous fugitive and that he had
participated in highly suspicious vehicle maneuvers. . . .
Moreover, the facts, taken together, served to eliminate a
substantial portion of innocent travelers.” Suppression Opinion
5; see also, e.g., J.A. 47-52, 55-57, 63-64 (evidentiary hearing
testimony of Sergeant John Stephens of Roanoke Police
Department, describing series of “very suspicious” and “odd”
events that culminated in Bugg’s unexpected emergence from
passenger seat of parked, driverless SUV and his abnormal,
intense focus on nearby traffic stop of sedan involving officer
unaware that Bugg was watching from “semicovered position”).
Though he does not dispute the district court’s factual
findings, Bugg seeks to detach himself from the suspected
fugitive and the irregular vehicle maneuvers. For example, Bugg
characterizes the presumed criminal activity as “being a
fugitive” and asserts that such activity “was attributable to
7
only the driver of the SUV, who fit the fugitive’s description.”
See Br. of Appellant 14-15 (arguing that “[m]erely being a
passenger in a vehicle that was driven by a suspected fugitive
does not suggest that the non-fugitive is engaged in criminal
behavior”). Bugg further maintains that “[t]he criminal
behavior, i.e. being a fugitive, that the officers were
investigating followed the suspected fugitive from the SUV” —
that is, away from Bugg — “to the sedan.” Id. at 15. Finally,
Bugg contends that, when “he merely got out of the SUV and stood
by it, watching the traffic stop” of the sedan, “his actions
[did] not suggest that he was about to commit a crime.” Id. at
17. Bugg elaborates that he was in a no-win situation, in that
the officers would have found it suspicious if he instead had
stayed in the SUV or walked away from the scene. He also offers
an innocent explanation for his semicovered position, pointing
out that he was simply “standing next to the door from which he
had exited.” Id. at 18.
We cannot ignore, however, that even after the SUV engaged
in evasive maneuvers apparently designed to elude the police,
Bugg remained with that parked and driverless vehicle —
seemingly awaiting the suspected fugitive’s return — while his
cohort went on a quick jaunt in the sedan evocative of
additional criminal activity, including drug dealing. As
Sergeant Stephens explained, Bugg’s continued presence with the
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SUV (whether inside or outside the vehicle) was itself
suspicious. See J.A. 56. Meanwhile, Bugg’s semicovered
position and markedly intense focus on the sedan-related traffic
stop evinced that he was a potential threat to officer safety.
In any event, Bugg would have us deem his “stop unjustified
based merely on a piecemeal refutation of each individual fact
and inference,” when we instead “must look at the cumulative
information available to the officer[s].” See Branch, 537 F.3d
at 337 (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, Bugg
has not persuaded us that the district court erred in its
reasonable suspicion analysis. 2
III.
Pursuant to the foregoing, we affirm the judgment of the
district court.
AFFIRMED
2
Because we endorse the district court’s reasonable
suspicion analysis, we need not consider the government’s
alternative bases for affirmance. The government asserts, inter
alia, that the SUV was seized along with the sedan, thereby
enabling the officers to request identification from Bugg as an
SUV passenger. See United States v. Soriano-Jarquin, 492 F.3d
495, 500-01 (4th Cir. 2007). Additionally, the government
argues that Bugg himself was not seized until the officers —
fearing that Bugg was reaching for a weapon when he made the
movement toward his waistband — drew their own weapons and
ordered Bugg to put his hands up. See Lender, 985 F.2d at 155.
9