United States v. Anthony Dwayne Williams ( 2024 )

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 24a0416n.06
No. 23-1839
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT Oct 22, 2024
KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk
)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
)
Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE
) UNITED STATES DISTRICT
v. ) COURT FOR THE WESTERN
) DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
ANTHONY DWAYNE WILLIAMS, )
Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION
)
Before: SILER, GRIFFIN, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges.
GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.
Defendant Anthony Williams appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress
evidence obtained from his two cell phones that were seized after an investigatory Terry1 stop.
Because reasonable suspicion supported Williams’s twenty-three-minute detention, and officers
later seized the phones incident to a lawful arrest supported by probable cause, we affirm.
I.
The following facts are undisputed. Williams rear-ended a vehicle at a busy intersection
in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The driver of the vehicle that Williams hit, known only as “L.V.,”
called the police. When Officers Roxanne Partak and Thomas Gootjes arrived at the accident
scene, L.V. told Officer Gootjes that following the accident, Williams immediately jumped out of
1
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968).
No. 23-1839, United States v. Williams
his car with a backpack, ran into a wooded neighborhood, and returned without the backpack.
Williams and his girlfriend were at the scene when the police arrived.
The police also learned that Williams was on federal supervised release. Thereafter, they
frisked, handcuffed, and placed Williams in the back of Officer Partak’s patrol car while Officer
Gootjes searched for the backpack. Officer Gootjes followed Williams’s footprints in the snow
and, twenty-three minutes later, located the backpack in a ravine. In the backpack, Officer Gootjes
found marijuana, drug paraphernalia, ammunition, and an empty handgun box. At that point,
Officer Partak arrested Williams and confiscated two cell phones in his possession. One of the
phones contained photographs and text messages suggesting Williams, a felon, was involved in a
firearm transaction.
Based on the evidence recovered from the backpack and the seized phones, a grand jury
indicted Williams for possessing a firearm and ammunition as a felon. Williams moved to suppress
the evidence obtained from the two phones, arguing that the phones were fruit of the poisonous
tree because the officers arrested him without a warrant or probable cause. The district court
denied the motion, concluding that the encounter began as a proper Terry stop and ripened into a
lawful arrest after the officers discovered the backpack and its contents. Accordingly, the district
court found that law enforcement legally seized the phones in the search incident to a lawful arrest.
Williams conditionally pleaded guilty to possessing ammunition as a felon, in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and timely appealed.
II.
The sole issue on appeal is whether the district court properly denied Williams’s motion to
suppress the cell-phone evidence. When considering a district court’s decision regarding a
suppression motion, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and legal
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conclusions de novo. United States v. Campbell, 549 F.3d 364, 370 (6th Cir. 2008). The issue
here—whether there was reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to justify the continuation of
the Terry stop—is a mixed question of law and fact, which we review de novo. Id. Because the
district court denied the motion to suppress, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable
to the government. Id.; United States v. Coffee, 434 F.3d 887, 892 (6th Cir. 2006).
A.
The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const.
amend. IV. This protection extends “to brief investigatory stops of persons or vehicles that fall
short of traditional arrest.” Campbell, 549 F.3d at 370 (citation omitted). However, an officer
may conduct a brief investigatory stop without a warrant if she has reasonable suspicion of criminal
activity. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 30. Reasonable suspicion “requires more than a mere hunch” but
“less than probable cause.” Campbell, 549 F.3d at 370 (quoting Dorsey v. Barber, 517 F.3d 389,
395 (6th Cir. 2008)). To determine whether reasonable suspicion supported an investigatory stop,
we look at circumstances such as an officer’s observations, an officer’s inferences based on her
training and experience, dispatch information, and the area where the suspicious activity occurred.
Id. at 371; see United States v. Pearce, 531 F.3d 374, 380 (6th Cir. 2008). Additionally, the stop
must not exceed its initial scope or last longer than the amount of time necessary to carry out its
purpose. Campbell, 549 F.3d at 372; see Dorsey, 517 F.3d at 398. Otherwise, the stop may ripen
into an arrest requiring probable cause. Campbell, 549 F.3d at 372. In this reasonable-suspicion
analysis, we look at the totality of the circumstances. See United States v. Perez, 440 F.3d 363,
371 (6th Cir. 2006).
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Our reasonable-suspicion inquiry is thus twofold: (1) whether Williams’s initial seizure
was supported by reasonable suspicion; and (2) whether Officer Partak’s actions were reasonably
related in scope and duration to the circumstances that justified the initial stop. See Terry, 392 U.S.
at 20; Dorsey, 517 F.3d at 398–99. We answer both in the affirmative.
1.
Undoubtedly, Officer Partak “seized” Williams when she handcuffed and placed him in
the back of the cruiser. See Smoak v. Hall, 460 F.3d 768, 778 (6th Cir. 2006) (explaining that a
“seizure” by an officer occurs when, “in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a
reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave” (citation omitted)). And
certainly, there “was a proper basis” for the detention. Id. at 779. Officers Partak and Gootjes had
reasonable suspicion that Williams was involved in criminal activity. Eyewitness testimony
established that he fled the accident scene and disposed of a backpack, all the while on federal
supervised release. Thus, the officers reasonably suspected that Williams violated Michigan law
by leaving the accident scene. See Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 257.618(1), 257.619(a) (requiring a
driver to remain at the accident scene until he provides his personal and vehicle information to law
enforcement or to the other driver involved in the accident). Importantly, they also had reason to
believe that he disposed of incriminating evidence based on his flight from the scene of the accident
and return without his backpack. In this regard, it is well established that flight is evidence of
guilt. See, e.g., United States v. Oliver, 397 F.3d 369, 375 (6th Cir. 2005).
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2.
On appeal, the main issue is the reasonableness of Williams’s detention; specifically, its
scope and twenty-three-minute duration before his formal arrest. Williams argues that the manner
and length of his Terry stop were unreasonable and prolonged, amounting to a de facto arrest
without probable cause. We disagree.
A Terry stop “must be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the
interference in the first place.” Dorsey, 517 F.3d at 398 (internal quotation marks omitted). As
for duration, the stop must not last longer than necessary to effectuate its purpose. Id. And an
officer should use the “least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel [her]
suspicions in a short period of time.” Id. (citation omitted). While there is no “litmus test” for
determining when an investigatory stop becomes an arrest that requires probable cause, we
consider factors such as the length of the detention, the manner in which it was conducted, and the
degree of force used. Id. at 399; Smoak, 460 F.3d at 781.
First consider the traffic stop’s scope. Williams does not argue that his initial encounter
with the officers was unjustified, but he asserts that his prolonged detention in the back of the
police cruiser, while handcuffed, exceeded the scope of the Terry stop, constituting a de facto
arrest that required probable cause. “[C]oncern for officer safety permits a variety of police
responses in differing circumstances,” Bennett v. City of Eastpointe, 410 F.3d 810, 822 (6th Cir.
2005), including detaining a defendant in the back of a police patrol car while officers investigate
their suspicions of criminal activity, United States v. Jacob, 377 F.3d 573, 580 (6th Cir. 2004).
Consider what transpired. Williams fled the scene of an accident and disposed of his
backpack. He was therefore a flight risk and the subject of reasonable suspicion of criminal
activity. In addition, the accident scene was bustling with traffic and Williams’s girlfriend was
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present, adding to the risk of a flight. These circumstances made it reasonable to detain Williams
in the back of the police car.
Similarly, it was reasonable under the circumstances for Officer Partak to handcuff
Williams. See United States v. Sheckles, 996 F.3d 330, 345 (6th Cir. 2021) (“[H]andcuffing does
not affect the legitimacy of the Terry stop as long as the facts justify the precaution.” (internal
quotation marks omitted)). Doing so was a minimally intrusive means to protect herself and the
public. Officer Partak is smaller than Williams, was alone with him while Officer Gootjes
searched for the backpack, and was outnumbered by Williams and his girlfriend. Her actions were
precautionary and reasonable.
Likewise, the length of Williams’s detention was reasonable under the circumstances. It
was apparent that Williams could not have run too far after the accident because he returned to the
scene before the police arrived. In fact, it only took about twenty-three minutes for officers to
locate the backpack. Such a short twenty-three-minute detention falls well short of transforming
a Terry stop into an arrest. See Sheckles, 996 F.3d at 345 (collecting cases to support that “under
Terry, we and other courts have repeatedly upheld vehicle stops of less than (and sometimes even
more than) an hour”). As such, we conclude that the duration of the Terry stop was reasonable.
For these reasons, Williams’s detention did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
B.
Regarding the seizure of the cell phones, Williams contends that the seizure exceeded the
scope of the investigation into the car accident. But upon discovery of the backpack, officers had
probable cause to arrest Williams for multiple crimes, including supervised-release violations and
firearm-related crimes. At that point, they lawfully searched Williams incident to an arrest and
confiscated his cell phones. See Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762–63 (1969). Thus, the
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officers seized the cell phones pursuant to a valid arrest and on this basis the district court correctly
denied Williams’s motion to suppress.
III.
We affirm the district court’s denial of Williams’s motion to suppress.
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