United States v. Victor Stokes ( 2023 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 22-2110
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Victor Stokes
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Western District of Missouri
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Submitted: November 18, 2022
Filed: March 15, 2023
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Before COLLOTON, SHEPHERD, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
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GRASZ, Circuit Judge.
Victor Stokes conditionally pled guilty to being a felon in possession of
ammunition in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). The district court1
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The Honorable Beth Phillips, Chief Judge, United States District Court for
the Western District of Missouri, adopting the report and recommendations of the
Honorable Lajuana M. Counts, United States Magistrate Judge for the Western
District of Missouri.
sentenced Stokes to 48 months of imprisonment. Stokes now appeals the district
court’s denial of his motion to suppress. We affirm.
I. Background
Shortly before 3:00 a.m. on August 30, 2020, the owner of a salvage lot
notified the Independence, Missouri, Police Department about a suspicious person
on the lot. Officer Ian Storey was dispatched and given the description of a black
male wearing a white t-shirt with blue or black shorts. Officer Storey arrived at the
lot and found only Stokes on the property. Stokes is not black, but he was wearing
a white t-shirt. 2 After Officer Storey made contact, Stokes sat down and said he was
waiting there until the morning because he thought his stolen car was on the lot.
When Officer Storey asked if Stokes reported the stolen car to the police, Stokes said
he had not reported it stolen. Based on his experience and the fact he found Stokes’s
story unreasonable, Officer Storey suspected Stokes was lying.
Officer Storey decided further investigation was necessary to determine
whether Stokes committed a theft or was trespassing, particularly because the
property owner was the complainant. After noticing Stokes had “a bunch of things
in his pockets,” Officer Storey made two requests for Stokes to stand so he could
perform a frisk. Stokes initially refused, but then stood and began to back away.
Officer Storey reached out to grab Stokes, who immediately began to reach into his
waistband and then turn to run. Believing Stokes was reaching for a weapon, Officer
Storey first drew his service pistol, started giving Stokes commands, and then chased
him. When Stokes did not follow the commands, Officer Storey deployed his taser.
After arresting Stokes for interfering with an officer’s official duties, Officer Storey
performed a search incident to arrest and discovered that Stokes had a sawed-off
shotgun on a lanyard down his shorts as well as several shotgun shells. At the time
of his arrest, Stokes was a convicted felon on probation.
2
There is disagreement in the record about whether Stokes was wearing pants
or shorts. While the district court found that Stokes was wearing shorts, Officer
Storey’s testimony was inconsistent on this point.
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Stokes moved to suppress the evidence found on his person, arguing Officer
Storey lacked reasonable suspicion that Stokes was engaged in criminal activity and
thus the search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The magistrate judge recommended the district court deny the motion to suppress,
concluding Officer Storey had reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity
based on Officer Storey’s experience that thefts at salvage lots in the area regularly
occurred between 1:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m., Stokes’s statement he was looking for his
stolen vehicle when he had not reported a vehicle stolen, and the fact that Stokes was
the only person on the property. The district court adopted the recommendation.
Stokes later changed his plea to guilty but reserved the right to appeal the denial of
his motion to suppress.
II. Analysis
“In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we review the district court’s
findings of fact for clear error and its ultimate conclusion whether the Fourth
Amendment was violated de novo.” United States v. Mays, 993 F.3d 607, 614 (8th
Cir. 2021).
The parties agree there are two issues on appeal, whether Officer Storey had
reasonable suspicion to: (1) conduct a Terry stop on Stokes and (2) command Stokes
to stand for a frisk. Because Stokes only challenged the district court’s legal
conclusions, there is no basis to disturb the district court’s findings of fact.
A. Reasonable Suspicion to Conduct a Terry Stop
“[T]his police encounter was a Terry stop and therefore a seizure within the
meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Horton, 611 F.3d 936, 940
(8th Cir. 2010) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16 (1968)). To conduct a Terry
stop, police need “reasonable, articulable suspicion that a person is committing or is
about to commit a crime.” Id. Although this is a lower standard than probable cause,
United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 274 (2002), officers must be able to point to
specific facts that justify the seizure and more than simply an “inarticulate hunch[].”
Terry, 392 U.S. at 22.
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We look to the totality of the circumstances in making this determination,
“taking into account an officer’s deductions and rational inferences resulting from
relevant training and experience.” Horton, 611 F.3d at 940; accord Arvizu, 534 U.S.
at 273–74. In other words, “[a]n officer may have reasonable suspicion to conduct
a Terry stop based on a combination of factors even where no single factor,
considered alone, would justify a stop.” United States v. Quinn, 812 F.3d 694, 698
(8th Cir. 2016).
Officer Storey detailed several specific factors that led him to conduct a Terry
stop including: (1) his experience arresting people at salvage lots for theft and
trespassing “a couple times a week”; (2) the time of night; (3) Stokes’s sole presence
on the salvage lot; (4) Stokes’s attire matching the description given by the property
owner; and (5) Stokes’s unreasonable responses. These factors were included in the
magistrate judge’s findings of fact, which were adopted by the district court.
Stokes maintains his behavior did not provide Officer Storey with reasonable
suspicion. Stokes first focused on the discrepancy in race from the complaining
property owner and the fact that Stokes was not trespassing under the Independence,
Missouri Municipal Code. See Independence, MO., Code § 12.05.008 (2020),
https://library.municode.com/mo/independence (requiring a person to either enter
the fenced property of another or refuse to leave upon the demand of the owner).
However, the district court found that “[w]hether or not [Stokes] was legally
‘trespassing’ on the Lot,” the factors provided by Officer Storey created “reasonable
suspicion that criminal activity [was] afoot.”
“The fatal flaw in [Stokes’s] approach is that he challenges the sufficiency of
each factor in isolation from the rest. The totality-of-the-circumstances test
‘precludes this sort of divide-and-conquer analysis.’” Quinn, 812 F.3d at 698(quoting Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 274). Courts have previously held that many of these
factors, when combined, support a conclusion of reasonable suspicion. To begin,
“[f]actors that may reasonably lead an experienced officer to investigate include time
of day or night, location of the suspect parties, and the parties’ behavior when they
become aware of the officer’s presence.” United States v. Dawdy, 46 F.3d 1427,
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1429 (8th Cir. 1995). And “officers are not required to ignore the relevant
characteristics of a location in determining whether the circumstances are
sufficiently suspicious to warrant further investigation.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528
U.S. 119, 124 (2000). Officer Storey had vast experience patrolling this area and
routinely made arrests on salvage lots at this time of night. It is unusual for someone
to be present at a salvage lot in the middle of the night, particularly since the property
owner was asking the police to investigate.
We have held that “generic suspect descriptions and crime-scene proximity
can warrant reasonable suspicion where there are few or no other potential suspects
in the area who match the description.” Quinn, 812 F.3d at 699. Similarly, in
Horton, this court clarified that “a stop typically is justified when a suspect matches
the description of a person involved in a disturbance near in time and location to the
stop.” 611 F.3d at 940. Although Stokes’s race was different from the race provided
by the property owner, his attire generally matched the description, and he was the
only individual present on the property.
We have similarly acknowledged in the context of traffic stops that “vague
and confusing answers to routine questions” contribute to a conclusion of reasonable
suspicion. United States v. Pacheco, 996 F.3d 508, 512 (8th Cir. 2021); accord
United States v. Gastelum, 11 F.4th 898, 903 (8th Cir. 2021) (explaining “odd
answers and strange travel plans can support a finding of reasonable suspicion”).
Stokes’s answers to Officer Storey’s questions about why he was at the salvage lot
at 3:00 a.m. were odd because he was waiting at the salvage lot in the middle of the
night so he could inquire about a stolen car in the morning and Stokes had not
reported it stolen. Under a totality of the circumstances analysis, these facts were
sufficient to provide Officer Storey with reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry
stop.
B. Reasonable Suspicion to Conduct a Terry Frisk
The next issue Stokes raises on appeal is whether Officer Storey had
reasonable suspicion for an attempted Terry frisk. The search incident to arrest,
which Officer Storey performed after he deployed the taser, is not challenged by
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Stokes. Once a suspect is legally stopped, “an officer who has reason to believe the
detained individual may be armed and dangerous may conduct a pat-down search
for weapons to ensure officer safety.” United States v. Davis, 457 F.3d 817, 822
(8th Cir. 2006). We apply an objective test to determine whether the police officer
had reasonable, articulable suspicion for the pat-down. United States v. Roggeman,
279 F.3d 573, 577 (8th Cir. 2002). “Under this objective standard, the ‘officer need
not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a
reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that
his safety or that of others was in danger.’” Id. at 578 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at
27). Again, we consider the totality of the circumstances. Pollreis v. Marzolf, 9
F.4th 737, 747 (8th Cir. 2021).
Here, the facts are analogous to Roggeman where this court held the frisk was
justified because the officer “was alone, he stopped [the defendant] late at night, and
the scene of the stop was poorly lit.” 279 F.3d at 578. We held that “[t]hese facts
go to officer safety . . . .” Id. at 578–79. We also noted that the pat-down was further
supported by “the District Court’s own finding that the trooper observed the bulge
in [the defendant’s] right-front pocket before he patted down that pocket.” Id. at
579. Similarly, Officer Storey was alone at the salvage lot in the middle of the night
with a suspect who was acting suspiciously and had unusually full pockets. While
Stokes argues the bulge in his pockets was insufficient to justify the frisk, under the
totality of the circumstances it was reasonable for Officer Storey to fear for his
safety. We conclude, Officer Storey had reasonable suspicion to justify the
attempted frisk.
III. Conclusion
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
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