United States v. Theodore Lee Williams, II

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-10426
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
THEODORE LEE WILLIAMS, II,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 8:20-cr-00353-SCB-AAS-1
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-10426
Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Theodore Williams, II appeals his conviction for being a
felon in possession of a firearm. He argues that the District Court
erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained in the
search of his vehicle after a traffic stop. First, he asserts that the
District Court clearly erred in finding that he was nervous, walked
toward the officer, and attempted to distance himself from his car.
Second, he asserts that the officer’s attempt to immediately hand-
cuff him violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unlaw-
ful searches and seizures. Finally, he argues that any evidence ob-
tained from his vehicle thereafter was fruit of the poisonous tree.
Finding no error, we affirm Williams’s conviction.
I.
On November 19, 2020, a grand jury in the United States
District Court for the Middle District of Florida indicted Theodore
Williams, II on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm
in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1). 1 Williams, through counsel,
1 Section 922(g) reads, in pertinent part: “It shall be unlawful for any person
who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment
for a term exceeding one year . . . to ship or transport in interstate or foreign
commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition.”
The Indictment indicates that Williams had previous convictions for posses-
sion of cocaine with intent to sell, carrying a concealed firearm, robbery, and
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22-10426 Opinion of the Court 3
filed a motion to suppress the search of his vehicle, arguing that (1)
the traffic stop was invalid; (2) Williams’s detention amounted to a
de facto arrest without probable cause; and; (3) the search of the
vehicle was unconstitutional. The Government responded, argu-
ing that the officers lawfully arrested Williams and that Williams
consented to the search of the vehicle.2
The District Court held an evidentiary hearing on the mo-
tion to suppress. Pablo Enriquez and Jason Otis, both deputies
with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (the “HCSO”) Street
Crimes Unit at the time of Williams’s arrest, testified for the Gov-
ernment. Williams’s attorney did not put on any witnesses. Below
are the events of Williams’s traffic stop, detention, arrest, and
search, as articulated in the deputies’ testimony.
The goal of the HCSO’s Street Crimes Unit is to serve as a
proactive law enforcement unit that detects and deters crime and
saturates high crime areas. The unit is made up of both undercover
deputies in plain clothes with unmarked cars and uniformed depu-
ties in marked patrolled cars. On May 28, 2020, the evening of
being a felon in possession of a firearm, as well as two aggravated battery with
a deadly weapon convictions. ]
2 Williams’s attorney filed an amended motion to suppress. The Govern-
ment’s response was to Williams’s original motion to suppress. The Govern-
ment did not respond to the amended motion, choosing instead to allow its
original response to serve as a response to the amended motion as well.
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Williams’s arrest, Deputy Enriquez was in plain clothes and drove
an unmarked car.
Because Deputy Enriquez was undercover and in an un-
marked car, if he saw any crime, including traffic infractions, his
role was to radio the uniformed units in the area for them to con-
duct the traffic stop. According to Deputy Enriquez’s testimony,
on the evening of May 28, 2020, he saw Williams traveling east on
124th Avenue East, approaching 15th Street North. He observed
Williams’s car approach the marked stop sign, fail to stop, run the
stop sign, and make a right turn onto 15th Street North. Deputy
Enriquez radioed his observations to Deputy Otis, who was a uni-
formed Street Crimes Unit deputy driving a marked car in the area,
as was common practice. He maintained a visual on Williams’s car
until Deputy Otis pulled behind the car to initiate the traffic stop.
Because Deputy Otis was alone in his patrol car, when Otis and
Williams turned into Teresa’s Food Store (the “Convenience
Store”), Deputy Enriquez parked across the parking lot in case Dep-
uty Otis needed assistance.
Both Deputy Enriquez and Deputy Otis testified that, upon
pulling into the Convenience Store, Williams got out of his car and
walked back towards Deputy Otis’s car. Both deputies indicated
that, based on their experience, if someone immediately exits their
car they are either likely to flee on foot or they do not want the
officer near the car or the window for some reason. Deputy Otis
testified that Williams appeared to be very nervous and that he de-
cided to detain Williams in handcuffs for safety purposes while he
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conducted the traffic stop because Otis was alone, Williams was
acting nervous, had exited the vehicle, and was distancing himself
from it. Deputy Otis told Williams he was going to detain him and
grabbed his right wrist to put it behind his back and handcuff him,
at which point Williams attempted to flee on foot; Deputy Otis
grabbed his shirt, and Williams and Otis fell to the ground. Deputy
Otis testified that Deputy Enriquez—whom he did not know was
on the scene—then assisted him in subduing Williams and arrest-
ing him for resisting arrest. 3 Otis then shined his flashlight into the
car to make sure there was nobody else in the vehicle who could
harm him.
Deputy Otis conducted a search of Williams subsequent to
his arrest. He found a blue package containing what he sus-
pected—based on his experience—was cannabis. After the search,
Deputy Otis took Williams to the back of his patrol car. On the
way to the patrol car, Deputy Otis testified that Williams was very
nervous, saying that he did not want to go back to prison, and asked
Deputy Otis to go get his phone from the car and let him call his
mom and his girlfriend. According to Otis, he went up to the still-
running vehicle, opened the door, and turned off the ignition. He
smelled what he believed to be cannabis. He saw Williams’s phone
3 Deputy Enriquez’s testimony confirms this sequence of events. Once Dep-
uties Enriquez and Otis handcuffed Williams, other uniformed deputies ar-
rived and Deputy Enriquez returned to his undercover vehicle, ending his in-
volvement; Deputy Enriquez did not—at any point—go into Williams’s car,
nor did he see Deputy Otis do so.
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-10426
on the floor, plugged in to a charging cable. And in plain view on
the floor mat, right next to Williams’s phone, was a firearm. 4
At the close of the evidentiary hearing, the District Judge
stated:
As far as detention, there’s clearly nothing wrong
with the detention [ ]. [Williams] does get out of the
car. And we can see him getting out . . . quickly, not
slowly, but quickly walking to the rear of the car. Otis
testified that . . . from his experience, that was suspi-
cious, that [Williams] might be going to run, that he
wanted him to stay away from the vehicle, and that
he appeared nervous, and that—for his own safety,
[he] detained him. . . . I don’t think there’s anything
wrong with that detention. And then, obviously,
once he detains him and he runs, then he . . . ar-
rest[ed] him for resisting arrest without violence.
Evid. Hr’g Tr., Doc. 129 at 100. With respect to the search, the
District Court stated that Deputy Otis had consent, and that even
if he did not have consent, based on the totality of the circum-
stances he would have had probable cause. The Court commented
that the defense consisted of “suspicions on top of suspicions on
top of suspicions.” Id. at 101.
4 According to Deputy Otis’s testimony, he did not have to touch anything in
the car, aside from the door, to get to Williams’s phone and he did not have
to touch or move anything in the car to see the gun on the floorboard.
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The District Court entered a written order denying the mo-
tion to suppress. The Court found that Williams’s first argument—
that there was no traffic infraction and thus the traffic stop was in-
valid—lacked merit because Deputy Enriquez credibly testified
that he witnessed Williams run the stop sign and there was simply
no evidence to the contrary. With respect to the lawfulness of Dep-
uty Otis’s attempt to detain Williams, the District Court held that
it fell within the scope of a valid Terry stop and it was reasonable
under the circumstances to provide for officer safety and to prevent
Williams from leaving the scene. That Otis could have used other
means to detain Williams but chose to use handcuffs is irrelevant,
because while he could have used other methods he was not re-
quired to. When Williams attempted to flee the scene, Deputy
Otis had probable cause to arrest him under Fla. Stat. § 843.02. 5
As for the lawfulness of the automobile search, the District
Court found that the search was lawful under several exceptions to
the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. First, the Court
held that Williams voluntarily consented to the search. Second,
the District Court held that the search was valid under the automo-
bile exception to the warrant requirement, as the vehicle was read-
ily mobile and there was probable cause to believe that it contained
contraband.
5 According to Florida law: “Whoever shall resist, obstruct, or oppose any
officer, . . .without offering or doing violence to the person of the officer, shall
be guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree.” Fla. Stat. § 843.02.
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Following the denial of his motion to dismiss, Williams
opted for a bench trial. He was found guilty of one count of felo-
nious possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)
and sentenced to 57 months’ imprisonment and 36 months of su-
pervised release. Williams filed this timely appeal, challenging the
District Court’s factual findings, the constitutionality of Williams’s
detention, and the evidence obtained from the search of the car.
II.
Because rulings on motions to suppress evidence present
mixed questions of law and fact, we review the District Court’s fac-
tual findings for clear error and its application of the law to the facts
de novo. United States v. Lewis, 674 F.3d 1298, 1302–03 (11th Cir.
2012). The facts are construed in favor of the party that prevailed
below, here the United States, and we afford substantial deference
to the factfinder’s explicit and implicit credibility determinations.
Id. at 1303. We will accept the District Court’s credibility determi-
nation “unless it is contrary to the laws of nature, or is so incon-
sistent or improbable on its face that no reasonable factfinder could
accept it.” United States v. Holt, 777 F.3d 1234, 1255 (11th Cir.
2015) (quotation marks omitted). Generally, evidence obtained by
unconstitutional means is inadmissible because it is “the fruit of the
poisonous tree.” See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488,
83 S. Ct. 407, 417 (1963).
The Fourth Amendment provides that “[t]he right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
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22-10426 Opinion of the Court 9
and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” U.S. Const.
amend. IV. A police officer may lawfully detain someone without
a warrant if he has reasonable suspicion that the person has partic-
ipated in or is about to participate in criminal activity, which in-
cludes minor traffic violations. United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th
860, 880 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 95 (2022).
When an officer has already lawfully detained a driver, an
additional intrusion into the driver’s personal liberty is justified if it
is outweighed by legitimate concerns for the officer’s safety. Penn-
sylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 111, 98 S. Ct. 330, 333 (1977) (find-
ing that, during a traffic stop, the additional intrusion of ordering a
driver to get out of the car was de minimis). Officer safety is a “le-
gitimate and weighty” justification, and traffic stops are not neces-
sarily any less dangerous than other types of confrontations. Id. at
110, 98 S. Ct. at 333; see also United States v. Gibbs, 917 F.3d 1289,
1297 (11th Cir. 2019) (“[O]ur courts have repeatedly recognized the
danger inherent in traffic stops, . . . and the concomitant need to
exercise unquestioned command of the situation.” (quotation
marks omitted)), abrogated on other grounds by Campbell,
26 F.4th at 880 n.15.
“[W]hen the totality of circumstances indicate that an en-
counter has become too intrusive to be classified as a brief seizure,
[or detention,] the encounter is an arrest and probable cause is re-
quired.” United States v. Espinosa-Guerra, 805 F.2d 1502, 1506
(11th Cir. 1986). A reviewing court must give due weight to the
officer’s experience when examining the totality of the
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circumstances. United States v. Briggman, 931 F.2d 705, 709 (11th
Cir. 1991). In determining whether a detention amounts to a de
facto arrest, we consider, in relevant part, the law enforcement pur-
poses served by the detention and the scope and intrusiveness of
the detention. United States v. Acosta, 363 F.3d 1141, 1146 (11th
Cir. 2004). Handcuffing does not automatically convert a Terry
stop into a de facto arrest requiring probable cause. United States
v. Hastamorir, 881 F.2d 1551, 1556 (11th Cir. 1989). Notably, we
have “long concluded that it is reasonable for officers to use hand-
cuffs to protect themselves during an investigative detention.”
Gray ex rel. Alexander v. Bostic, 458 F.3d 1295, 1306 (11th Cir.
2006).
Here, Deputy Otis’s attempt to handcuff Williams and de-
tain him for the duration of the traffic stop was a valid detention
and not a de facto arrest. Based on his experience, Deputy Otis
testified that when people exit their vehicle quickly on traffic stops,
there is a high likelihood they will flee on foot. He further testified
that Williams appeared nervous and was trying to distance himself
from the vehicle. Because Deputy Otis believed himself to be the
only officer on the scene, and because Williams exited the vehicle
quickly, appeared nervous, and appeared to be distancing himself
from the vehicle, Deputy Otis made the decision to detain Williams
for safety reasons. This is a legitimate justification.
The District Court’s factual findings were not clearly erro-
neous. The record does not contradict the Court’s determination
that the officer’s testimony was credible—it corroborates it. We
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certainly cannot say the testimony of Deputies Enriquez and Otis
is “contrary to the laws of nature, or [ ] so inconsistent or improb-
able on its face that no reasonable factfinder could accept it.” Holt,
777 F.3d at 1255. Under the totality of the circumstances, Deputy
Otis’s attempt to use handcuffs on Williams for safety reasons was
reasonable and did not turn the detention into a de facto arrest.
When Williams then attempted to flee this lawful detention, Dep-
uty Otis validly arrested him pursuant to Florida law. Because the
arrest was valid, so too was the search incident to arrest.
As for the search of the vehicle, that search was valid under
several theories. Specifically, Deputy Otis had consent to search
the vehicle. Williams asked him to get his phone and asked several
times to make a phone call. Otis did not exceed the scope of that
consent when he entered the vehicle. He was lawfully present in
the vehicle to get Williams’s phone, and the gun was in plain view
next to the phone.
Further, the automobile exception applies. If a car is (1)
readily mobile and (2) probable cause exists to believe it contains
contraband, a warrantless search does not violate the Fourth
Amendment. United States v. Watts, 329 F.3d 1282, 1285 (quoting
Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 938, 940, 116 S. Ct. 2485, 2487
(1996) (per curiam)). When Deputy Otis opened the car door to
retrieve Williams’s cell phone and turn off the ignition, he smelled
marijuana. The fact that the vehicle was running indicates that it
was readily mobile. The smell of the marijuana, combined with
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the seizure of what appeared to be marijuana from Williams upon
search of his person, created probable cause.
Because there was a valid detention, there was no unlawful
arrest and thus no constitutional violation. The seized evidence
was therefore not fruit of the poisonous tree, and the Court did not
err in denying the motion to suppress. Accordingly, we affirm Wil-
liams’s conviction.
AFFIRMED.