United States v. Anthony Gilbert-Brown

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 21-1316
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
ANTHONY GILBERT-BROWN,
Appellant
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On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 1-18-cr-0210-001)
District Judge: Honorable Jennifer P. Wilson
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Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
November 18, 2021
Before: AMBRO, JORDAN, and ROTH, Circuit Judges
(Filed: January 7, 2022)
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OPINION ∗
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JORDAN, Circuit Judge.
∗
This disposition is not an opinion of the full court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7,
does not constitute binding precedent.
Anthony Gilbert-Brown appeals the District Court’s order denying his motion to
suppress evidence. He argues that, under the Fourth Amendment, his car should not have
been stopped, his subsequent arrest was unwarranted, and the police lacked probable
cause to search his car. Because his arguments lack sufficient merit, we will affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
On the evening of February 19, 2018, Officer Bradley Engle of the York City
Police Department was in pursuit of a stolen car. The occupants of the car eventually
abandoned it near an intersection and fled on foot. Still in his patrol car, Officer Engle
followed them down a one-way street but then lost sight of them. He then began to return
to the now-abandoned car by turning on his emergency lights and driving his patrol car in
reverse towards the intersection. Before he reached the intersection, however, another
car blocked him from backing up any further. The driver of that car was Gilbert-Brown,
and with him was another individual in the front passenger seat.
Officer Engle “chirped” his siren for Gilbert-Brown to back up. Gilbert-Brown
obliged, and Officer Engle parked his patrol car in the middle of the intersection. He then
got out of the patrol car and, because he wanted to block off all lanes of travel through
the intersection, told Gilbert-Brown to turn around, both verbally and with motions using
a handheld flashlight. Evidently intent on going through the intersection, Gilbert-Brown
ignored Officer Engle and started slowly driving forward in an apparent attempt to
“squeeze in between [the] patrol vehicle and the [stolen car]” in the intersection. (App. at
274.)
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As Gilbert-Brown tried to go around the patrol car, Officer Engle approached and
gave him additional commands to turn around. At one point, Officer Engle was close
enough to make eye contact with Gilbert-Brown. Gilbert-Brown gave Officer Engle a
“thousand-yard stare” through “bloodshot” eyes with a “glossy tint[.]” (App. at 13, 276,
281.) Officer Engle testified that, at that point, he concluded that an investigatory stop
was necessary. He told Gilbert-Brown to stop, turn off his car, and get out of it, and he
repeated the order several times.
Officer Engle’s suspicion that something was wrong was confirmed when Gilbert-
Brown responded to the commands by reversing his car, as if to attempt a three-point
turn, only to place his car in drive and start moving directly at Officer Engle. The car
collided with Officer Engle’s left leg, but rather than stop driving, Gilbert-Brown
continued forward slowly, pushing Officer Engle further back. At that point, fearing
“serious bodily injury,” Officer Engle drew his service weapon and fired four or five
rounds at the windshield of the car. (App. at 4, 284.)
After Officer Engle fired his weapon, Gilbert-Brown backed up until he hit Officer
Engle’s patrol car. He then drove forward and brought his car, at last, to a stop. Officer
Engle instructed Gilbert-Brown and the passenger to keep their hands up. Another
officer with the York City Police Department, Paul Thorne, arrived at the scene and
assisted in placing the two under arrest. Once Gilbert-Brown and the passenger were in
custody, the officers conducted a search incident to arrest, recovering from Gilbert-
Brown’s person eleven clear plastic baggies and cash totaling $560.00.
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While still at the scene, and pursuant to Pennsylvania State Police policy, the
officers contacted the State Police Criminal Investigations Division, whose troopers
would take over the investigation, as is required when there is an officer-involved
shooting. Before the state troopers arrived, however, Officer Thorne observed a firearm
“sitting in the center console” of Gilbert-Brown’s car. (App. at 6, 220, 393.) The
officers immediately recovered that item from the car, and also discovered a black digital
scale, multiple bags of a “white chalky substance[,]” a bag of marijuana, an iPhone, a
ripped vacuum-sealed bag, and a “magazine [with bullets] on the front passenger side
floor board.” (App. at 6, 218, 220, 398-99.)
After arriving on the scene, Trooper Jason Groff took possession of the evidence
seized pursuant to the arrest and the items found in the car. Pursuant to State Police
policy, 1 a trooper then inventoried the car for “valuables and other items.” (App. at 6,
101.) That inventory search revealed, among other items, another firearm and
ammunition “on the passenger side between the front seat and [the] door of the
vehicle[.]” (App. at 7, 218, 238.) After the car was towed, Trooper Groff obtained a
search warrant for the car, which yielded yet more drug and firearm paraphernalia,
including a bag of crack cocaine.
A grand jury in the United States District Court for the Middle District of
Pennsylvania indicted Gilbert-Brown for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent
1
That policy states that “[s]eized vehicles or other property shall be inventoried
and processed whenever the property is taken into possession.” (App. at 101.)
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to distribute cocaine base (Count 1), three counts of distribution of cocaine base (Counts
2 through 4), possession with intent to distribute cocaine base (Count 5), and possession
of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime (Count 6). Gilbert-Brown pleaded
not guilty and filed a motion to suppress all items seized by the officers at the scene, as
well as those seized pursuant to the later-executed search warrant.
Following a hearing, the District Court denied Gilbert-Brown’s motion. It found
that Officer Engle’s testimony was credible, and it concluded he had reasonable suspicion
to stop Gilbert-Brown’s car, as well as probable cause for the subsequent arrest and
search. The Court also concluded that it was unnecessary to address whether probable
cause justified Officer Thorne’s on-site search of the car because, in view of Trooper
Groff’s testimony and Pennsylvania State Police policy, the state troopers would have
inevitably discovered that evidence. Later, having struck a deal with the government that
preserved his right to appeal the District Court’s suppression ruling, Gilbert-Brown
ultimately pleaded guilty to Counts 5 and 6 of the indictment and was sentenced to 180
months’ imprisonment. This timely appeal followed.
II. DISCUSSION 2
On appeal, Gilbert-Brown contends that the District Court erred in finding Officer
Engle credible and, as a result, made a number of other erroneous factual findings. He
2
The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We have
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 3742(a). On appeal from a denial of a motion
to suppress, we review factual findings for clear error and exercise plenary review over
questions of law. United States v. Lewis, 672 F.3d 232, 236-37 (3d Cir. 2012).
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also argues that (i) Officer Engle lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory
stop of his car; (ii) Officer Engle lacked probable cause to arrest and search his person;
and (iii) Officer Thorne lacked probable cause to search his car and could not otherwise
justify the search under the inevitable discovery doctrine. None of those arguments
withstand scrutiny.
A. The Investigatory Stop
Generally speaking, for a seizure to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, it
must be “effectuated with a warrant based on probable cause.” United States v.
Robertson, 305 F.3d 164, 167 (3d Cir. 2002). Nevertheless, an officer may “conduct a
brief, investigatory stop when the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that
criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000) (citing Terry v.
Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)); see also United States v. Delfin-Colina, 464 F.3d 392, 397
(3d Cir. 2006) (The “Terry reasonable suspicion standard applies to routine traffic
stops.”). Gilbert-Brown claims that Officer Engle lacked reasonable suspicion to stop
him and order him out of the car.
As the District Court found, however, Gilbert-Brown ignored Officer Engle after
Engle “motioned to [him] with a handheld flashlight to turn around and go the other way
and gave approximately five to six verbal commands to turn around.” (App. at 13
(quotation marks and citation omitted).) Gilbert-Brown ignored the commands and drove
into a crime scene while looking directly at Officer Engle with eyes that were “very
bloodshot and had a glossy tint to them.” (App. at 13, 281.) Officer Engle then ordered
him to “stop the vehicle and get out and turn [the] vehicle off[,]” but he again ignored the
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officer and actually drove the vehicle into him. (App. at 13, 283.) Looking at the totality
of the circumstances, United States v. Lewis, 672 F.3d 232, 237 (3d Cir. 2012), those
constitute “specific, articulable facts” that gave Officer Engle reason to believe Gilbert-
Brown was, at the very least, violating traffic laws. Delfin-Colina, 464 F.3d at 397; see
also 75 Pa. Const. Stat. § 3733(a) (criminalizing willful failure to bring a vehicle to a stop
when ordered to do so by a police officer).
B. The Arrest
“Probable cause to arrest exists when the facts and circumstances within the
arresting officer’s knowledge are sufficient in themselves to warrant a reasonable person
to believe that an offense has been or is being committed by the person to be arrested.”
Estate of Smith v. Marasco, 318 F.3d 497, 514 (3d Cir. 2003) (quotation marks omitted).
Gilbert-Brown attempts to rewrite the District Court’s factfinding and argues that Officer
Engle “tapped [o]n the window and tried to open the door to pull Gilbert-Brown out of
the vehicle and told Gilbert-Brown to pull over and get out.” (Opening Br. at 9.) Then,
Gilbert-Brown says, when he attempted a three-point turn, Officer Engle “ran in front of
Gilbert-Brown’s vehicle … and shot at Gilbert-Brown causing him to crash into the
cruiser[.]” (Opening Br. at 9.) In that telling, among other factual rewrites, Gilbert-
Brown skips entirely his driving into Officer Engle’s leg. Gilbert-Brown’s counter-
narrative fails to show any clear error in the District Court’s factfinding. See United
States v. Williams, 898 F.3d 323, 329 (3d Cir. 2018) (“A finding is clearly erroneous
when[,] although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire
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evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.”
(quotation marks omitted)).
The District Court was free to accept the police officer’s version of events. In that
version, Gilbert-Brown ignored Officer Engle’s repeated commands to stop driving,
drove directly into him, and then crashed into the police cruiser. That provides more than
sufficient facts to conclude that “an offense ha[d] been or [was] being committed by”
Gilbert-Brown to warrant his arrest. Estate of Smith, 318 F.3d at 514. At a minimum,
Officer Engle had probable cause to arrest Gilbert-Brown for violating 75 Pa. Cons. Stat.
§ 3733(a) (fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer), 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 2702(a)(2)
(aggravated assault against a police officer), and 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 2705 (reckless
endangerment of another person).
C. The Search of the Automobile
Lastly, Gilbert-Brown argues that the District Court improperly applied the
inevitable discovery doctrine and, instead, should have addressed whether there was
probable cause for a search of the automobile. We, again, do not agree. “Evidence
obtained by the police unlawfully may nonetheless be admitted into evidence if the
prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information
ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means.” United States v.
Bradley, 959 F.3d 551, 557 (3d Cir. 2020) (quotation marks omitted). The Supreme
Court has recognized an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement when
there are “reasonable police regulations relating to inventory procedures administered in
good faith[.]” Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 374 (1987). Here, Pennsylvania State
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Police policy requires an inventory search for vehicles in the custody of state troopers.
Thus, regardless of the search at the scene, Gilbert-Brown’s car would certainly have
been subjected to an inventory search pursuant to that policy, which would have led to
the discovery of the evidence in his car.
Having found that the inevitable discovery doctrine applies, we need not reach the
issue of probable cause. 3
III. CONCLUSION
As the District Court did not err in denying Gilbert-Brown’s motion to suppress,
we will affirm.
3
Even if it were assumed the evidence would not have been inevitably discovered,
Gilbert-Brown would have a difficult time making the case that, despite a gun being in
plain view, there was no probable cause to search his car. See Horton v. California, 496
U.S. 128, 128 (1990) (“The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless seizure
of evidence in plain view[.]”). And under the “automobile exception” to the warrant
requirement, the officers did not need a warrant to search the car once they had probable
cause. See Maryland v. Dyson, 527 U.S. 465, 467 (1999) (“[U]nder our established
precedent, the ‘automobile exception’ has no separate exigency requirement. … [I]n
cases where there [is] probable cause to search a vehicle[,] a search is not unreasonable if
based on facts that would justify the issuance of a warrant, even though a warrant has not
been actually obtained.” (quotation marks and emphasis omitted)).
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