United States v. Antonio Watkins

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-4598
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
ANTONIO LAMAR WATKINS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Anderson. Timothy M. Cain, District Judge.
(8:12-cr-00304-TMC-1)
Submitted: March 31, 2014 Decided: May 9, 2014
Before WYNN and DIAZ, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Jonathan M. Milling, MILLING LAW FIRM, LLC, Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellant. William N. Nettles, United States
Attorney, Carrie Fisher Sherard, Assistant United States
Attorney, Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Antonio Lamar Watkins appeals from his convictions
after a jury trial for drug and firearm offenses. On appeal,
Watkins only argues that the district court erred in denying his
motion to suppress evidence. Finding no error, we affirm.
In considering the denial of a suppression motion, we
review the district court’s legal determinations de novo and its
factual findings for clear error. United States v. Kelly, 592
F.3d 586, 589 (4th Cir. 2010). The court “view[s] the facts in
the light most favorable to the Government, as the party
prevailing below.” United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531, 534
(4th Cir. 2013). The court also “defer[s] to the district
court’s credibility findings, as it is the role of the [trial]
court to observe witnesses and weigh their credibility during a
pre-trial motion to suppress.” United States v. Griffin, 589
F.3d 148, 150-51 n.1 (4th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
We have reviewed the transcript of the motion to
suppress hearing and the district court’s detailed ruling on the
motion from the bench and find no clear error in the district
court’s finding of facts or error in its legal conclusions. We
defer to its credibility findings. Because the district court
did not err in denying the motion to suppress, we affirm the
judgment. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
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legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before this court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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