Facts
During a night-time patrol of a high-crime area, officers with the Shreveport Police Department initiated a traffic stop after observing a driver, later identified as Kenric W. Young, make a left turn without using a signal. One officer activated his vehicle’s emergency lights and sirens, but Young did not stop. Despite sufficient space on the roadway to pull over safely, Young instead proceeded for roughly thirty-nine seconds until he parked in driveway of a residence. Young then immediately exited his vehicle without being directed to do so, raised his hands, and tossed his phone on top of his car.
After noticing a large bulge in the front pocket of Young’s sweatshirt, officers performed a pat-down search to check for weapons. The bulge turned out to be two bags of marijuana and over $5,000 in cash. Officers discovered additional bags of marijuana near Young’s car. And following the issuance of a warrant, a search of Young’s residence further uncovered over a kilogram of methamphetamine, more than half a kilogram of marijuana, and a stolen firearm.
Young later conditionally pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). Because of Young’s two Louisiana convictions for controlled substance offenses, the district court applied a career offender sentencing enhancement and sentenced him to 322 months of imprisonment. On appeal, Young argued the drugs should have been suppressed. The 5th affirmed.
Analysis
Young challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence from the pat-down search. While he concedes that the initial traffic stop was valid, Young objects that the subsequent pat-down search of his person was invalid because officers did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that he was armed and dangerous.
During a traffic stop, officers may “perform a ‘patdown’ of a driver and any passengers upon reasonable suspicion that they may be armed and dangerous. Reasonable suspicion is a low threshold. See Castillo. It depends on the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.
And for good reason—routine traffic stops can pose great danger to officers. What begins as a stop for a minor traffic infraction can easily take a deadly turn. So officers need not be certain that an individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man could believe, based on specific and articulable facts, that his safety or that of others is in danger.
Here, there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable officer to believe that Young was armed and dangerous. After all, even observations capable of innocent explanation may, in the aggregate, amount to reasonable suspicion. The officers encountered Young in an unknown driveway of a high-crime area, after he initially failed to stop. See SCOTUS Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (2000) (holding “the fact that the stop occurred in a ‘high crime area’ [is] among the relevant contextual considerations in a Terry analysis”). Considering that “weapons and violence abound” in high-crime areas, officers were justified in being particularly cautious in approaching and questioning Young.
Further, officers were reasonably alarmed when Young exited his vehicle without being directed to do so. These dangers were justifiably perceived as heightened by the presence of a passenger in Young’s car. See SCOTUS Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408 (1997) (The fact that there is more than one occupant of the vehicle increases the possible sources of harm to the officer.).
Despite these factors, Young protests that his sweatshirt pocket bulge was insufficient to create reasonable suspicion. Unlike a bulge in a more “unusual” spot like a waistband, he says, pockets are meant to be used to carry items, so his sweatshirt bulge was too “common” of an occurrence to justify a search. But the officers’ basis for searching Young was reasonable, based on commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior. True, people often keep everyday items in their pockets. But pockets can also hold weapons. Considering the broader context of the stop, the officers reasonably believed Young was armed and dangerous. Because the officers had reasonable suspicion to conduct the pat-down search, Young has not demonstrated clear or obvious error.
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/25/25-30187.0.pdf