Mitchell v. United States

1

Maurice Ronnie Mitchell, Appellant, v. United States, Appellee.

No. 20-CF-0073

Court of Appeals of The District of Columbia

May 9, 2024

Argued October 31, 2023

Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (2018-CF2-013398) (Hon. Michael K. O'Keefe, Trial Judge

Paul Maneri, with whom Samia Fam and Shilpa S. Satoskar Public Defender Service, were on the brief for Appellant.

Valerie Tsesarenko, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Matthew M. Graves, United States Attorney, Chrisellen R Kolb, Brandon Regan, and Kristian Hinson, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief for Appellee.

Before BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Chief Judge, and HOWARD and SHANKER ^[*] Associate Judges.

HOWARD, ASSOCIATE JUDGE

On the evening of September 10, 2018, Metropolitan Police Department ("MPD") officers received a ShotSpotter alert indicating a possible shot fired near their location. A few minutes after the alert, the officers encountered Appellant Maurice Mitchell riding a bicycle away from the general location of the potential gunshot. The officers testified that when Mr. Mitchell noticed the officers' car pull to the intersection where he was biking, he flinched and increased his speed away from the officers. After following him for a short while, the officers activated their emergency lights, stopped Mr. Mitchell, and yelled for him to show them his hands. After approaching Mr. Mitchell to secure his hands, the officers observed the end of a firearm protruding out of an open bag on the handlebar of the bicycle.

Following a stipulated trial, Mr. Mitchell was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm (prior conviction),^[1] carrying a rifle or shotgun,^[2] possession of unregistered firearm,^[3] unlawful possession of ammunition,^[4] and wearing a hood or mask while engaged in unlawful conduct.^[5] On appeal, Mr. Mitchell challenges the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress, arguing that the officers' discovery of the firearm was the fruit of an unlawful stop because the officers lacked a particularized and articulable suspicion to conduct the stop. We agree. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court's denial of the motion to suppress physical evidence.

I. Background

On September 10, 2018, MPD Officers Karina Phillip and Willmino Pantaleon were inside their marked patrol car in an alley near the 2400 block of 4th Street Northeast when the ShotSpotter app^[6] on Officer Phillip's MPD phone alerted. The ShotSpotter app indicated that a single shot had possibly been fired at 2316 4th Street Northeast. Though the officers were located "[a]bout a block or a block and a half away," neither officer heard a gunshot. Within a minute of receiving the app alert, MPD's Command Information Center confirmed the ShotSpotter had detected a single gunshot and requested that officers in the vicinity canvass the area. There were no accompanying 911 calls related to the possible gunshot and no reports of a suspect or any suspect's direction of travel. Officers Phillip and Pantaleon decided to go toward the location identified by the ShotSpotter alert and began "to slowly cruise out from the alleyway" toward 4th Street.

When the officers reached the end of the alley at the intersection of 4th Street, they observed Mr. Mitchell on a bicycle traveling away from the direction that the ShotSpotter indicated the gunshot had originated. Officer Phillip testified that as their patrol car began to exit the alley, they "saw the bike coming, [and they] didn't want it to collide" so they "ha[d] to wait." She went on to testify that she did not see anyone else before reaching the mouth of the alley where she saw and focused on Mr. Mitchell riding his bicycle. The officers stopped their patrol car to allow Mr. Mitchell to pass. As he rode past them, the officers observed that Mr. Mitchell was wearing all black with a hood covering his head and a facemask that covered the perimeter of his face.^[7] At some point earlier that evening, it had rained, but it was not raining when the officers encountered Mr. Mitchell.

Describing the events after the officers had to stop the patrol car to avoid colliding with Mr. Mitchell, Officer Phillip explained that Mr. Mitchell was initially biking "at a normal speed, but as he saw [their] cruiser .... [H]e began peddling [sic] like a lot faster and then he [kept] looking back." Officer Pantaleon further testified that when Mr. Mitchell saw the officers "he flinched," and Officer Phillip stated that Mr. Mitchell looked "a bit nervous." After making these observations, the officers made a right onto 4th Street-away from the location that they were to canvass-intending to follow and "make contact with [Mr. Mitchell]." Officer Pantaleon testified that after he made the right, Mr. Mitchell was approaching Channing Street and turned up a ramp to the Edgewood Apartments. The officers made a U-turn to follow Mr. Mitchell up the ramp.

When the officers reached the top of the ramp, Mr. Mitchell was straddling his bicycle while attempting to enter the front door of the apartment. Officer Phillip testified that other people were outside around the apartment complex at that time. The officers activated the emergency lights on their patrol car, exited their patrol car, and walked toward Mr. Mitchell. Officer Phillip approached with her hand on her gun, as both the officers shouted, "Let me see your hands." Mr. Mitchell turned to look at the approaching officers, and raised his left hand toward the officers while keeping his right hand on the handlebar. Officer Pantaleon described Mr. Mitchell's posture as "blading his body away from me, like as if he's hiding something."

The officers closed in on Mr. Mitchell and each officer secured one of his arms. At that time, the officers could see a partially open black bag hanging on the handlebar, and Officer Pantaleon saw "[t]he back piece and trigger guard" of a firearm sticking out of the bag. The officers immediately placed Mr. Mitchell under arrest. While Officers Phillip and Pantaleon pursued Mr. Mitchell, another MPD officer responded to the location of the ShotSpotter Alert and found other people in the area and "no apparent emergency."

Mr. Mitchell filed a motion to suppress the firearm recovered during the stop. Following an evidentiary hearing, in which Officers Phillip and Pantaleon testified, the trial judge denied Mr. Mitchell's motion. In ruling on the motion to suppress, the trial court explained that the officers had reasonable suspicion because of the "geographic and temporal proximity between the ShotSpotter alert and the officers' first encounter with [Mr. Mitchell]" combined with his "[e]vasive behavior in response to police presence" and the "lateness of the hour."

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Mitchell agreed to a stipulated bench trial, reserving his right to appeal the trial court's ruling on his earlier motion to suppress. Mr. Mitchell was convicted and sentenced to eighteen months incarceration, suspended as to all but twelve months; three years of supervised release, all suspended; and 1 year of supervised probation. Mr. Mitchell was later released pending appeal pursuant to his request under D.C. Code § 23-1325(c), after this court determined, on an emergency motion, that his request was improperly denied because his suppression motion raised a "substantial question of law" and remanded. Mitchell v. United States, 234 A.3d 1203, 1211 &n.13 (D.C. 2020) (noting trial court "promptly" released Mr. Mitchell after our remand in that case).

II. Standard of Review

When reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion to suppress, this court "must defer to the [trial] court's findings of evidentiary fact and view those facts and the reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to sustaining the ruling below." Jackson v. United States, 157 A.3d 1259, 1264 (D.C. 2017) (quoting Joseph v. United States, 926 A.2d 1156, 1160 (D.C. 2007)). However, "[w]hether officers had reasonable suspicion to justify a stop is a question of law that we review de novo." Posey v. United States, 201 A.3d 1198, 1201 (D.C. 2019) (citing Miles v. United States, 181 A.3d 633, 637 (D.C. 2018)). The government bears the burden of demonstrating that at the time Mr. Mitchell was stopped MPD officers had reasonable and articulable suspicion to justify the stop. United States v. Jones, 1 F.4th 50, 52 (D.C. Cir. 2021).

III. Discussion

"It is well-established . . . that, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, an officer may conduct a brief stop (a seizure) 'for investigatory purposes' when he has 'reasonable suspicion supported by specific and articulable facts that the individual is involved in criminal activity[.]'" Pridgen v. United States, 134 A.3d 297, 301 (D.C. 2016) (brackets in original) (quoting Robinson v. United States, 76 A.3d 329, 335-36 (D.C. 2013)). Reasonable suspicion is not a particularly arduous standard; certainly, it "is a less demanding standard than probable cause." Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 (1990); In re T.L.L., 729 A.2d 334, 339 (D.C. 1999). However, reasonable suspicion requires more than "a mere 'inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch' of criminal activity," and officers must have "at least a minimal level of objective justification ...." Maye v. United States, 260 A.3d 638, 645 (D.C. 2021) (quoting Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123-24 (2000)). An investigatory stop not supported by reasonable suspicion, regardless of how brief, is a violation of the rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Golden v. United States, 248 A.3d 925, 933 (D.C. 2021).

A. Seizure

We begin our analysis by determining the moment that Mr Mitchell was seized. Pridgen, 134 A.3d at 302 ("Our analysis of whether the officers had ...