United States v. Palmer

1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. QUINCY PALMER Defendant.

Criminal Action No. 4:22-CR-369

United States District Court, S.D. Texas, Houston Division

April 4, 2023

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

GEORGE C.HANKS,JR., DISTRICT JUDGE

Pending before the Court is Defendant Quincy Palmer's Motion to Suppress Evidence. (Dkt. 17). Palmer, who is charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2), seeks to suppress (1) evidence seized during the March 2022 traffic stop that led to his arrest (“the traffic stop”) and (2) statements he made to the arresting officers and to his friends during the traffic stop. The Government filed a Response to the Motion to Suppress. (Dkt. 19). The Court conducted a suppression hearing on January 19, 2023. After considering the motion, response, reply, evidence, and applicable law, the Court finds that Palmer's motion should be DENIED.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Officer Kenneth Bradshaw of the Houston Police Department (HPD) testified at the suppression hearing. Evidence admitted at the hearing also included body camera footage from police officers at the scene of the traffic stop that led to Palmer's arrest. The Court concludes that (1) there is no considerable dispute between the parties concerning the factual background to this action, and (2) the Government provided credible evidence supporting the factual record as described in the Government's Response to the Motion to Suppress Evidence. Accordingly, the Court finds that the following facts have been established by the credible evidence.

On March 15, 2022, HPD Officers Bradshaw and W. Moseley (“the officers”) observed Palmer driving a 2017 Buick Lacrosse near the 5700 block of Scott Street in Houston, Texas. The front and side windows of Palmer's vehicle appeared to be tinted, the back license plate was obstructed by a plush doll hanging over the spare tire, and the wheel rims appeared to protrude wider than what is allowed under the Texas Transportation Code. The officers initiated a traffic stop.

Officer Bradshaw approached the driver's side of the vehicle; Officer Moseley approached the passenger's side. Upon approaching the vehicle, the officers smelled burnt marijuana. Officer Bradshaw obtained Palmer's license and insurance, then both officers returned to their patrol car to run Palmer's information. Before the results came back, they confirmed the marijuana smell with one another and decided to obtain more information from Palmer about the smell and issue a citation for the tinted windows.

The officers re-approached Palmer's vehicle. Officer Bradshaw told Palmer that he smelled marijuana and asked him how much marijuana was in the vehicle. Palmer admitted to having marijuana in a backpack in the back seat. At that point, Officer Bradshaw asked Palmer to exit the vehicle and proceeded to handcuff him. While Officer Bradshaw was handcuffing Palmer, Officer Moseley asked Palmer “[i]t ain't nothing else but weed, right?” Palmer responded that he had an “AR” (assault rifle) in the back seat. Officer Mosely asked if Palmer was a convicted felon; Palmer said that he was.

Upon inspecting the vehicle, Officer Mosely found Palmer's AR-15 rifle and several bags of marijuana. Palmer was placed in the back of the officers' patrol car and given the opportunity to call someone to drive his vehicle home. Palmer had three brief conversations on speakerphone and ultimately arranged for his brother to drive the vehicle home.

Palmer has now filed the pending motion to suppress the Government's use at trial of the firearm recovered at the scene and Palmer's statements at the scene. He asserts that the traffic stop violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and therefore the firearm collected by officers should be suppressed in this prosecution. Palmer further argues that his statements at the scene should also be suppressed because he was not given his Miranda rights before he answered the officers' questions. For the reasons discussed below, the Court disagrees with these arguments and the motion to suppress is DENIED.

II. APPLICABLE LAW

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV. “Because the Fourth Amendment itself contains no enforcement mechanism, the exclusionary rule developed as a judicially-created remedy to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights.” United States v. Edmond, No. 18-cr-00091-01, 2018 WL 4178228, at *3 (W.D. La. Aug. 6, 2018) (citing Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 236 (2011)). “In general, the exclusionary rule prohibits the introduction of evidence at trial that is derivative of an unconstitutional search or seizure and thereby deters police misconduct.” Id. (citing United States v. Gibbs, 421 F.3d 352, 357 (5th Cir. 2005)). “Under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, all evidence derived from an illegal search or seizure must be suppressed unless the government shows that there was a break in the chain of events sufficient to refute the inference that the evidence was a product of the Fourth Amendment violation.” Id. (citing United States v. Jones, 234 F.3d 234, 243-44 (5th Cir. 2000)).

“Generally, on a motion to suppress, the defendant has the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the evidence in question was obtained in violation of [his] constitutional rights.” United States v. Guerrero-Barajas, 240 F.3d 428, 432 (5th Cir. 2001). Warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment; the Government bears the burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the search or seizure was constitutional. Edmond, 2018 WL 4178228, at *4 (citing United States v. Lage, 183 F.3d 374, 380 (5th Cir. 1999); United States v. Berick, 710 F.2d 1035, 1037 (5th Cir. 1983); United States v. McKinnon, 681 F.3d 203, 207 (5th Cir. 2012)).

Traffic stops are deemed seizures for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Lopez-Moreno, 420 F.3d 420, 430 (5th Cir. 2005). The legality of a traffic stop is analyzed under the framework articulated in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). See id. at 30. Under Terry, courts take a two-pronged approach and “ask whether the officer's action was (1) justified at its inception; and (2) reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Id. (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 19-20) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under the first prong of a Terry analysis, for a traffic stop to be justified at its inception, an officer must have an objectively reasonable suspicion-before stopping the vehicle-that some sort of illegal activity, such as a traffic violation, has occurred or is about to occur. See United States v. Breeland, 53 F.3d 100, 102 (5th Cir. 1995).

III. ANALYSIS

A. The officers had an objectively reasonable basis for the traffic stop.

Palmer argues that the evidence obtained from the traffic stop should be suppressed because the officers lacked reasonable suspicion of illegal activity-i.e., because the stop failed the first prong of the Terry analysis. The Court disagrees. The testimony of Officer Bradshaw and the evidence presented during the suppression hearing established that the officers had probable cause to believe that Palmer had violated Texas motor vehicle laws. Specifically, the officers observed that Palmer's vehicle had a tinted front windshield in violation of Texas Transportation Code Section 547.613(b)(1). This offense alone provided enough reasonable suspicion of illegal activity for officers to lawfully initiate the traffic stop.^[1]

During the suppression hearing, Palmer's counsel presented two arguments that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop: (1) that the officers could not ascertain that the windows in Palmer's vehicle were tinted at the time of the traffic stop, assuming Palmer's windows were tinted at all; and (2) that tinted windows cannot provide reasonable suspicion for a traffic stop under Fifth Circuit law. The Court disagrees.

As an initial matter, the evidence presented during the suppression hearing- bodycam videos from both officers and photographs taken at the scene of the traffic stop-clearly demonstrated that Palmer's front windshield was tinted. The evidence further demonstrated that there was enough light for the officers to be able to see that Palmer's front windshield was tinted.^[2] Because the officers observed a violation of Texas Transportation Code Section 547.613(b)(1), they had reasonable suspicion of illegal activity to justify the traffic stop.

Palmer's counsel made much of a photograph of the vehicle, taken a month after the traffic stop, in which the front windshield appeared to be more translucent than it appeared during the traffic stop. But that photograph does not provide any basis for finding that Palmer's front windshield was not unlawfully tinted at the time of the traffic stop. The tint could have been removed in the interim. The photograph of the vehicle taken a month after the traffic stop does not alter the evidence of the windshield being tinted at the time of the traffic stop.

Palmer's counsel further argued at the suppression hearing that, even if the Court found that Palmer's windows were illegally tinted, such a finding nevertheless cannot provide reasonable suspicion of illegal activity to justify a traffic stop under Fifth Circuit law. But the case counsel cited by Palmer's counsel, United States v. Guerrero-Barajas, does not support that argument. 240 F.3d 428 (2001).

In Guerrero-Barajas, the Fifth Circuit upheld a finding of reasonable suspicion of illegal activity when Border Patrol...