United States v. Brown

Opinion

Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT September 8, 2025 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Clerk of Court

Plaintiff - Appellee, No. 25-6004 v. (D.C. No. 5:23-CR-00272-PRW-1) (W.D. Okla.) THOMAS LAMARE BROWN,

Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* _________________________________

Before HARTZ, BALDOCK, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. _________________________________

After pulling Thomas Lamare Brown over for a traffic violation,

law-enforcement officers searched his car and found several firearms. A federal jury

later found him guilty of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. In this appeal,

Mr. Brown argues that the district court should have suppressed the evidence found

in his car. We disagree, so we affirm.

* After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 2

I. The Traffic Stop & Subsequent Search1

Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Tanner Eads pulled Mr. Brown over on an

interstate highway just after midnight for using his fog lights when “no fog or similar

atmospheric condition” existed. R. vol. 1 at 89. Trooper Eads told Mr. Brown why

he had stopped him, and Mr. Brown “expressed some confusion about the location of

his fog lights.” Id. Trooper Eads asked Mr. Brown to get out of his car so that he

could show him where the fog lights were located. During this exchange, Trooper

Eads noticed a large knife in the cupholder of Mr. Brown’s car.

With Mr. Brown out of the car, Trooper Eads pointed out the fog lights and

then asked Mr. Brown to accompany him to the patrol car so that he “could write him

a warning.” Id. at 90. Mr. Brown agreed. Once they reached the patrol car, Trooper

Eads asked Mr. Brown if he could pat him down for weapons. Mr. Brown said the

request made him uncomfortable. Trooper Eads offered a compromise, asking

Mr. Brown to lift up his shirt. When Mr. Brown complied, Trooper Eads saw what

he thought was the clip of a pistol holster on his waistband. Trooper Eads told

Mr. Brown to get on the ground and asked him what was attached to his waistband.

Mr. Brown disobeyed the commands to get on the ground and claimed the clip held

his eyeglasses.

Mr. Brown began walking toward the back of the patrol car and then took off

running across the highway. Trooper Eads did not give chase. But Mr. Brown soon

1 We take these facts (aside from the image on the following page) from the district court’s suppression order. Neither party challenges these factual findings. 2 Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 3

reappeared, running back across the highway toward his car. He ignored commands

to stop and got into his car before ultimately surrendering.

Mr. Brown’s car sat “mere inches from the right-hand lane of the interstate

highway.” Id. at 91. It was so close to the fog line that when Mr. Brown got out of

the car, “he stepped out into the traffic lane.” Id. This image shows the car’s

proximity to the fog line:

R. vol. 5.2 Trooper Eads decided to impound the car. While waiting for a tow truck

to arrive, law-enforcement officers searched the car, finding two pistols, two rifles,

and ammunition.

II. District Court Proceedings

Mr. Brown moved to suppress the evidence found in his car. Although he

conceded that there was a valid reason to pull him over, he argued that Trooper Eads

violated his Fourth Amendment rights by asking him to exit his car and then

accompany him to the patrol car, by impounding his car, and by searching it. The

2 This image was taken from the video of the stop captured by Trooper Eads’s dashboard camera. 3 Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 4

district court denied the motion. A jury found Mr. Brown guilty of possessing a

firearm as a convicted felon, and he received a sentence of 188 months in prison

under the Armed Career Criminal Act.

III. Discussion

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals “against unreasonable searches

and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV.

“When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we view the evidence in

the light most favorable to the government, accept the district court’s findings of fact

unless they are clearly erroneous, and review de novo the ultimate question of

reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Baker, 108 F.4th

1241, 1246 (10th Cir. 2024) (internal quotation marks omitted).

A. Duration of the Traffic Stop

A traffic stop is a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Id. To be reasonable,

a “traffic stop must be justified at its inception and, in general, the officer’s actions

during the stop must be reasonably related in scope to the mission of the stop itself.”

United States v. Cone, 868 F.3d 1150, 1152 (10th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation

marks omitted). Authority to seize a driver “ends when tasks tied to the traffic

infraction are—or reasonably should have been—completed.” Rodriguez v. United

States, 575 U.S. 348, 354 (2015). And so a traffic stop becomes unreasonable if an

officer (1) departs from the traffic stop’s mission to investigate a crime, (2) in a way

that prolongs the stop, (3) without independent reasonable suspicion supporting the

investigative detour. See Baker, 108 F.4th at 1248.

4 Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 5

Mr. Brown contends that Trooper Eads unlawfully prolonged the traffic stop

twice—first by asking him to exit his car and then again by asking him to go to the

patrol car.

Trooper Eads did not depart from the traffic stop’s mission by asking

Mr. Brown to get out of his car to view his fog lights. The reason for the stop was

Mr. Brown’s improper use of the lights. And after Mr. Brown expressed confusion

about the fog lights, it was reasonable for Trooper Eads to show him where they were

located. Perhaps Mr. Brown is right that the action was not “necessary,” Aplt. Br. at

23, and that it exposed him to dangerous passing traffic. Or perhaps, as Mr. Brown

suggests, it would have been more effective to show him how to turn the fog lights on

and off inside the car. But those issues are beside the point. After all, “the Fourth

Amendment does not require officers to use the least intrusive or most efficient

means conceivable to effectuate a traffic stop.” United States v. Mayville, 955 F.3d

825, 832 (10th Cir. 2020). And we must assess the seizure’s reasonableness based on

what Trooper Eads actually did, “not what another hypothetical officer could or

should have done.” Baker, 108 F.4th at 1250.

Nor did Trooper Eads unreasonably prolong the stop by asking Mr. Brown to

accompany him to the patrol car. The district court found that the request “did

nothing to extend the duration of the stop.” R. vol. 1 at 94. That was a factual

finding. See United States v. Malone, 10 F.4th 1120, 1124 (10th Cir. 2021). And

5 Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 6

Mr. Brown cites no evidence suggesting the finding was clearly erroneous.3 He notes

that Trooper Eads already had his driver’s license and expressed an intent to write

him a warning. But why would having Mr. Brown go with him to the patrol car add

any time to Trooper Eads’s task of writing a warning? Mr. Brown doesn’t say.

B. Impounding the Car

A vehicle impoundment is a seizure and so typically requires a warrant.

United States v. Ulibarri, --- F.4th ----, 2025 WL 2371551 at *3 (10th Cir. 2025).

But an exception to the warrant requirement exists for seizures carried out under

police officers’ community-caretaking functions. United States v. Venezia, 995 F.3d

1170, 1175 (10th Cir. 2021). Those community-caretaking functions include

impoundments. Ulibarri, 2025 WL 2371551 at * 3. “The authority of police to seize

and remove from the streets vehicles impeding traffic or threatening public safety and

convenience is beyond challenge.” South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 369

(1976). Still, the government bears the burden to show that any

community-caretaking impoundment has a reasonable (and not pretextual)

justification. Ulibarri, 2025 WL 2371551 at *3.

3 Even if this finding were clearly erroneous, we still would not reverse because the request for Mr. Brown to go with Trooper Eads to the patrol car did not divert from the traffic stop’s mission. An officer’s mission during a traffic stop includes both addressing the reason for the stop and also attending “to related safety concerns.” Rodriguez, 575 U.S. at 354. Mindful of the dangers facing officers during traffic stops, we have recognized that they “can routinely remove occupants from the vehicle to ensure officer safety.” Baker, 108 F.4th at 1247. That principle controls here. The Fourth Amendment permitted Trooper Eads to ask Mr. Brown to accompany him to the patrol car so that he could complete the traffic stop safely. 6 Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 7

Opperman resolves this issue. Parked “just inches from the shoulder line of a

heavily trafficked interstate highway late at night,” R. vol. 1 at 95, Mr. Brown’s car

impeded traffic and threatened public safety and convenience. Resisting this

conclusion, Mr. Brown contends that his car would not have impeded traffic because,

although it was close to the fog line, it was not actually in a traffic lane. This

argument fails to appreciate “the breadth of what is encompassed by ‘efficient

movement of vehicular traffic,’ ‘impeding traffic,’ and ‘public safety and

convenience.’” United States v. Trujillo, 993 F.3d 859, 865 (10th Cir. 2021) (quoting

Opperman, 428 U.S. at 369). As the district court recognized, if Mr. Brown’s car had

remained on the shoulder, it “may have caused motorists in the right-hand lane to

have to reduce speed or change lanes, and worse yet, it may have caused a collision.”

R. vol. 1 at 95.

Yet Mr. Brown asserts that any traffic and safety concerns were just a pretext

for the impoundment, Trooper Eads’s real motive being a desire to look for evidence

of a crime. This assertion “lacks a factual foundation.” Trujillo, 993 F.3d at 870.

The district court never found that Trooper Eads decided to impound the car even in

part to investigate its contents, let alone that he acted for the sole purpose of

investigation (as would be required to show a Fourth Amendment violation), see id.

at 871; Ulibarri, 2025 WL 2371551 at *4 (recognizing that “mixed-motive

impoundments do not run afoul of the Constitution”).

Mr. Brown’s remaining impoundment arguments target an inapplicable

standard. Our circuit employs five nonexclusive factors to evaluate the propriety of

7 Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 8

community-caretaking impoundments of vehicles that neither impede traffic nor compromise

public safety. See United States v. Sanders, 796 F.3d 1241, 1248, 1250 (10th Cir. 2015).

Mr. Brown focuses on these factors. But they do not apply in cases like this one where the

impounded vehicle impeded traffic or threatened public safety. See Ulibarri, 2025 WL

2371551 at *5 n.4. And so we need not consider Mr. Brown’s arguments addressing the

Sanders factors (including his argument that an alternative to impoundment existed).4 See id.

C. Searching the Car

In district court, the government argued that, once law-enforcement officers

decided to impound Mr. Brown’s car, they had authority to search it for two independent

reasons. First, the government said, the officers could conduct an inventory search “to

protect an owner’s property while it is in the custody of the police, to insure against claims

of lost, stolen, or vandalized property, and to guard the police from danger.” United States

v. Kendall, 14 F.4th 1116, 1124 (10th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Second, the government argued, the officers had authority to search the car as part of their

community-caretaking function “to protect the public from vandals who might find a

firearm or contraband drugs in an impounded vehicle.” Id. at 1125 (ellipses and internal

quotation marks omitted).

The district court concluded that the officers conducted a valid

community-caretaking search because they had a reasonable belief that there was a gun in

4 Even if we considered Mr. Brown’s argument that his brother could have retrieved the car, the outcome would not change. See Trujillo, 993 F.3d at 870 (holding that sheriff’s deputies were not required to allow a driver to call someone in the middle of the night to pick up a car impeding traffic before impounding it). 8 Appellate Case: 25-6004 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 09/08/2025 Page: 9

the car. And it declined to determine whether the inventory-search exception to the

warrant requirement also justified the search.

On appeal, Mr. Brown addresses only the inventory-search exception, disregarding

the district court’s conclusion that the search of his car “was permissible as a

community-caretaking search.” R. vol. 1 at 97. Because Mr. Brown makes no argument

against the district court’s rationale, he has waived any challenge to its ruling that the

search satisfied the Fourth Amendment. See Nixon v. City & Cnty. of Denver, 784 F.3d

1364, 1366 (10th Cir. 2015); Adler v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 144 F.3d 664, 679

(10th Cir. 1998).

IV. Disposition

The district court’s judgment is affirmed.

Entered for the Court

Gregory A. Phillips Circuit Judge