United States v. Christopher Atkins

513 F. App'x 577
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 5, 2013
Docket11-2589
StatusUnpublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 513 F. App'x 577 (United States v. Christopher Atkins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Christopher Atkins, 513 F. App'x 577 (6th Cir. 2013).

Opinion

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

Christopher Atkins appeals his conviction and sentence for two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and one count of being a felon in possession of body armor. He challenges the denial of his motion to suppress evidence based upon the alleged illegality of a traffic stop in August 2010. Atkins also claims that the district court impermissibly restricted his right to allocute during his sentencing by refusing to consider a handwritten memorandum tendered by him on the day of his sentencing. Both of these claims are without merit, and we affirm Atkins’s conviction and sentence.

I

At approximately 12:45 AM on August 12, 2010, Lansing police officers Jerry Blow and Monika Good responded to reports of a brawl outside of Cheetah’s Gentlemen’s Club, during which one of the combatants brandished a handgun. The report described the assailant as a thin, black male wearing a white shirt and black pants, who fled the scene heading north on Pennsylvania Avenue in a silver Chevy Blazer with two black females. As the officers neared South Cedar Street, the closest thoroughfare west of the club, they received a report that the Blazer was no longer on Pennsylvania. They decided to head north on South Cedar, and shortly thereafter observed a “tannish” Blazer heading south with two black females in the front and what appeared to be a third occupant in the back seat.

After receiving backup, the officers initiated a stop, called the occupants out of the *579 vehicle, performed a protective frisk, and placed each occupant in a separate police cruiser. Atkins, the lone male in the group, was wearing a white shirt and black pants. He had blood on his shirt, facial injuries consistent with having been in a fight, and admitted to having just left Cheetah’s. Officer Good, concerned by the reports of a weapon being involved, performed a search of the passenger compartment of the vehicle. She found a handgun located in the center console of the car, within reaching distance of the back seat. Officers placed Atkins under arrest after finding the weapon. Police subsequently transported Atkins to a local hospital for treatment of his injuries. He fled custody during his treatment.

Police caught up with Atkins five months later. After receiving information that he was hiding at an area residence, police set up surveillance around the neighborhood. On January 20, 2011, police observed Atkins jumping between the yards of the targeted property and an adjacent residence with a duffle bag in hand. Atkins attempted to flee the area. Police apprehended him and retrieved the duffle bag, which contained two handguns, an assault rifle, body armor, and what appeared to be explosives.

The government charged Atkins with two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and one count of being a felon in possession of body armor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 931(a)(1). Atkins moved to suppress the handgun found in the Blazer and to dismiss the charges, arguing that the police lacked reasonable suspicion to make the stop that set off the entire chain of events. After holding an evidentiary hearing, the district court denied Atkins’s motion to suppress, finding that the totality of the circumstances justified the stop.

Atkins went to trial and was convicted on all three counts. During his sentencing, Atkins attempted to file a handwritten sentencing memorandum and motion for downward departure and variance. Though the memorandum was made part of the record, the judge did not consider it, as it simply reargued Atkins’s claimed innocence. The district judge imposed consecutive 120-month sentences for each firearm count and a concurrent 36-month sentence for the body-armor count.

II

On appeal from a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress, we review the court’s findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. United States v. Smith, 594 F.3d 530, 535 (6th Cir.2010). “A factual finding will only be clearly erroneous when, although there may be evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). We consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party, which in this case is the government. Ibid.

Atkins does not challenge the validity of the search of the Blazer. Rather, he only protests the initial stop. We evaluate such claims under the familiar framework of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and its progeny. “The Fourth Amendment prohibits ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’ by the Government, and its protections extend to brief investigatory stops of persons or vehicles that fall short of traditional arrest.” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868). An investigatory stop complies with the Fourth Amendment when police are able to demonstrate that they had a “reason *580 able suspicion to believe that criminal activity may be afoot.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). Under this standard, the government must be “ ‘able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion’ as measured by an objective standard.” United States v. Vite-Espinoza, 342 F.3d 462, 466 (6th Cir.2003) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868). This standard demands less than probable cause but more than a “mere hunch.” Smoak v. Hall, 460 F.3d 768, 778 (6th Cir.2006). We determine the existence of reasonable suspicion by assessing the “totality of the circumstances” to see whether the detaining officer had a “particularized and objective basis” for suspecting wrongdoing. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 274, 122 S.Ct. 744.

Ill

We agree with the district court that Officers Blow and Good had reasonable suspicion to pull over the Blazer. The officers observed a vehicle matching the description of a vehicle seen fleeing the scene of a reported crime, traveling in the vicinity of the crime shortly after the crime. Far from being premised on a “mere hunch” as Atkins would have us believe, a scenario such as this one is, as the district court aptly put it, “what reasonable suspicion is all about.”

Atkins makes much of some disparity between the reported and observed color of the Blazer.

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513 F. App'x 577, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-christopher-atkins-ca6-2013.