United States v. Luqman

522 F.3d 613, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 7417, 2008 WL 926484

Opinions

OPINION

SILER, Circuit Judge.

Two police officers stopped Defendant Abdus Salaam Luqman’s pickup truck when the officers suspected Luqman of soliciting prostitution. After questioning Luqman, the officers verified Luqman’s driver’s license, which was suspended. The officers then arrested Luqman for driving with a suspended license and conducted a routine, pre-tow inventory of Luqman’s truck, when the officers found a concealed handgun. Luqman was later indicted for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court denied Luqman’s motion to suppress the firearm. Luqman now appeals his subsequent conviction, arguing that the police officers did not have reasonable suspicion to stop his truck.

For the following reasons, we AFFIRM.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In August 2005, two Akron police officers, James Donohue and Angela Falcone, were patrolling the city’s North Hill area. The officers were seasoned members of the police force; Donohue and Falcon had patrolled Akron for nine and six years, respectively. Donohue had also spent two months working in the police department’s undercover vice unit, investigating prostitution as a “John,” or potential client, in the North Hill area. According to Donohue, North Hill was a known prostitution area.¹

At approximately 11:40 p.m. on August 19, 2005, Donohue noticed two African-American women standing on a street corner in North Hill; Falcone did not see the women, as she was looking at the computer screen in the patrol car. As the patrol car proceeded up the street, Donohue noticed that one of the women left the street corner to approach a pickup truck driven by Luqman. The truck was approximately twenty yards from the street corner when the woman approached. The truck was not parked, but rather in the travel lane with its engine running. Donohue believed that the women were prostitutes² and the driver of the truck was soliciting prostitution. As the truck was on the opposite side of the street from that of the patrol car, Donohue made a U-turn. As he did so, the woman ran³ from the truck back to the sidewalk. The truck then began to move, and Donohue pulled the patrol car behind the truck.

After the truck stopped, Donohue asked Luqman what he was doing in the neighborhood, to which Luqman responded that he was looking for a friend. Donohue asked Luqman if he was soliciting prostitution, and Luqman replied that he was not. Donohue then asked Luqman for his driver’s license. Donohue verified the license and identified the driver as Luqman. The license, however, was suspended, and upon learning this, the officers arrested Luqman for driving with a suspended license.

Following Akron police department regulations, Falcone conducted a pre-tow inventory of Luqman’s truck and found a handgun under the driver’s seat. The police officers then charged Luqman with carrying a concealed weapon.

After indictment in federal court, Luq-man filed a motion to suppress the arrest and search, arguing that the police officers did not have the requisite reasonable suspicion to stop him. The district court denied the motion. Luqman was found guilty, and the district court later sentenced him to a 180-month imprisonment term.

STANDARDS OF REVIEW

As a grant or denial of a motion to suppress is a mixed question of fact and law, we review the district court’s decision under two standards. United States v. Ellis, 497 F.3d 606, 611 (6th Cir.2007). “On appeal, we review the district court’s findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo.” Id. (citing United States v. Dillard, 438 F.3d 675, 680 (6th Cir.2006)).

DISCUSSION

The defense gives us no reason to question the district court’s interpretation of the facts in this case, nor can one find such a basis independently. As such, we adopt the facts as found by the district court and turn to the sole question of whether the officers were justified in stopping Luqman. See United States v. Martin, 289 F.3d 392, 396 (6th Cir.2002) (noting that this court accepts the factual findings of the district court unless those findings are clearly erroneous).

The Fourth Amendment forbids law enforcement officers from making unreasonable searches and seizures, “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) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)) (holding that a stop was constitutional after Border Patrol agents observed defendant’s crowded van, of the type used for smuggling illegal immigrants, in a remote area of Arizona, at the time of day illegal entries are usually attempted). The Fourth Amendment’s protections are satisfied if the law enforcement officers’ actions are “supported by reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity ‘may be afoot.’ ” Id. (citing United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989)).

There is not a bright-line rule to determine whether an officer had reasonable suspicion. Ellis, 497 F.3d at 612. Instead, we look to the totality of the circumstances surrounding the stop to determine whether the officer had a “particularized and objective basis” for suspecting criminal activity. Id. at 613 (quoting Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 266, 122 S.Ct. 744). In evaluating the totality of the circumstances, we will not look at each factor leading to the stop individually; rather, we examine the factors as a whole. Id. at 614 (“A totality of the circumstances analysis prohibits us from discounting certain factors merely because, separately, they could potentially have ‘an innocent explanation.’ ” (quoting Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 267, 122 S.Ct. 744)). We also give “due weight” to the officers’ factual inferences, as their specialized training and experiences allow them to draw “inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to [them] that ‘might well elude an untrained person.’ ” United States v. Marxen, 410 F.3d 326, 331-32 (6th Cir.2005) (quoting Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744).

We also utilize a two-part test to determine the legitimacy of an investigatory stop. First, we must determine if there was a proper basis to stop Luqman based on the police officers’ awareness of specific and articulable facts that give rise to reasonable suspicion. Martin, 289 F.3d at 397 (quoting United States v. Garza, 10 F.3d 1241, 1245 (6th Cir.1993)). Second, we evaluate “whether the degree of intrusion into the suspect’s personal security was reasonably related in scope to the situation at hand, which is judged by examining the reasonableness of the officials’ conduct given their suspicions and the surrounding circumstances.” Id.

Here, looking to the totality of the circumstances surrounding Donohue’s stop of Luqman, the officer had reasonable suspicion to stop Luqman for solicitation of prostitution. First, the officers were patrolling a known prostitution area, and while the criminal patterns in an area will not alone justify a stop, they are a factor that law enforcement can consider. See Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124, 120 S.Ct. 673, 145 L.Ed.2d 570 (2000) (“[OJfficers are not required to ignore the relevant characteristics of a location in determining whether the circumstances are sufficiently suspicious to warrant further investigation.”). Taking this location into consideration, and combined with his previous vice experience, Donohue suspected the two women were prostitutes when he saw them standing on the street corner in North Hill, and then saw one of the women approaching a truck. His suspicions were further piqued when the woman who had approached the truck ran back to the corner, and Luqman’s truck moved forward, as the police vehicle approached. Flight from a known area of criminal activity is another aspect that an officer may consider. See id. (“Headlong flight— wherever it occurs — is the consummate act of evasion: It is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, but it is certainly suggestive of such.”). While certainly Luqman can create any number of possible innocent explanations for these actions, we need not adopt those singular explanations. Rather, the question is whether, when looking at the facts in total, the officers had reason to believe that criminal activity was afoot. The answer here is yes.

Luqman contends that this case involves a weaker factual basis for the stop than previous cases involving stops for solicitation of prostitution that he cites, and in that respect he may be correct. But, as we have noted, “[T]he fact that the officers in the present case did not have the same degree of suspicion that illegal prostitution activity was occurring as the officers in [another case] had does not mean that they lacked reasonable suspicion.” Martin, 289 F.3d at 399.

Further, in a case nearly identical to this one, we held that the arresting officers did have the requisite reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant. In United States v. Green, 157 Fed.Appx. 853, 855 (6th Cir.2005) (unpublished decision), an officer was patrolling an area known for drug trafficking and prostitution and noticed a woman leaning close to the passenger side of a car that was stopped. Id. As the officer approached the vehicle, the woman “left abruptly” and the car began to move forward. Id. The car then quickly pulled off the road and onto the sidewalk. Id. From these facts, the officer concluded that the woman might have been soliciting prostitution. Id. The officer approached the vehicle and began his investigatory stop, the product of which led to an arrest and conviction for possession of crack cocaine. Id. In holding that the officer did have reasonable suspicion for conducting the stop, we held,

We conclude there was a reasonable basis for [the officer] to conclude that he had observed solicitation for prostitution, given what he saw and where and when he saw it. A solitary female might lawfully pause and lean toward the window of a stopped vehicle at 2:45 a.m. in an area known for drug trafficking and prostitution, and then decide to walk away as a squad car approached; but that possibility is so slight that a reasonable police officer encountering that situation can probably conclude that something illegal (most likely solicitation for prostitution) is afoot.

Id. at 856.

As such facts sufficiently gave rise to reasonable suspicion in Green, so too do they justify the stop here. Based on his years of experience patrolling North Hill and his familiarity with the methods prostitutes use for solicitation, combined with the approach to and flight from the truck that he witnessed, Donohue had the necessary reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop of Luqman.

Finally, the scope of this stop was reasonably related to the situation at hand. See Martin, 289 F.3d at 397. Donohue asked Luqman as few questions as possible: he asked first if Luqman was soliciting prostitution, and then he asked to see Luqman’s driver’s license to verify his identity, both of which are acceptable questions. See United States v. Byrd, 47 F.3d 1170, 1995 WL 72299 *3 (6th Cir.1995) (unpublished decision) (noting that an “officer may ask [a] detainee a moderate number of questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain information confirming or dispelling the officer’s suspicions” (quoting United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 607 (6th Cir.1994))). Further, the stop was not lengthy, nor was it particularly invasive.

Given both Donohue’s reasonable and articulable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot, and the limited scope of the stop, the district court correctly held that the officers did not violate Luqman’s Fourth Amendment rights.

AFFIRMED.

1 .The dissent says the Government conceded at argument that North Hill is not a “high prostitution area,” but Donohue said it was a “known prostitution area,” evidenced by six arrests in one year. This is language similar to the conclusion by our court in United States v. Green, 157 Fed.Appx. 853, 855 (6th Cir.2005): “Officer ... Sharp ... saw a woman leaning close to the passenger side of a car that had stopped in an area known for drug trafficking and prostitution.” Such information must have come from the investigating officers in that case, although the opinion does not say so.

2 . The dissent suggests that because the suspected prostitutes were not dressed provocatively, they did not present the outward appearance of a prostitute. However, Donohue testified that in his experience most of the prostitutes he observed in Akron did not dress provocatively, but, instead, are most likely to wear jeans and a sweatshirt or a T-shirt.

3 . The dissent distinguishes this case from Green, 157 Fed.Appx. at 855, where the suspected prostitute "left abruptly,” but Donohue testified that the suspected prostitute in this case “ran” away from the truck.