United States v. Randy Bethea, Jr.

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: June 26, 2025
• Docket: 24-4551
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 24-4551 Doc: 26 Filed: 06/26/2025 Pg: 1 of 3

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-4551

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

RANDY EARL BETHEA, JR.,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. Loretta C. Biggs, Senior District Judge. (1:23-cr-00297-LCB-1)

Submitted: April 30, 2025 Decided: June 26, 2025

Before HARRIS, QUATTLEBAUM, and BENJAMIN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Louis C. Allen, Federal Public Defender, Eric D. Placke, First Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Randall S. Galyon, Acting United States Attorney, Julie C. Niemeier, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.

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PER CURIAM:

Randy Earl Bethea, Jr., appeals his conviction entered pursuant to a conditional

guilty plea to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(8). On appeal, he challenges the district court’s denial of his motion

to suppress the firearm seized during an investigative stop. For the following reasons, we

affirm.

When reviewing a district court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, we review factual

findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Pulley, 987 F.3d

370, 376 (4th Cir. 2021). We consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the

Government and “must also give due weight to inferences drawn from those facts by

resident judges and law enforcement officers.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S.

Const. amend. IV. Accordingly, warrantless searches and seizures “are per se

unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established

and well-delineated exceptions.” California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 580 (1991) (internal

quotation marks omitted). In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 (1968), the Supreme Court

recognized that the police may constitutionally “conduct a brief, investigatory stop when

[an] officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois

v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000).

When reviewing the constitutionality of an investigatory stop, we consider whether

the totality of the circumstances gave the officer a “particularized and objective basis for

suspecting legal wrongdoing.” United States v. Mayo, 361 F.3d 802, 805 (4th Cir. 2004)

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(cleaned up). Reasonable suspicion requires more than an “inchoate and unparticularized

suspicion or ‘hunch’”; however, reasonable suspicion may be based on inferences made on

the basis of police experience. Terry, 392 U.S. at 27. Indeed, “law enforcement officers

. . . may ‘draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from

and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that might well elude

an untrained person.’” United States v. Johnson, 599 F.3d 339, 343 (4th Cir.

2010) (quoting United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002)).

Based on these principles, we discern no error in the district court’s determination

that the officer who stopped Bethea had a reasonable basis for conducting such an

investigative stop. Considering the totality of the circumstances—including Bethea’s

obvious impairment, his paranoid behavior in the minutes leading up to the stop, the

position of the firearm in his hands, and the arresting officer’s knowledge of the area and

previous experience responding to calls there—the officer had reasonable, articulable

suspicion that Bethea was involved in illegal activity justifying the stop. Contrary to

Bethea’s arguments on appeal, we conclude that the court did not clearly err in its factual

findings or otherwise misapply the applicable law.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispense with oral

argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials

before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED