United States v. Brown , 555 F. App'x 838 ( 2014 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
February 21, 2014
TENTH CIRCUIT
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 13-1110
(D.C. No. 1:12-CR-00133-REB-1)
REGINALD T. BROWN, (D. Colo.)
Defendant - Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before KELLY, GORSUCH, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.
Not far from Vail an officer stopped Reginald Brown’s car. It had a broken
tail light and the officer wanted to write a ticket. But as he approached, the
officer was greeted with the “overwhelming” smell of burnt marijuana wafting
from the driver’s open window. A brief detention and search followed, and the
search quickly turned up two guns, one with the serial number scratched off. As a
felon barred from possessing weapons like these, Mr. Brown eventually found
himself facing federal firearms charges. Before trial he sought to suppress any
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the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.
evidence about the weapons, claiming his detention and search violated the Fourth
Amendment. But the district court was unpersuaded and when it denied his
motion to suppress Mr. Brown entered a conditional guilty plea. In that plea he
reserved the right to appeal the suppression question, as indeed he now does.
Before us, Mr. Brown argues that he was detained too long before the
search that guaranteed his arrest took place, that the officer should have let him
go immediately after writing a ticket for the broken tail light, that any further
delay violated his rights. The facts suggest that, in all, only about 22 minutes
elapsed between the stop and the discovery of the guns. But even accepting that
some portion of this period wasn’t strictly necessary for processing the tail light
violation, Mr. Brown still faces a problem. It’s long since settled that a traffic
stop may be lawfully extended beyond its original purpose consistent with the
Fourth Amendment “if during the initial stop the detaining officer acquires
reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, that is to say . . . a particularized and
objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.”
United States v. Clarkson, 551 F.3d 1196, 1201 (10th Cir. 2009) (quotations
omitted). And from the moment of his initial encounter with Mr. Brown, when he
was “overwhelm[ed]” with the smell of burnt marijuana, the officer had just that:
reasonable suspicion to extend the stop briefly in order to investigate the
possibility Mr. Brown was driving under the influence. See United States v.
Nichols, 374 F.3d 959, 964 (10th Cir. 2004) (“The scope of this stop was . . .
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permissibly expanded when police smelled . . . marijuana in the vehicle.”),
vacated on other grounds, 543 U.S. 1113 (2005), reinstated, 410 F.3d 1186 (10th
Cir. 2005); United States v. Wilson, 96 F. App’x 640, 644 (10th Cir. 2004)
(detection of alcohol on driver’s breath gives rise to reasonable suspicion).
Mr. Brown protests that he has a “medical marijuana” card. But that is no
defense in Colorado or elsewhere to a charge of impaired driving. See Colo. Rev.
Stat. Ann. §§ 42-4-1301(1); 25-1.5-106(12)(b)(VI). If Mr. Brown had stunk of
alcohol rather than marijuana surely an officer wouldn’t have been forced to let
him go on his way just because he said he uses his whiskey for medicinal
purposes. The Fourth Amendment’s touchstone is reasonableness and it is
reasonable to allow officers at least a short period of time to investigate the
possibility of impaired driving, whatever the intoxicant, when the circumstances
fairly suggest the possibility.
To this, Mr. Brown replies that the officer didn’t believe he was intoxicated
or prolong the detention with that possibility in mind. That much may be true,
but the Fourth Amendment measures an officer’s conduct against what is
objectively reasonable, not by his subjective beliefs. See, e.g., Ashcroft v. al-
Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2082 (2011); Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 404-05
(2006); United States v. Winder, 557 F.3d 1129, 1134-35 (10th Cir. 2009). And
as we’ve seen, an objectively reasonable officer could have detained Mr. Brown
for a short period just as the officer here did. Put simply, the Fourth Amendment
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entitles Mr. Brown to objectively reasonable officer conduct and in this case some
modest additional detention was objectively reasonable — whatever this
particular officer’s reasons for it. See, e.g., United States v. Ozbirn, 189 F.3d
1194, 1199-1200 (10th Cir. 1999); United States v. Santos, 403 F.3d 1120, 1125-
34 (10th Cir. 2005); United States v. Douglas, 195 F. App’x 780, 784-86 (10th
Cir. 2006).
Even if the duration of his detention was itself lawful, Mr. Brown suggests
the search of his car wasn’t. But the officer only searched the car after Mr.
Brown volunteered that marijuana could be found inside and that “[I] get[] [my]
trees wherever [I] can.” Together with the smell of burnt marijuana, these
comments (none of which Mr. Brown seeks to suppress) suggested pretty strongly
that the car contained drugs. Mr. Brown’s comments about the provenance of his
drugs also suggested pretty strongly that they didn’t come from a state sanctioned
medical marijuana source, and at the time of the events at issue only licensed
medical (not recreational) marijuana was allowed under Colorado law. See, e.g.,
Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 25-1.5-106(7)(c), (8)(f), (13). So it is that by the time the
officer began his search he had probable cause to think the car contained
contraband under the terms of then-prevailing Colorado (not to mention federal)
law — and, with that, reason enough to search the vehicle consistent with the
Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Nielsen, 9 F.3d 1487, 1491 (10th Cir.
1993) (“The smell of burnt marijuana” alone “would lead a person of ordinary
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caution to believe the passenger compartment might contain marijuana.”); United
States v. Ashby, 864 F.2d 690, 692 (10th Cir. 1988); United States v. Loucks, 806
F.2d 208, 209-11 (10th Cir. 1986).
Affirmed.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Neil M. Gorsuch
Circuit Judge
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