United States v. Smith ( 2022 )

Appellate Case: 21-5057 Document: 010110704531 Date Filed: 07/01/2022 Page: 1
FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT July 1, 2022
_________________________________
Christopher M. Wolpert
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 21-5057
(D.C. No. 4:20-CR-00298-GKF-1)
CHRISTOPHER SCOTT SMITH, (N.D. Okla.)
Defendant - Appellant.
_________________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
_________________________________
Before MATHESON, BACHARACH, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Oklahoma indicted Christopher
Smith on a single count of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.
See 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C). Smith entered a conditional plea of
guilty, reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. Exercising
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, 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 This order and judgment is not binding precedent,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: 21-5057 Document: 010110704531 Date Filed: 07/01/2022 Page: 2
BACKGROUND1
Smith was riding his bicycle near 58th Street and Peoria Avenue in Tulsa,
Oklahoma when Officer Kenneth Stewart of the Tulsa Police Department stopped
him. Smith was travelling northbound on Peoria on the right side of the street.
Because there were obstructions in his path, he moved from the right-hand side of the
street to the left-hand side of the street, crossing four traffic lanes. He did not signal
before this maneuver.
After stopping Smith, Officer Stewart ran a records check showing an active
arrest warrant from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Officer Stewart asked Smith if he
had anything illegal on him. Smith responded: “Yes, I have a pipe in my pocket.”
R. vol. 2 at 13 (internal quotation marks omitted). After asking Smith to step off the
bicycle, Officer Stewart removed a pipe with a white crystalline substance inside it.
He then removed some backpacks Smith was carrying and gave them to Sergeant
Joshua Goldstein, who had arrived on the scene. Officer Goldstein searched the
backpacks and found a container with 26.77 grams of a substance that tested
presumptive positive for methamphetamine, a set of digital scales, and several empty
plastic baggies. The officers arrested Smith, leading to his federal indictment.
Smith filed a motion “to suppress all evidence seized, whether tangible or
intangible, which were the fruits of the seizure and search.” R. vol. 1 at 26. In his
1
This factual summary comes from the findings of the district court, none of
which Smith challenges as clearly erroneous. See United States v. Loera, 923 F.3d
907, 914 (10th Cir. 2019).
2
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motion, Smith challenged the legality of the initial stop and the subsequent search of
his backpacks. The government filed a response, and the court held a hearing at
which Smith, Officer Stewart, and Sergeant Goldstein testified. The court also
considered Officer Stewart’s bodycam video, the outstanding bench warrant, the
Tulsa Police Department’s written “personal searches” policy, and the arrest report.
The court denied Smith’s motion, concluding that Officer Stewart had reasonable
suspicion for the stop and that the search of the backpacks was valid as incident to
Smith’s arrest.
Alternatively, the court concluded the inevitable discovery doctrine precluded
suppression—even if the roadside search was illegal, the police would have found the
items when conducting an inventory of Smith’s property after they arrested him. See
United States v. Cunningham, 413 F.3d 1199, 1203 (10th Cir. 2005) (“The inevitable
discovery doctrine provides an exception to the exclusionary rule[] and permits
evidence to be admitted if an independent, lawful police investigation inevitably
would have discovered it.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)). This
appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
When reviewing a “denial of a motion to suppress, we view the evidence in the
light most favorable to the government and accept the district court’s factual findings
unless they are clearly erroneous, but the ultimate question of reasonableness under
the Fourth Amendment is a legal conclusion that we review de novo.” United States
v. Loera, 923 F.3d 907, 914 (10th Cir. 2019) (brackets, citation, and internal
3
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quotation marks omitted). The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “A traffic stop is a seizure within
the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, even though the purpose of the stop is limited
and the resulting detention quite brief.” United States v. Botero-Ospina, 71 F.3d 783,
786 (10th Cir. 1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). Because “[a]n ordinary
traffic stop is . . . more analogous to an investigative detention than a custodial
arrest,” however, “[w]e . . . analyze such stops under the principles pertaining to
investigative detentions set forth in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).” Id. (parallel
citations omitted). “To determine the reasonableness of an investigative detention,
we make a dual inquiry, asking first whether the officer’s action was justified at its
inception, and second whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances
which justified the interference in the first place.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted).
We agree with the district court that the stop was justified at its inception
because Officer Stewart observed Smith change lanes without signaling his intent to
do so. This action constitutes a potential violation of Okla. Stat. tit. 47, § 11-604(A)
and chapter 10, § 640(B) of the Tulsa Revised Traffic Code. Both the Oklahoma
Highway Safety Code and the Tulsa Traffic Code apply to bicyclists on public
roadways. See Okla. Stat. tit. 47, § 11-1202; Tulsa Revised Traffic Code ch. 10,
§ 1000. Smith argues that Officer Stewart made no mention of the failure to signal in
his police report, did not mention the failure to signal during the stop, and did not
4
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issue a citation for failure to signal.2 But “[w]hether reasonable suspicion exists is an
objective inquiry determined by the totality of the circumstances, and an officer’s
subjective motivation for the stop plays no role in ordinary reasonable suspicion
Fourth Amendment analysis.” United States v. Salas, 756 F.3d 1196, 1201 (10th Cir.
2014) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).
Smith also argues the records check was inconsistent with the purpose for the
stop, but “[t]his court has routinely permitted officers to conduct criminal-history
checks during traffic stops in the interest of officer safety.” United States v.
Mayville, 955 F.3d 825, 830 (10th Cir. 2020). Relatedly, Smith asserts Officer
Stewart unreasonably prolonged the stop by asking Smith if he was carrying anything
illegal. In support of this argument, he cites United States v. Digiovanni, 650 F.3d
498, 509–13 (4th Cir. 2011), in which the Fourth Circuit held an officer
impermissibly extended the scope of a traffic stop by engaging in a lengthy
investigation of potential drug trafficking unsupported by reasonable suspicion.
Unlike in Digiovanni, however, by the time Officer Stewart asked Smith
whether he was carrying anything illegal on him, he had already discovered the
outstanding arrest warrant. The record thus belies Smith’s assertion that, at that
point, the mission of the traffic stop was still limited to issuing a citation for failure
2
Although Officer Stewart’s arrest report refers to the penalty section of the
Oklahoma Highway Safety Code for bicycle violations, see R. vol. 1 at 22, and
explains that Officer Stewart observed Smith “ride a bicycle across four lanes of
traffic” and that he then “conducted a pedestrian stop on the subject for the bicycle
violations,” id. at 23, the report does not specify what traffic laws Smith allegedly
violated on his bicycle.
5
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to signal. And Smith offers no basis to conclude that this single question—which
elicited an affirmative answer and the discovery of drug paraphernalia—meaningfully
extended the scope or duration of the stop.
Finally, Smith challenges the district court’s application of the search-
incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant requirement to the search of his
backpacks. But we need not consider this challenge because the district court also
denied the suppression motion on the basis of inevitable discovery. “If the district
court states multiple alternative grounds for its ruling and the appellant does not
challenge all those grounds in the opening brief, then we may affirm the ruling.”
Rivero v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of N.M., 950 F.3d 754, 763 (10th Cir. 2020). Smith
does not challenge the inevitable-discovery ground for the district court’s ruling, so
we affirm the denial of the motion to suppress on this ground.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the denial of the motion to suppress.
Entered for the Court
Nancy L. Moritz
Circuit Judge
6