UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-4229
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
ROBERT SIMMONS,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. Catherine C. Blake, District Judge.
(1:07-cr-00334-CCB-1)
Submitted: November 3, 2009 Decided: November 12, 2009
Before KING and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Gary A. Ticknor, Elkridge, Maryland, for Appellant. Rod J.
Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Melanie L. Glickson,
Assistant United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Robert Simmons pleaded guilty to one count of
possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 922(g) (2006), and was sentenced to 180 months in
prison. Simmons reserved his right to appeal the district
court’s denial of his motion to suppress, and on appeal he
challenges that denial on several grounds. For the reasons that
follow, we affirm.
When reviewing a district court’s denial of a motion
to suppress, this court reviews factual findings for clear error
and legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Blake,
571 F.3d 331, 338 (4th Cir. 2009). Under a clear error
standard, this court will reverse the district court only when
it is “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake
has been committed.” United States v. Stevenson, 396 F.3d 538,
542 (4th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted).
However, “if the district court's account of the evidence is
plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety,” this
court will not reverse the district court's finding despite
concluding that it would have “decided the fact differently.”
Id. (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). In other
words, when two views of the evidence are permissible, “the
district court’s choice between them cannot be clearly
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erroneous.” Id. (internal quotation marks and alteration
omitted).
Moreover, this court defers to the credibility
determinations of the district court, “for it is the role of the
district court to observe witnesses and weigh their credibility
during a pre-trial motion to suppress.” United States v. Abu
Ali, 528 F.3d 210, 232 (4th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks
omitted), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 1312 (2009). Finally, when a
motion to suppress has been denied by the district court, this
court construes the evidence in the light most favorable to the
government. United States v. Farrior, 535 F.3d 210, 217 (4th
Cir. 2008).
Our review of the record demonstrates that the
district court did not err in denying Simmons’s motion to
suppress. Simmons was a passenger in a vehicle that law
enforcement officers stopped upon probable cause to believe that
the vehicle had violated Maryland Code Ann., Transp.
§ 21-1004(b)(2) (LexisNexis 2009), which requires a driver whose
vehicle is stopped or parked on a one-way street to do so with
“[i]ts left hand wheels within 12 inches of the left hand curb
or edge of the roadway.” The district court found that the
testimony of the officers, as well as the exhibits introduced at
the suppression hearing, consistently placed the vehicle at a
location that was more than twelve inches from the curb. As a
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result, the district court correctly determined that the
officers had probable cause to believe that the Maryland Code
had been violated. Thus, the stop of the vehicle, initiated to
issue the driver a citation for the violation, was lawful. See
Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810 (1996) (holding that,
“[a]s a general matter, the decision to stop an automobile is
reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that
a traffic violation has occurred”). Moreover, Simmons was
lawfully ordered to exit the vehicle during the pendency of the
stop pursuant to Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 415 (1997).
Finally, the gun that Simmons sought to suppress was found in
plain view on the driver’s lap, and therefore was properly
seized by the law enforcement officers. See United States v.
Jackson, 131 F.3d 1105, 1109 (4th Cir. 1997).
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s order. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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