[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FILED
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
________________________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
AUGUST 23, 2010
No. 09-15709 JOHN LEY
Non-Argument Calendar CLERK
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 08-00031-CR-WLS-7
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
TERRY LAMAR SANDERS,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Georgia
_________________________
(August 23, 2010)
Before CARNES, MARCUS and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Terry Lamar Sanders appeals his conviction on one count of possession of a
firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2),
imposed following the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence
seized from his person. Sanders contends that the district court erred in denying
his motion to suppress. He argues that the circumstances surrounding his stop
show that the police did not have reasonable suspicion to detain him even for an
investigatory stop because the anonymous 911 call prompting the investigation
was uncorroborated. Further, Sanders contends that his detention was actually an
arrest, and therefore was illegal because probable cause was lacking.
“Review of a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence is a
mixed question of law and fact.” United States v. Holloway, 290 F.3d 1331, 1334
(11th Cir. 2002). We review the district court’s factual findings for clear error, and
its application of the law de novo. Id. In reviewing the district court’s ruling, we
construe the facts in the light most favorable to government. Id.
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. The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit a
police officer, “in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner [from]
approach[ing] a person for purposes of investigating possibly criminal behavior
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even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S.
1, 22, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1880 (1968). “[A]n officer conducting a stop must have a
reasonable, articulable suspicion based on objective facts that the person has
engaged in, or is about to engage in, criminal activity.” United States v. Lindsey,
482 F.3d 1285, 1290 (11th Cir. 2007) (quotation omitted). This “reasonable,
articulable suspicion” must be more than a hunch. Id. (quotation omitted). We
examine “the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the police had a
particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing.” Id. (quotations
omitted). The police may “draw on their own experience and specialized training
to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information
available to them.” Id. at 1290-91 (quotation omitted).
“To have reasonable suspicion based on an anonymous tip, the tip must ‘be
reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a
determinate person.’” Id. at 1291 (quoting Florida v. J.L. 529 U.S. 266, 272, 120
S. Ct. 1375, 1379 (2000)). “The issue is whether the tip, as corroborated by
independent police work, exhibited sufficient indicia of reliability to provide
reasonable suspicion to make the investigatory stop.” Id. (quotation omitted). See
Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1339 (recognizing that an anonymous 911 call conveying an
emergency, together with the personal observations of police officers, can validate
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a warrantless search).
After a stop is made, an officer may frisk or pat-down an individual to
conduct a limited search for weapons when the officer has reason to believe that
the individual is armed and dangerous. Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S. Ct. at 1883.
We have recognized “that a Terry search may continue when an officer feels a
concealed object that he reasonably believes may be a weapon.” United States v.
Clay, 483 F.3d 739, 743 (11th Cir. 2007).
In distinction from a Terry stop, a “full-scale [arrest]” implicates a higher
level of Fourth Amendment scrutiny and requires a showing of probable cause.
United States v. Perez, 443 F.3d 772, 777 (11th Cir. 2006). “There is no clear line
separating arrests from Terry stops; the character of the seizure depends on the
nature and degree of intrusion under the totality of the circumstances.” United
States v. Diaz-Lizaraza, 981 F.2d 1216, 1221 (11th Cir. 1993). To more
objectively draw the line between a Terry stop and an arrest, we apply the
following four non-exclusive factors: “the law enforcement purposes served by the
detention, the diligence with which the police pursue the investigation, the scope
and intrusiveness of the detention, and the duration of the detention.” United
States v. Acosta, 363 F.3d 1141, 1146 (11th Cir. 2004) (quotations omitted).
After a review of the record and consideration of the parties’ briefs, we
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conclude that the officers’ corroboration of the anonymous 911 call created
reasonable articulable suspicion to detain Sanders for an investigatory stop. The
call conveyed that there was a possible emergency situation and information
gleaned from the call, such as the clothes worn by the suspect, was independently
corroborated by the police officer who stopped Sanders. Moreover, having legally
stopped Sanders, the officers were justified in conducting a pat-down search to
secure their safety. Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S. Ct. at 1883. Once the officers saw
and felt bulges in Sanders’s pockets, they were justified in searching the inside of
the pockets for weapons. Clay, 483 F.3d at 743. Finally, the record shows that the
stop did not become an arrest because there is no indication that the intrusiveness
or duration of the stop exceeded the need to assure the officer’s safety. Acosta,
363 F.3d at 1146. The motion to suppress was properly denied, and we affirm
Sanders’s conviction.
AFFIRMED.1
1
Appellant’s request for oral argument is DENIED.
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